Bpat Trippin' with Mama Linh
Trip Start
Oct 17, 2007
1
18
19
Trip End
Mar 14, 2008
Nha Trang,
Vietnam
Monday, February 11, 2008
The next morning we were the first two people to be picked up on a bus taking us to the pier. We were expecting it to mostly be traveller's around our age so we were a little surprised when our bus picked up two elderly couples at the second stop. No big deal, we thought. Then when the third, fourth and fifth stops turned out to be full-on extended Vietnamese families (grandparents, little kids, and all) we started to think we might be on the wrong bus. Eventually the bus picked up a group of three younger Aussies and a Brit so there was still hope to make the party boat happen!
There was supposed to be snorkelling on the trip, but it was really windy out and freezing so we hit the Tiger beers nice and early and had a better time sitting up on deck watching all of the hysterical Korean and Vietnamese families flopping around in their life jackets. It was a complete circus since there were about 15 or 20 boats all anchored within a few metres of each other, with each boat having probably 20 or 30 people aboard. After that we had a pretty big buffet style Vietnamese lunch which was really good (even though we found a 'short and curly' in one of the bowls of rice... sick.) After lunch 5 of the crew members set up a sort of rock band with the drummer playing on barrels and pots and stuff. They also had a couple of guitars and a microphone and so they started singing some hilarious Vietnamese songs and then started pulling people on stage to sing their "National songs." So they got "Waltzing Mathilda" for the Aussies, "Yellow Submarine" for the Brits and apparently Canada was same-same as Australia so we didn't get a song. But the show was hilarious and definitely one of the highlights of the tour.
After that came THE highlight of the tour... The floating bar! Our hilarious guide swam out with a life-ring and a crate of really disgustingly strong wine and then had the passengers swim out with life-rings and get as many cups of wine as we wanted. Snorkelling didn't manage to pull us into the water, but the wine got us in there no problem. So us young folk along with the old Vietnamese men all got in the water together singing and shouting "YO!" (Cheers in Vietnamese) and "Chuc Mung Na Moi" (Happy New Year in Vietnamese) since those were pretty much the only things that we knew how to say. But the wine broke down all language barriers and so we all got along great anyways. By the time we all got out of the water, our guide was absolutely smashed and just saying the most hilarious things... I could tell that he was more used to this cruise being a party boat since he wound up hanging out with us the whole time. The reason that it didn't wind up being like that was because of Tet which I guess is the one time of year where local tourists exceed the number of foreign tourists. The rest of the trip wasn't much other than getting off at another lousy beach and playing a bit of volleyball and of course our guide being absolutely ridiculous.
After the tour we decided to meet up with the crew of people we had been hanging out with all day and hit up the main bar in town called The Sailing Club for a few jam jars. It was the first time in Asia we had to pay cover at a bar (60,000 Dong!!!), but it was worth it. It was really nice inside and the place was absolutely packed. There was a dance floor inside as well as one right out on the beach in front of the bar. I think the highlight of the night for me was watching these Vietnamese kids break dance and then having a dance-off against one of them which wound up being a draw. They also played pretty much exactly the same music as they had on Koh Phangan so it brought back some great memories and turned out to be a great night out.
Next day we went to these hot springs where you sit in mineral mud for 15 minutes, then have a mineral-water shower and then sit in a mineral-water hot spring for 45 minutes. The poster promised that "bathing in mineral mud is very interesting!" haha so we decided to give it a try. I was expecting it to be relaxing, but again it wound up being a complete zoo. There must have been 1000 people there all yelling and screaming and just being crazy. Vietnamese people outnumbered foreigners probably 50 to 1, but they still wound up putting me and Karl with 3 Aussie girls to keep the foreigners together as they always seem to do which was fine by us. No mud wrestling though unfortunately... So yeah, that was Nha Trang. Not the tropical beach destination I was hoping for, but it definitely had its charms and was a great time.
Next up, tacky Vietnamese tourism and extreme sports from the mountainous jungle of Dalat.
