Life can be a Beach

Trip Start Jan 22, 2007
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Trip End Ongoing


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Flag of Vietnam  ,
Monday, December 24, 2007

Nha Trang is the Airlie (AUS) beach of Vietnam, all the westerners are on party time (except those who have a tour organised), it's a place for drinking meeting people and generally having a good time. We spent christmas and the eve before here, in fact xmas was spent on and off a boat passing around several islands. It's not the best time to be snorkelling around here since the sea is not so clear but there are still some coral and fish visible just below the surface. The highlight of boating though was the floating bar which one has to chase so as to get a free drink and of course just generally chatting to the folks on the boat. Christmas eve was spent negotiating the many motorbikes circling up and down the coast and sitting on the beach with the locals enjoying the full moon, oh, and we had pasta and pizza for dinner.

Ponagar pagoda, a 7th century Cham building just inside Nha Trang is worth a visit, it has been partially restored but you can hardly tell as it falls into ruin. Otherwise we just spent our time by the sea, sitting on a rock watching the waves crash against the coastline. It's also a lot cleaner here since the locals don't spend much time littering the environment (unlike the local beach - and the countryside). The more interesting boats are just giant baskets which get a lacquer coating so as to be somewhat waterproof, they take ages to row anywhere but they're everywhere so either it's tradition or just cheap.

We moved up the coast to the quieter more or less fishing town of Quy Nhon, along the way we stopped for an accident where some drunken guy had fallen off his bike and got a bit banged up (everybody found it quite funny). The beach here has large fishing nets hung on four poles, perhaps when the sea covers them fish swim in, once the sea goes out they are stuck there and can of course be captured and eaten, or maybe they are just drying the nets. It's much cooler here and rained on arrival, in the evening and the next day. Thap Banh It another Cham pagoda is located 20km outside town so we hired some cycles to get here passing plenty of rice paddies and not much else on the way.
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Comments

damonjon
damonjon on Jan 10, 2008 at 10:08AM

excellent
Hey u 2 ....sounds like you had a nice christmas. boat hopping and wave watching sounds like a great time to me. Here, it was the same, everyone fighting for space in the stores to buy things. I was happy to get out into the countryside for some quiet. Great pics as always.

Damon

damonjon
damonjon on Jan 10, 2008 at 10:12AM

find simon
I found you. You're not even close to the bar..in fact you are getting sandwhiched by 2 girls. Liked getting boxed out for a rebound in basketball, you can't get to the bucket to score a brew. That is beer in the case right? Those swimmers look like sharks circling their pray..yikes

damon

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