Sleeping bus from Hoi An to Nha Trang was actually pretty good! Tom could pretty much fit in the bed and the air con actually worked! Charlie's did leak on her for a bit though, until engineering cunning and a poncho fixed it. But we settled down pretty well with Vietnamese crushed into every spare bit of space in the bus including the aisle.

Arrived in Nha Trang at 6AM to see a very busy beach full of Vietnamese swimming, exercising and doing something similr to Tai Chi, but they had sticks. We got dropped round the corner from a hotel we'd scoped out online so we walked round to it. Turned out we couldn't have a room for a couple of hours so we went to get some food. Didn't managed to find the main food street but had found divers bar that did breakfast. Bloody expensive but Tom got a taste of home with beans on toast with cheese, Charlie had a massively overpriced Croissant. Back to the hotel and we could check into our windowless box, still it was cool, cheap and quiet! We slept for a couple of hours before emerging back into Nha Trang, bloody hell its hot!

We had some lunch and took in the sights on Nha Trang, well there seems to be only one, the Beach! Not fancying improving on our sunburn we arranged through our hotel to go to some hot springs nearby. We got our own chauffaur driven car to pick us up, with excellent AC (the car thermometer said 38 degrees outside!). On arrival we bought our tickets and headed towards the mud baths. Step one was to shower in hot spring water, you then sit in a bath full of warm mud. We were suprised as it wasn't as viscous as we expected and Charlie found she floated really well in it. We got chatting to a girl from Bath who was travelling in the opposite direction to us but was good conversation. Step three after the mud was to sit in the sun to allow the mud to dry, that completed you wash it off again in the hot spring shower. Finally you then go and sit in a bath of hot mineral water. Amazing how cool the heat of the day felt after that! This completed you are free to wonder around and make use of the large swimming pools filled with hot spring water, cool spring water and a waterfall of hot spring water. All good fun and very popular with Vietnamese and Tourists alike!

That evening we were craving a curry so sampled the local curry houses Fish curry, safe to say not a patch on Khushi's but not a bad effort. We rounded the evening off with a scrummy (proper) ice cream on the sea front which was still boiling hot!

Next morning we had a cheap breakfast from the local super market and hit the beach for a few hours. They charge for sun loungers so we took advantage of the free shade offered by the palm trees. Tom took a dip in the sea while Charlie did some sun (shade) bathing. We went back to the hotel room to change and when we came out it was WINDY!

We took a stroll down the beach to a place where we had seen a beginner windsurfer earlier in the morning. We met a chap called Dan at the rental place who was thinking the same thing. Unfortunately the kit was not at all ideal, two absolutely battered old Starboard S types and a very small collection of heavily repaired sales. At $30 an hour the temptation was still there but not particularly strong, especially since they make you sign a disclaimer for if you break it you buy it. We watched some Vietnamese chap getting beaten up a bit out the back and decided it would be better to wait for Mui Ne where Dan advised the kit was much better.

That resolved we had some lunch and then took a wonder up to the Nha Trang Centre hoping to get a new camera. Unfortunately although it was a massive extemely well air conditioned department store the one thing they didn't have was electricals :-( There was some kind of competition called Beach star going on outside modelled on Pop Idol or something which was quite amusing.

We headed back to the hotel to change for a dip in the sea over sunset. This was really cool as although we didn't get to see the sunset we got a thunderstorm instead. It was interesting arriving at the beach as it was packed with locals (I mean, REALLY packed!), and the line of water between the beach and about a metre out was packed but further out was empty, presumably not many Vietnamese can swim?! We jumped in and the thunderstorm promply arrived. This was pretty spectacular with rain drops bouncing off the water surface. We got cold pretty quickly so ran back to the hotel for cover. The hotels down a back alley with a group of other hotels and this alley had turned into a river almost an inch deep and fast flowing which was fairly interesting.

After trying to wait out the storm, we ended up just braving it to try and get some dinner. The streets were still flooded though and we had to pick our way carefully to the restaurant. We went to a seafood restaurant we had seen the night before. For $10 you get a big bowl of seafood, or as it turned out several plates. It was amazingly tasty and we had clams, oysters, tiger prawns, squid and a snapper fish. We then picked our way back to the hotel through the rain, picking up some dessert on the way!

Dalat tomorrow!