Nha Trang beaches

Nha Trang is about a 12 hour sleeper bus ride south of Hoi An. This by far was probably the worst ride ever. Halfway through the night at 2am they made us switch to another bus, but one that sat up. All the bags wouldn't fit under the bus and they were yelling at us in Vietnamese. It was pretty miserable. Doubly painful since we had not slept much the night before since it was New Years.

But we did make it to the beach!! I love the beach and had missed it. It was nice to see the waves crashing against the shore. The waves were very big and powerful. I spent some time playing in them that afternoon and they knocked me around like a ragdoll. So much fun.

We weren't up for doing much that night, so Jordan and rented out a "3D" theater to watch Magic Mike, which was hilarious. $2.50 got you a drink and any movie from a choice of about 120.

The next day we explored the city, walking by the beach and visiting the city's temple. It was a little too rainy to enjoy the beach that afternoon though.

Nha Trang is supposed to be beach party central, but I think my favorite aspect was not the bars, but rather the street food stands. Corn on the cob and sweet potatoes are slow roasted on the side of the road. Whole lobsters are sitting, steaming, in metal pots. One woman had several pots of different colored rice: green, purple and orange. They each had a slightly different flavor. One place I ate at every day cooked meat on a grill right on the road. It might have been pork. It had this amazing sauce all over it. I have no idea what was in it. They served the meat over rice with some greens and sweet chili sauce. Yum! The entire meal cost 30,000 dong, or $1.50.

Our last day we took a "booze" cruise along the islands. The whole experience was a little odd. We visited an aquarium. It did not have the best displays but it made up for this shortcoming by having the architcture of a giant pirate ship.

We were given a chance to snorkel along the coast of one of the islands. The masks were rediculous and were circles that covered your whole face. However, I was impressed by how beautiful the coral was and the diversity of fish. I would have thought that the unsupervised tourism would have killed everything. Sadly I think that will be the eventual fate of the reefs. Right in front of me a vietnamese local dove and plucked a huge piece of coral from the rock, effectively killing it. It made me really sad.

Lunch on the boat was delicious. They folded down the benches into a table, which we all sat around. It was very efficient. The food was the usual cuisine: noodles, rice, squid, morning glory greens, spring rolls, chicken. I am never going to be able to go to a chinese restaurant in the states again. The food here is that good.

Afterwards the crew entertained us by pulling out a drumset, electric guitar and tambourine. They sang and danced for us, one guy was in drag (ladyman) complete with coconut boobs. Absolutely fantastic.

Then they had karoake, but with a twist. You didn't choose a song, they did and you sang along. They chose songs that germans, russians and chinese would know. It was really cool. When it got to the American Idols, Jordan and I, we sang the Backstreet Boys, I want it that way. It was pretty epic.

After singing, they played the grease soundtrack and made us jump off the top of the boat and swim to a float. The tambourine girl was sitting in the float and handing out a house cocktail in small plastic cups. We weren't sure if it was tequila or vodka, but it was good. That was the extent of the booze cruise though. I definitely think it was false advertising.  And if things weren't already weird enough, on the way back to the shore there was a vietnamese man standing on the prow of his boat singing My Heart Will Go On by Celine Dion into a microphone. A good day, but definitely a strange one.