The night bus from Hoi An to Nha Trang was much more comfortable than the one from Haiphong to Hue, with beds big enough to fit in and air conditioning that the driver actually used. Also, unlike the Haiphong to Hue bus, we arrived on time rather than 7 hours later than expected.

Thus we found ourselves on a main street in Nha Trang early in the morning, and on the search for a hotel. We walked a short distance in a direction we knew would take us to the seaside, between tall hotels, restaurants and shops, and soon found ourselves on a boulevard stretching in either direction, opposite a rough sandy beach.

All along the street were tall hotels facing the water, and despite its 'developed' look the town didn't seem too bad, particularly in the early morning sunshine although it was busy for such an early hour. We set off to our right with the sea on our left, soon reaching an alleyway which we knew, thanks to our guidebook, contained a number of cheap 'mini-hotels'. We wandered up the alleyway and checked out a few rooms in some different hotels, playing the owners off against each other to get a good price, and eventually settling for an air conditioned room with TV and a sea-view balcony for $10.

We got up to our room and realised we were pretty tired after our night bus, despite having napped on and off during the journey. Therefore, we crashed out for a few hours in our cool room to catch up on sleep.

When we woke, we discovered it was a gorgeous sunny day, so we decided to go out for some food and then head to the beach to make the most of our surroundings. We wandered through the highly commercialised streets of the town around the hotel, and eventually found a restaurant which looked decent and had some cheap and tasty breakfast options.

After breakfast, we walked down to the beach and, avoiding the forests of sun loungers and parasols which were attached to bars and we knew we'd have to pay for, set up with our beach towels in the shade of tall palm trees growing in the green strip behind the beach.

We had been sitting for no more than 20 seconds before the first woman came up to us with a massive cardboard panel covered in sunglasses and tried to sell us her wares, despite us both lying wearing our sunglasses. Once we had dispatched her, we had roughly 4 seconds of peace before a woman approached calling out 'buy beer buy water!'. We explained to her politely that we already had cold water and had no desire to purchase any of her wares, and sent her on her way. Settling back down, we looked forward to some relaxing time but alas, no sooner had our heads reclined on our folded arms, we were approached by yet another pathetic-looking woman with her board of sunglasses. This time we pre-empted her whining salespitch and told her firmly 'no, thank you'. As she walked off we turned round and found another of the parasites approaching with a cool box. Before she had even gotten within 10 feet we shouted at her 'No!' and lay back down on the sand.

Unfortunately, this pattern continued for around 5 minutes with us getting more and more rude with the incessant, whingeing saleswomen until we got so annoyed that we got up, stuffed our towels in the bag and retreated, thoroughly frustrated, in the direction of our hotel in the hopes of sanctuary.

As we made our way along the path behind the beach, we spotted a couple of familiar faces in some sun loungers around a pool outside a bar. To our surprise it was Matt and his son Lochlan, half of the Australian family we had been bumping into since Hue.

We chatted to them for a while then, agreeing to possibly meet up the next day, then continued back to our hotel where we took refuge on our balcony with a view of the sea and read for a while.

In the early evening, we headed out once again to eat. This time we didn't get far as the restaurant next door to our alleyway, Veranda, had an appetising-sounding selection of fixed menus and a smart, air conditioned indoor seating area. We had a tasty meal then retreated once again to our room to watch movies.

During the day we had been considering going on a boat trip the next day out to some of the nearby islands, but we decided against this, having had enough of guided tours in Vietnam. Instead, we decided we'd go to the island theme park off the coast of Nha Trang, Vinpearl Land, and get fully into the 'resort' atmosphere of our surroundings. We emailed Matt with our intention and discovered they had had the same idea. They suggested we all go together and, knowing that the theme park would be a lot more fun with young kids to use as an excuse for acting like kids ourselves, we agreed, and decided to meet for breakfast the next morning.

After a good sleep, we got up and walked to the nearby Veranda restaurant where we found Matt, his wife Carolyn and their boys Huon and Lochlan. We had some breakfast then hailed a large taxi, instructing the driver to take us to the cable car which would convey us to Vinpearl Land.

We were dropped off shortly at the cable car station, which was very quiet. We bought our tickets (which included a return cable car journey and unlimited use of all the rides, arcade games and watr park facilities on the island for around £11) and made our way upstairs to board the cable car. We got in the first car, and Matt and family followed in the next.

After being wheeched out of the boarding station, we quickly climbed up to the level of the first pylon, and were treated to the excellent view from our little plexiglass bubble, of the coast around Nha Trang and the various islands dotted around in the water off the coast, including Vinpearl Land itself with its Hollywood-like sign on a hillside. The cable car crossing was about 3.5km and took us around 15 minutes, during which we enjoyed the view, and worried slightly about an odd car battery-looking contraption under one of the seats.

Luckily the unidentified device wasn't a bomb, or at least didn't explode, and we soon found ourselves in Vinpearl Land itself. After being reunited with Matt and his family, we all set off to check out the park. It comprised of a small area of rides, nothing which you wouldn't find at a local travelling fair back home, a huge two-level cave filled with arcade machines (most of which seemed to be hand-me-downs from China or Japan) and dogems, a strip of shops and restaurants, an aquarium and the piece de resistance, a massive waterpark.

We had a quick shot on the carousel with the boys before checking out the arcade cave (guarded by a massive and odd-looking fiberglass batman sculpture) where we spent a while on the various games, especially the basketball-shooting game which Lucy got quite addicted to, all for free. After a couple of shots of the animal-shaped dodgems, we took a wander through the shopping area of the park towards the water park, but not before a hair-rising go on the chairoplanes, which swung us right out over the edge of a drop down to the shopping area.

On our way through the park we stopped off at the aquarium, which we found to be really good with one huge tank full of rays, sharks, turtles and all manner of fish, with a tunnel running underneath it. In other tanks we saw all sorts of other weird and wonderful fresh and salt water fish and other sea creatures, and after watching them swimming around for a while, it was our turn at the water park.

We spent the rest of the afternoon in the amazing water park, our movements around the place dictated by the opening times of the slides which operated for a couple of hours at a time. After trying out the lazy river which was very, very lazy and took ages to circumnavigate the park, we stepped it up a notch and first had a go on one of the bumpy 'banana slides' which you go down on a mat. With the adrenaline pumping, we then walked around riding every other slide in the park.

Highlights included the 6-person rubber ring slide, on which we came ridiculously close to tipping over/and or flying over the edge of after packing 6 fully grown adults into the ring, and the giant half-pipe called the Tsunami which I had at least 4 goes on. Lucy took a little persuasion at first, but eventually decided to have a go on a couple of the slides and enjoyed them, that is until we did a tandem ride on a very fast enclosed flume in a rubber dinghy-type thing. Halfway down we took a corner at remarkable speed, rode right up the wall and flipped over, with Lucy landing on her head, and me on my finger. Luckily, we were both alright, and it didn't stop me riding the rest of the slides until the late afternoon.

Eventually we were all tired and decided to get changed and wander back to the theme-park area of the island. Once here, in a rash move I joined the queue, along with Lochlan, for a big spinning ride which we hadn't actually seen running. Once we were strapped in, the ride began to spin us around, then rose up, tilting 180 degrees vertically so that we were spinning around upside down about 100 ft above the ground. I normally love these sort of thrill rides, but at this point I was pretty uneasy. Unlike most rides where physics keeps you pinned in place, the only thing preventing us from plummeting earthwards on this ride was our restraints, which we were hanging against with our full body weight. I couldn't help but imagine the system suddenly failing, and was very glad when we were slowly tilted earthwards and the ride came to a halt.

After our heart-in-mouth experience, we decided to take it easy for a bit and returned to the arcade cave. Inside, we joined the queue for the dodgems and, because they were free, rode them around 10 times before finally calling it a night. Because little Huon, who was only 5, couldn't drive the dodgems by himself I ended up as his co-driver, operating the pedal while he steered us on a course of destruction. Together we made a formidable team and doled out carnage left and right.

With my energy reserves dipping incredibly low, and my knees battered from hitting off the bar in our dodgem cockpit so many times, we decided it was time to make a move and catch the cable car back to the mainland. By this time it was dark, and we got a great view of the cable car pylons and of Nha Trang, all lit up brightly.

Once back on the mainland we caught a taxi back to our hotel where we all booked ourselves onto a bus the following morning to Da Lat in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. We dropped off our things and had a quick shower before meeting everyone downstairs and walking to a restaurant a few streets away which we'd read good reviews of. Unfortunately the restaurant was a bit overpriced, with a very limited menu and only mediocre food for the money. We still enjoyed it after such a busy day, but were a bit let down.

After dinner we walked back to the hotel, said goodnight to the others and crashed out, exhausted after a busy but incredibly fun and good value day.