Nha Trang!
What a place this is! Especially in comparison to Hoi An! We have come to the conclusion that Hoi An is like the tuscany of Vietnam...whereas Nha Trang is like the Miami! It is a rather strange place!
We caught our bus on Friday night from the hotel. There were three seats at the back of the bus together so us three girlies sat there. Two travel mates sat in front of us....we started out the journey telling horror bus stories (and when i say horror stories i mean stuff that has actually happened to tourist coaches)...really not the way to start a 12 hour overnight bus trip! It took us all a little longer to fall asleep on this journey although before we knew it, the driver had turned on the lights and was making a pit stop. He yelled a couple times telling us that we could go to the toilet but we had all just been rudely awakened so just ignored him. It was 5.30am and the sun was coming up! Jess finally got up and had a chat with one of the guys and guess what - we were 5km out of Nha Trang and were making a 30 minute pit stop. Annoying!
We finally set off on the last 10 minutes of our journey all taking the last few minutes to sleep. The bus driver then deciđe it would be appropriate to turn on the radio full blast with some ridiculous vietnamese pop music playing. I can tell you, not what you need at 6am after a 12 hour bus ride! We looked out the window and could see the sun rising....the beach was COVERED in locals all out to do their morning exercise! It was quite a sight!
The bus finally stopped and we went on a hotel hunt finally stopping at "Happy House". We have a large room with 3 seperate beds and a massive balcony overlooking the beach - cant complain! I tried to get some more sleep but was unsuccessful! I let the others sleep till 9 before I got them up so we could go for breakfast and then go enjoy the beach!
The beach is great, except for the fact that we are constantly being sold something, or offered something or anything else that would be annoying when all you want to do is relax on the beach! Jess and I also took a nice long stroll to the end of the beach and back which took about an hour!
We had discussed with the boys that we would go diving the next day so before grabbing some lunch we went to go book that. We went with Coco Divers which seems to be run by French guys. We then went for lunch at a little cafe where they served fresh cold tea and decided to serve us our meals before bringing out our drinks....interesting way of doing things! The rest of the afternoon was then spent chilling on the beach in the sunshine. It's safe to say that if we had lost any of our Phuket tans, we have them back now!
That evening we went out for dinner with all our mates that we have been meeting along the way. The boys all fancied a burger so we went to a Texas BBQ joint where the guy claimed to have the best burgers in Vietnam. If they are the best, I don't know, but they were pretty damn good! It's owned by a man from Tennesse who moved out to Vietnam 10 or so years ago to open a restaurant. Pretty random! We then went for a couple drinks before us girls called it a night - we had to be at the dive shop at 7.20am the next day!
The boys on the other hand were not so wise! They were not feeling too fresh this morning when we woke them up for the dive. All 3 passed out as soon as we got on the boat. The diving was awesome. There aren't any big fish in these parts but there are some cool small ones and we did see an octopus! On our second dive we got to a sandy area where our guide said we could "play". We were blowing bubble rings and pretend surfing on our flippers when all of a sudden Andy had gone to the surface and dissapeared. The guide found out he was OK and on the boat so we continued our dive. Back on the boat we found out that Andy had been laughing at Raoul who had been surfing on his flippers when all of a sudden his hangover gave a bit of a kick...........turns out, one can vomit underwater!
After the boat took us back we took a nap in the room and then went for some lunch which was infact just icecream :). We then went to lie on the beach for a bit. Emily had gone back to the hotel when this Vietnamese man came and sat next to Jess and I. He didn't say much and then grabbed my flip flops and dragged them toward him. I pulled them back at which point he began pointing at his prosthetic leg saying "Vietnam, Vietnam!"........didnt really get what he was doing. He went to pester some other tourists when a lady selling fruit came to try to sell us the rest of her stock! After assuring her we didnt want 4 mangos, a pineapple and several rambutans (we only wanted one mango and the pineapple) the man came running back and started miming eating...he obviously wanted some money. At that point we decided it was time to go home so we paid for our fruit and got the hell out of there!
We were all craving pasta and the guidebook reccomended a little italien place called "La Taverna" which is run by an Italian-Swiss guy. We got showered and dressed and woke up the boys who had been nursing their hangovers by sleeping since we got back from diving. The restaurant was really nice and the food was great - jess and i even treated ourselves to a glass of rose!
Tomorrow is another beach day and tomorrow night we will be heading to Saigon on a 10 hour overnight bus - our last sleeper! YAY!

Maybe an update in saigon.....

Only 5 days left now :(

x Emma