Sneaky thieving Vietnamese b******s
Trip Start
Jul 29, 2003
1
21
31
Trip End
Dec 01, 2003
Nha Trang,
Vietnam
Monday, October 13, 2003
Well after our bad first impressions of Vietnam, our opinions were starting to improve after we had a lovely time in Mui Ne and a great first day in Nha Trang. Nha Trang is a lot livelier and touristy than Mui Ne (which is a bit more of a honeymooners place) and the weather when we arrived was great - not a cloud in sight.
Arrived Thursday afternoon and checked into another great hotel with hot water, satellite TV, minibar and aircon (we were supposed to just have a fan but I managed to sneakily get the aircon working) for just $8 a night! And right close to the beach.
Spent all day Friday on the beach topping up our tans and getting hassled by jewellery and book sellers on the beach. They're so friendly its hard to say no and this woman selling jewellery kept coming over to me so in the end I gave in, intending on just buying one piece but somehow I ended up with a variety of 17 necklaces and bracelets
Hung, book boy and Janine
! Oh well.Decided to go and have a few drinks on Friday night which was also the full moon so there was a party with cheap drinks at the Nha Trang Sailing Club. Sat on the beach for a bit as you do and vaguely noticed this Vietnamese guy lurking around but didn't think too much of it, just that he was being weird.
Anyway the next morning woke up to find my digital camera missing. Thought I'd lost it until I opened my wallet to find everything from that was gone, along with the stash of money I had tucked away in my bag which totalled about $100. Stupid to have that much out with me I know but I wasn't really bothered about the money, more about the fact that all the photos I had taken since leaving Thailand were on my camera and I haven't found anywhere to burn them onto CD so they're all gone.
Spent most of the morning at the police station and after about 6 trips there managed to get my hotel receptionist to come with me to translate everything into Vietnamese as the police are crap, speak no English and basically laughed in my face cos I suppose I'm just another stupid tourist getting stuff stolen.
Anyway, sorry to say there won't be any pictures of Cambodia which is sad as it was my favourite place and I had loads of photos of the kids I met which I won't be able to replace
Me in a tub of mud
. I have my crap APS camera with me so at least I can still take some pictures but they won't be as good and I don't know if I'll be able to upload them here.So had a bit of a shitty last couple of days feeling really pissed off and also with no money as I can't get any changed at the bank until tomorrow so relying on Janine at the mo!
Went to this spa bath place yesterday where you can soak in a bath of mineral mud and hot mineral water for 2 quid. Normally it would've been really relaxing and fun but I was depressed as hell and really angry while Janine had the hangover from hell!
We then decided to have a massage at the spa place to relax us but it did anything but that! We were contorted into various shapes, had all our bones cracked (I was sure my neck was close to breaking at one point) and to top it off they then stood and walked on our backs! Then had the nerve to ask us for a tip!
Spent today on the beach. Ended up with 3 paintings each from the jewellery selling girl's 17y/o brother who reckons he's Del Boy and keeps saying "lovely jubbly". The jewellery girl was really upset about me getting my stuff nicked though and gave me a free anklet for good luck so maybe not all Vietnamese are so bad.
Planning to hang about the beach again tomorrow, before we get the overnight bus to Hoi An tomorrow night.
Hope everyone is well and if you see a Nikon 885 digital camera being sold on eBay let me know!
xxx
