Is there something on my face?
Nha Trang,
Vietnam
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Since we arrived in Vietnam certain people usually men and sometimes children just can't stop staring at us. I don't mean the occasional glance because we are diferent with our still pasty white Irish skin that we look look a bit different, I mean a full on stare. At first we were a little unnerved by it but after awhile of it just became annoying and rude. And the worst starers are the bus company workers.
Because the journeys we take are so long the bus company's have two drivers on board and switch halfway through. Usually that means one is driving the bus and the other is staring at the foreigners. We spent the eight hour journey from Hoi An to Nha Trang with one such guy. Apart from the three hour period where he drove, he spent the rest of the time with his shirt open, hanging off the back of his seat peering at each of the 9 foreigners on board. He spent more time looking at the girls as well and only ever stopped when I caught him doing it. Still nice and relaxing trip...
Nha Trang wasn't all that we hoped for, the beach wasn't that nice. The sand was quite pebbly and full of rubbish sadly. The sea was kinda dangerous as it had a really strong current and the sea bed dropped very suddenly as well.
We had been warned by others that pick pocketing was rife here and the famous scam was at night when near the beach, a group of girls surround you, paw at you and then some guys relieve you of your wallets. True enough the first night we were out we ran in them. Luckily we moved quickly, batted them off our arms and kept on walking.
The town didn't really have much going for it apart from the beach to be honest and I was anxious to get on with the trip as we had only originally planned to spend two weeks in Vietnam.
