Vietnam 2008: Nha Trang

Other links:
Vietnam 2008: In a Nutshell
Vietnam 2008: Ho Chi Minh City
Vietnam 2008: Cuchi
Vietnam 2008: Dalat

**Having covered a lot of ground in Day 3 at Dalat, we were ahead of our schedule and could afford to stay an addition day at Nha Trang. =)

Day 4 - 6: Nha Trang

Day 4...

We arrived at Nha Trang at around 2pm and checked into Seaview Hotel.

Our most value-for-money hotel in the whole trip! Only US$12/room/night. Located near the beach and popular shopping district.

Lunch at Pho Cali Restaurant as recommended by LP.

Only 30,000d for this set meal!

Then we booked our boat tour at Mama Linh's for the following day and then went to rent a bike to cycle around Nha Trang.

Mama Linh Boat Tours-- as recommended by Lonely Planet

Road side bike rental stall. Wait, it wasn't even a "stall". It was just 3 bikes and a banner. I think it cost 20,000d (S$1+) for half a day.

Hee, I took this while we were cycling.

Nha Trang Cathedral in French Gothic style

Took us more than an hour to find this place. =/

My poor camera trying so hard to absorb light. =( Really regretted not bringing my tripod along.

Angels guarding the entrance of the gate

Long Son Pagoda
Famous for its gigantic reclining buddha which resides at the top of the hill. Unfortunately, it was too dark for us to climb up even though it was only 6.30pm.

One woman tried to cheat us money by charging us "parking" fees for parking our bikes outside the pagoda. US$1 for parking! Crazy. Kh and I said no, and we went to park our bikes elsewhere.

Then we went hunting for a good dinner place. Most of the restaurants there are quite ex. As in, tourist prices. On the way, I saw a post office! It looks like a provision shop la. I wanted to send a postcard home just for fun, but the post office lady told me it would take 10 days to reach. So that's like pretty lame. I would've reached home by then. =/

the post office

And we saw this sign. Thought it is really funny. How can you be so sure you're the ONLY indian chef in Nha Trang?

Finally we found Khanh Kat. It's recommended in the LP guidebook for its hot pots, but Kh and I really really liked their set dinners. Only 70,000d (approx S$6.40) for soup, side dish, main course and dessert!

Nice ambience

Yum!

I was so satisfied with the service that I asked Kh to leave the waiter a tip. Kh left 4,000d, which is seriously like peanuts. I was kinda annoyed with him for being so stingy. I would've left at least a 5-figure sum (in dong of cuz) with a doubt!

Day 5...

We started off the day with Mama Linh's Boat Trip! It's a tour around 5 islands near Nha Trang beach. The package includes snorkelling at one of the islands, lunch, fruit party, and floating bar (whatever that means), and live performances. When we booked the tour, we weren't really sure what to expect. But as our experience prove it, Vietnamese people are really good with this tourism thingy. They could make something out of nothing. =/

Mama Linh Boat Trip!

Cable Car to Vinpearl Land

Civilisation

Outside the aquarium




The aquarium on one of the islands. Built to resemble a shipwreck.

Giant turtles!

Super huge Awara fish. I never knew they could be so big!

View from the top

Another view

The whole "ship"

Then we went back to our boat and were anticipating the next activity, which was snorkelling. Unfortunately, this activity was cancelled because it was winter and it was apparently not safe for snorkelling. So the boat stopped near some other island instead for us to swim if we wanted to. But no way Kh and I were going to swim. The water was freezing cold! So we just watched the others swim. ^__^

The crew members were at the back of the boat fishing while the others were at the side swimming! Eww. Our tour guide told us that they were fishing because they could not afford to buy rice (with the increase in price). I believe this is true, because I saw them ta-pau-ing our leftover lunch. Sad.

We explored the roof of the boat and saw this funny looking thing which look like a drum set! We later found out what this was for.

All the benches were adjusted to become 1 large table!

Floating bar!

So this is what it means.

Those of us who didn't go into the water were also offered a cup. Horrid wine. I quickly gulped it down to end my misery.

Fruit party!

Dragonfruit, watermelon, pineapple, longan and rambutan. Some of the angmohs weren't sure how to eat them. Lol.

Our tour guide and the crew members performed for us! They were quite entertaining. Hehe.

Live performance by our tour guide. He also invited all of us to go onto the stage to dance. Kh and I refused! lol.

Thap Ba Hot Spring.

We tried the mineral mud bath. Includes 30mins in mud pool, 15mins in mineral water steam bath, unlimited time in mineral swimming pool, waterfall therapy and some water jet thingy. This is the most open spa I've ever been too. It was so weird bathing in public. It costs 350,000d for 2.

After which, we headed to the beach with the tripod that Jack lent me for some night photography.

Then we had seafood at a roadside BBQ place!

Mussels!

Large prawns

Lobsters! Super super nice. =P~

Beef Pho for supper!

Day 6...

We started the morning with breakfast at Cyclo cafe.

The pinkish looking thing is actually bacon with baked beans. That's how the Vietnamese like to eat it.

We wanted to go to Vinperal Land but it was only accessible by cable car and it costs 250,000d to enter! Kh and I think it's not worth our time and money because it's like Sentosa. So we admired it from the entrance.

Hollywood style

Then we went to the National Oceangraphic Museum nearby.

I didn't expect it to be so run-down.

Sea Cucumber



Sea Anemone

One thing you'll never ever find in Singapore. An open tank full of sharks! In Singapore, it's all about safety.

Leopard sharks!

Real Skeleton of a whale that was found in one of the beaches in Vietnam.

This looks like Harry Potter's Room of Mysteries. Lol. These are actually bottles and bottles of preserved sea creatures. I don't know why they wanna display it like that. They all looked the same, and I couldn't even see those on top!

Then we went upstairs to the room of preserved animals. You bet the whole room stinks!

Giant Squid

Whale shark

Seacow

After which we headed to the beach club for a massage!

This is truly beach life to the max!



We did our massage here.

And had dessert after that.

Yummy cakes!

When we were walking along the beach, a Vietnamese lady called us over to buy from her.

She was quite pitiful. She was sick and yet she was working hard.

All these for only 150,000d.

Kh gave her 200,000d because we didn't have smaller change. But that Vietnamese lady didn't have change either so she went around asking other people for change. And for some reason, she got scolded real bad by her husband and was even slapped on the face. And then there was a lot of shouting and crying. Then she sat down next to us, gave us our change, applied salt on her face and sobbed,"Vietnam men, no good."

Swackhammer: our tour guide's band! They come here to perform at night when they are done with their tour jobs.

Dinner at Khanh Kat again!

Then the whole street had a blackout! Khanh Kat staff were quick to respond. They took out candles for every table. Heh. It was like candlelight dinner!

Blackout!

Again, I asked Kh to tip and he tipped a very miserable amount. I said,"You wanna tip like that you might as well don't tip! So embarrasing!"

Then we went to the train station to get to Hue. Didn't manage to get tickets for the soft berth (first class, soft bed, 4 persons/cabin). Apparently there are only 28 of these tickets for sale. So we ended up taking the hard berth (hard bed, 6 persons/cabin). I'm glad we didn't manage to get the soft berth. We saved a lot of money and also got to experience the Vietnamese way of life. Because if we were to sleep in the soft berth, we would most likely share the cabin with caucasian backpackers (as the Vietnamese cannot afford).

The train station

The corridor

This is how little headroom there is.

We shared our cabin with 3 other Vietnamese men from Hanoi. They were really nice to us! They showed us how to bring down the bed, and where to throw our things, get hot water, etc, etc, and offered us pure green tea! Kh was excited to receive the hot tea but I thought it wasn't very wise of him to accept things from strangers so readily. However, the Vietnamese men proved to be really hospitable. That young man next to Kh even left us his number in case we wanna contact him when we get to Hanoi!

These men boarded the train at HCMC and were going to Hanoi. That was gonna take more than a day on the train!

Really pure green tea. Very very bitter.

Coming up next, Vietnam 2008: Hue