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26 June: Nha Trang

Another early morning, the last 2 of our 4 dives would end today. We headed to the dive shop a little earlier seeing as our camera had filled on the first dive of the previous dive. We asked the owner, Simon, for assistance, he explained how it should be done and left the rest for me to do. All that needed to be done was to remove the o-ring and add lubrication to it before replacing the camera and film. We had handed the full film in the day before, planning to pick up the photos after our dive.

By the time I had finished with the camera, most people had arrived and we were shuffled off to the boat waiting for us at the harbor. On the boat we introduced ourselves to the people and continued conversations with them until we reached the dive site, coffee's in hand. The first dive site was coral garden, dressed with our gear and buddy checks done, we dropped in with Amanda, our instructor. Leanne at first could not descend and Amanda had to add a weight to accomplish it. She also experienced a measure of discomfort with her ear not equalizing correctly, but after ascending and trying again it dissipated. The fish once again were limited mostly to the smaller variety, although we did see some nice barracuda. Other interesting sights were nudibranches in their various colours as well as a purple crab, quite a few large lion fish and some large shrimp . Dive length was a good 56 minutes. The water was also not as cold as the previous day with no thermoclines that we penetrated.

After the dive we were once again greeted by our 5 star service, having exited the water within seconds we were standing with no gear except our wet suits, which we soon discarded. Lunch was again chicken and vegetable curry, with rice as well as fruit. After this we enjoyed a nice cup of hot chocolate while slowly driving to the next site.

Trimihns reef was a wall of coral along which we swam, a lot more interesting than some of the sandy stretches with corals littered in between. Again we saw the same as the previous days dive with box fish and sea horses being the exceptions. We were the first in and almost the last out having done another 60 minutes. Compared to Koh Tao, we were very happy, seeing as the dives were ended after 45 minutes regardless of how much air remained, here it was different.

Back on the boat on the way to the harbour, we spent time talking to a 40 year odd Swiss couple. They traveled for 3 weeks every year to tropical spots specifically to dive, doing on average 25 dives in the period each time. We arranged to meet them for a decompression beer afterwards to get some information on Indonesia and also the Northern parts of Vietnam from where they had just come. Back at the dive shop we collected the photos, they were a great disappointment, not only did only half of them develop, but none had any colour, all were only blue. This should have been obvious to us since the deeper you go the less colour remains due to the absence of light, the flash we thought would be sufficient, it wasn't! Afterwards we grabbed a beer with them discussing places in Vietnam they had traveled and where they would advise us to go if we were to make a detour to Indonesia. We even got a friends name, who is an auditor in Switzerland, apparently that's the only place in Europe where there is any work.

On the way back, Leanne and I split up, I left on a motorcycle taxi to the bus station to purchase tickets for the next days drive to Qua Nhon. At the station I was told the old lie, there are no busses going there only overpriced mini buses (RSA taxi's). After a very difficult discussion, if I can even call it a discussion, I bought the tickets. First they said 70 000, then she said 85 000 and eventually 80 000. By this stage I was irritated, but it doesn't help anything, you try to be curtious, but they only become more rude if you don't buy the tickets. I headed back to the guest house, Leanne had tried to find out from an agent whether there was a flight from Beijing to Kathmandu in Nepal with no success.

For dinner we headed to Red Star, a restaurant recommended in our book, after eating a hearty meal we returned home, while I watched a bit of the USA vs ESP game. We had made plans to meet another acquaintance at the yacht club for a beer at 8h00. It didn't take long to decided we weren't going to drink a beer there, the prices were almost triple anywhere else's. After 25 minutes he hadn't pitch or was there before us and also decided it's to expensive, so we walked back along the beach stopping along the way to walk through a cultural museum. The museum was filled with the most elaborate and delicately designed silk embroidery, its one of those arts you wish you could afford, but currently can't, so you oooh and aah while walking past on your way out. Our next stop was a convenient one, the ice cream shop next door. They had a special on their waffles and fruit and we decided to try one, not to bad! Ice cream for dinner is not enough for us so we nibbled further on a Turkish kebab on the way back.