Beach holiday

Nha Trang is the diving/snokelling and party capital of the Vietnamese coast. Like Mui Ne, it was a place where we really felt we were really on a holiday. It is located on a wide, calm bay with white sands and turquoise blue water. We read a sign that boasted it was in the top 29 most beautiful bays in the world. We guess this means it ranks 29.

In our first evening there, we enjoyed our first major food splurge on this trip. We paid a massive $25AUS for a beautiful meal with wine at The Sailing Club, located right on the beach. (See first pic).

We spent two days in Nha Trang on boat trips. The first was a real party boat. The $6US fare included snorkelling, seafood lunch, entertainment from a make-shift boy band and red wine and cigarettes (for those who smoke) on a floating bar.

The fun really started after lunch when our host said we had to wait half an hour for our food to settle before we embarked on the floating bar. During the half hour, the boat's crew pulled out a guitar, tambourine, microphone, two bins, a scrappy old cymbal and bass drum. They entertained us with a mix of Vietnamese songs and old classics like La Bamba, and Let's Twist Again. They had us all up and dancing on the table and one of the highlights of the performance was when an old Vietnamese bloke in a small wooden canoe rowed over to check out what was going on. After a bit of a gawk, he rowed off, dancing in time to the music.

The musical entertainment was followed by the floating bar. Our host introduced it, saying, "Red wine, free. Cigarettes, free. I am also free, but only for ladies, but that's ok, because see him (pointing to a non-English speaking crew member) he is free for men. He is Lady-Boy."

The floating bar involved the host seated on a small, round floating contraption with benches holding a bucket full of red wine bottles and small plastic cups. We all floated in our own floating rings, drinking wine and having a good laugh.

Our next stop was a beach resort where you could go jet skiing, paragliding or play beach volley ball (See pic of Niels in action). The rental price for the ball was cheaper than the rental price for a seat in the shade on the beach, even after we paid the entrance fee to the beach.

Our second boat trip, two days later, was devoted to the underwater world. Niels was keen to go scuba diving as his last dive was three years ago in the vicious cold of the South Coast. Carolyn came along and went snorkelling. Niels thought it was the best diving he'd ever done, with vast amounts of tropical life, 24 degree celcius water temp (at the bottom) and 18m visability. The snorkelling was also amazing.

Most of the rest of our time in Nha Trang was spent on the rooftop balcony of our hotel (the view in the last pic is from there - we could also see out across the sea), enjoying good food, good beer, some good, and some very bad local wine.