Nha Trang, the South China Sea and the Ho Chi Minh Trail

Night train was set to arrive at 4:20 am in Nha Trang. Too early to get a hotel so we headed straight for the beach, thinking we'd get a quiet sunrise. Well, the train was late so the sun was already up and the beach was absolutely packed! All the locals were swimming, exercising, making sand castles, etc. By around 8 am, people mostly cleared out and the tourists started appearing so we went into town to find a guest house. The afternoon was spend at some hot springs up in the hills. It was a progression: shower, mud bath, shower, hot pool, cool pool (not cold by any stretch of the imagination), warm pool, spray massage, cool pool, waterfall, etc. Quite the relaxing time.

The remainder of the first day was mellow as we strolled along the beach and planned some activities for the next few days, including a two-day motorcycle trip on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. For dinner we had traditional barbecue of fish and shrimp with a mouthwatering green mango salad. We chilled the rest of the night on the beach drinking a local lemon rum.

The next day we commenced our motorcycle journey up into the mountains. The Ho Chi Minh Trail is now a nice paved mountain highway that offered fantastic views. Most of the scenery was of rice fields and there were also swaths of dead zones where agent orange was used and trees still turn brown and wither even today as they continually plant and try to revegetate the mountainsides. We took many stops along the way to DakLak Lake where we spent the night. We went to a fishing village, a brick factory, a coffee farm, and had food and coffee at various local places. Our guides said we were only the 10th group of Americans they've had in a decade or so, most people who go on their motorcycle trips are British, Australian, and various other Europeans. After dinner, the guys told us some ghost stories and taught us Vietnamese words. We had a great time all hanging out and laughing at miscommunications. The four guides were really fun.

The second day of the trip, we started the morning by visiting a minority village of which there are 54 in Vietnam, mainly in the highlands. They speak a different language and have special rights because the Vietnamese have encroached on their land, logged, altered their livelihood, etc. We again hit the road and stopped at someone's house who was making rice paper (the eating kind) to see how it was made. We also watched a one-man rock quarry and stopped along the roadside to take in views of mountains, rivers, boats, pigs on bikes, dozens of live geese dangling from bikes, water buffalo plowing rice paddies, etc. The highlight of the day was the hike to the waterfall where we jumped from a high rocky ledge into a deep pool of truly refreshing water (which is hard to find in this country, it's always warm). Swimming around the caves and waterfalls and deep pools among the rocks was a blast. The entrance to the cave was canopied by a mass of spider webs overhead, filled with large spiders like guards to a secret hideaway. There was also a big lizard and an amazing translucent spider the size of a cd, looked like a jellyfish morphed into an arachnid. The last hour home was fast as we sped down the highway and when we got into the city, swerving and weaving through rush hour traffic was fun like a video game.



Our last beach day was a lazy one. We had a leisurely breakfast with a special egg in tomato sauce dish with fresh french bread and unlimited coffee (good coffee). We rented bikes from our hotel and cruised down the coast highway to the harbor where we hired a boat to take us out to explore the islands. First stop was the aquarium where we saw various sharks, eels, sea turtles, and dozens of species of tropical fish. When we first entered, we passed the ticket booth and it was quiet and dark ( I had a feeling someone was sleeping in there), so we walked on into the place and got stopped by a ticket collector for not having tickets. He directed us back to buy tickets and we were intentionally noisy when we got there so as expected, a head popped up out of a hammock and a dazed face dealt us some tickets. Typical.



After the aquarium we walked down a trail across the island which was paved and lined with a wall. I thought it fun to walk on top of the wall and it was great until the disaster. A tree was in the way so I tried to prance around it but slipped and fell of the wall, somehow smashing both of my shins. The others thought I was doing a trick or a dance twirling off the wall but I was really in pain and a golf ball swelled up on one leg and was getting blood all over my shoe. When we reached the water on the other side of the island I washed it and asked the drink shack for some ice. The lady took her giant ice block and with her butcher knife hacked off a chunk for me which I tied aound my leg with my bandana Punky Brewster style. The beach was rocky and crowded so we walked back over the trail to our boat who took us out to sea again. The waves began to increase in size and intensity and while the sky was clear, the water was choppy and angry. There was confusion over the next stop as there was no place to dock so the captain suggested we swim ashore which we did not want to do because there was a traffic jam of not so small boats to swim through and high waves. We soon steamed back to Nha Trang but the boat trip was very nice and the view of the islands and fishing villages were quite scenic.



Later on, we attempted to take an evening strolll to see the town but ended up at the previous restaurant Lai Rai around the corner haning out with some of our moitorcycle guides. It turned into a late night and a jolly time was had as we ate fried fish with lemon grass in rice paper with fresh herbs and chili sauce and drank the local Saigon beer.



Morning came early as we got up for sunrise on the beach, took a swim, watched the middle-age women's aerobics class (five star entertainment value), napped on the beach until the sun got hot at 7 am, napped the rest of the morning in the hotel, ate egg sandwiches for breakfast, drank bottomless coffee until our taxi showed up to haul us off to the airport down a gorgeous winding cliffside drive.

1. The pictures are not in line with the text or in any logical order, but they sort of are. They are really hard to manipulate wysiwyg unless I spend a lot of time at it. Not worth it.