2008 Blogs

Nha Trang adventures

03/26/2009

This is Deb doing another guest blog.  Since Jo has to write all the other blogs, she doesn't seem to mind letting me do it.  Yesterday we took a boat trip from the city to an island about 15 min. away.  The bay is deep and very calm, due to the numerous islands.  Our guide said that Nha Trang is a safe place to be during a typhoon due to all of these islands.  Naturally, where there are islands, there are beaches!!!  But before we could go to the beach, we visited the aquarium on the island.  It is a tourist destination for Vietnamese as well.  The most striking thing that I saw was a "stonefish" which looked like an irregular shaped stone with barnacles on it.  I would never have known it except for our guide pointing it out.  He said that the fish just stays in one place and eats other fish as they swim around the stone fish.  Most of the fish that we saw were foreign to us, except the sharks.  Kim said that there are no sharks in the bay at Nha Trang and that we don't have to worry about them when we are swimming.

After we left the aquarium, we went around the same island to a private beach.  We think it is the property of the tour company as there were some other tour groups there.  It was very clean and we rented a beach chair for $40,000 dong (about $2.50 US).  We napped under a coconut tree after "playing" in the water for a bit.  The water was colder than I thought it would be but very refreshing on a very hot day.  There was a nice breeze all day since we were on the water and we appreciated that.  We then had lunch in a little fishing village on the other side of the island from the beach.  This seemed more local and we didn't see any tourists at this spot.  This is one very big advantage of the private tour.  The picture on this page shows us getting a ride in one of the round bamboo boats that the locals use to check their fishing nets.  Our guide told us that these people are very poor and like to make a little money taking tourists for a ride.  We enjoyed it and paid about $60,000 (about $4 US).  The meal here was wonderful (again no cheese!!!).

 

After the island tour, we went back to Nha Trang city and visited the local market.  It was a little uncomfortable  for me because of all the people that aggresively approach you to buy things.  I wish I could tell them that I would be more likely to look and buy if they would leave me alone.  Maybe that technique works on some tourists but it makes me want to run the other way.

The other interesting thing about today was there was a professional bike race.  It looked like today was a short race on a course along the beach and then there would be several days of riding out of the city.  Since I am an avid cyclist, this interested me.  We often see people cycling here but do not often see people decked out in bicycle clothes.  Perhaps they train early in the morning.

This morning we also saw a professional sand volleyball tournament and watched that for awhile.  There was both a men's and a women's tournament.  The men were much better than the women but it was early in the tournament and it was likely we were just not seeing a good match.  The athletes were very trim and muscular and were quite impressive.  I could not have played in the heat and sun but I imagine they are used to it.  It is very nice to see all the people here exercising.  There are people of all ages on the beach, swimming, running, walking, playing badminton, doing exercises.

 

The other thing that I have noticed is that while we have been traveling this week, we have met exactly NO other Americans!!!  The only English we have heard is from Australians.  I find that very odd, except when I think about how long it took to get here.  Speaking of that, it will be only two days until I get to make that long journey again.  This has been the most incredible, interesting, HOT place that I have ever been and I have enjoyed it thouroghly.  I am simply amazed that Jo had the nerve to step out of her comfort zone to come so far by herself.  Believe me, you will want to take her Vietnam class in the fall if you have a chance.  I am going to take it, that's for sure.  But she assured me that I won't have to take the test!  Have a happy day.  Deb