Nha Trang
Trip Start
Dec 28, 2007
1
20
27
Trip End
Dec 01, 2008
Nha Trang,
Vietnam
Saturday, April 5, 2008
I think we left you at the Life Resort in Quy Nhon - I must say, not a bad place to be left. They had yoga class at 9:00, Tai Chi at 3:00, beach volleyball at 4:00 .... Okay, you get the point. But all good things come to an end, and so we went to Nha Trang. Kidding. - sort of. Nha Trang is a Vegas by the sea, Vietnam style. It is a beautiful beach town, but in some places was over the top in cheese. Across the bay from Nha Trang, there is an entire island taken over by some hotel chain (Sofitel) who hoped to turn it into Disneyland. It's called "VinPearl Land" and comes complete with rides,waterpark and garbage cans in the shape of penguins. We have avoided Nha Trang during all of our previous trips for just this reason. That being said, the people of Nha Trang were very nice, as are all Vietnamese, the food was outstanding (in addition to great Vietnamese food, we had the best vegetarian Indian food of our lives), and there were two very impressive sites worth of visit: a group of Cham towers (Po Nagar) and a hilltop pagoda (Long Song temple) with an enormous white buddha statute on the top. At the Cham towers we watched an enchanting dance conducted by vietnamese women with baskets on their heads set to trance like music. At the pagoda, we climbed through a village of temples, up many stairs and to the top where the white buddha dominates the Nha Trang skyline.
A definate Nha Trang bonus was that our hotel gave us a free triple upgrade to a wonderful room with ocean view. Perhaps best of all, we had a great in-room internet connection (not to be taken for granted in asia, for sure) and Andrew was able to watch online the ducks' NCAA very short lived tourament run (hey, the played a great first half). We left Nha Trang and flew to Saigon where we regrouped for two days while deciding where to go next. While having a few cold ones at the dodgy Saigon Saigon bar in the backpacker district of called Pham Ngu Lao, we crafted a plan to go to Bali. It is amazing how the internet has changed travel. Within hours, we had purchased the Lonely Planet Bali, bought round trip tickets to Denpasar, Bali, booked our first four nights in a hotel (in Sanur), and arranged for two rafting trips. After two days in Saigon, off we went on our first (and probably not last) trip to Bali, Indonesia. Great fun! .
Andrea, dwarfed by the Cham Tower
