Same Same, But Different

In Vietnam, all we see and hear is the saying; 'Same same, but different' and it's true. Everything here is the same (BUT DIFFERENT). T-shirt shops and stalls are beside each other, the noodle soup restaurants stick together and the people offering you rides on moto-bikes all haunt the corners and parrot the same lines. The t-shirts are the same, the noodles were all brought from the shop down the road and the motorbikes are all Hondas. But they are all different. If you see a watch that you like in a stall you ask; "Is this a real Rolex?" A. Yes yes, sir! Same same but different.

It's been a while since the last post, but it does not seem it. Appareantly the last one was on the 8th of December and now it's the 19th! One week until Christmas, who knows where we will be. It doesn't seem like xmas is so close and it'll be hard not being home, but I think we will be fine. We will definitely be phoning home though! Hopefully everybody will have a great xmas and know that our thoughts are with them.

For the past 11 days we have mainly been in Nha Trang. Beach capital of Vietnam! It was a great place to spend a bit of time (6 nights) and relax. The heat has really hit us hard. Its been sitting pretty at about 30 degrees everyday since Hoi An and the nights are equally sticky. At present we are up in the mountains in Dalat, it reminds us alot of Dunedin weather as it starts to cool down at about 4pm after reaching 25ish during the day.

I better start at the beginning, from where the last post left off. After Hoi An we boarded the bus to Quy Nhon, a beachside town with about 250 000 people. We got royally ripped off with our bus this time, not only money wise but time wise as well. It cost us $12USD each for a five hour trip. This is about 240 000 Vietnamese Dong. We realised when we finally boarded the bus (our driver from the hotel mucked around so much, we missed the 7.40am bus and had to get the 8.40am) that the actual bus only cost 98 000 VND ($4USD)! The man in the hotel had taken a huge commission for himself! This really got up our goat and we decided from then on to take no more guff from people playing on our ignorance and overcharging us. Since then we've gotten cheaper bus fares in better buses! How does that work?

Quy Nhon was an interesting place. The most stressful times are always when we arrive in a new town. As you get off the bus people crowd you, badgering you to stay at their hotel or get a ride on their moto. We are always so disorientated as half the time the bus station is on the outskirts of town and we haven't got our bearings. These people are just annoying! In Quy Nhon one guy followed us on his motorbike for fifteen minutes. I was sending some pretty strong messages that just went right over his head. I kept saying Tam biet (goodbye) everytime he spoke which was fun for a while but lost its novelty quickly.



The bus did have its lighter side, there were 3 Buddhist Monks sitting in the front row and they cheered us up with their wooly hats and never ending laughter. And who would have thought monks have cell-phones?

The beach at Quy Nhon was beautiful, it just seemed to go on forever. At dusk the locals play soccer, volleyball and just lounge around on the beach catching up. We didn't see any tourists at all. We only had a few days here so we decided to rent bicycles and check the place out. Our guidebook recommended a beach about 2km out of town that was attached to a Leper colony. So naturally, we decided we had to go. We got lost on the way and ended up biking about 5km, but it was a small price to pay as we had the beach to ourselves and it was a pretty good bit of sand. However, we did get one visitor, a man with one leg and 7 and a half fingers came walking along the beach and did his prayers beside us. We can only assume that he had leprosy.


Quy Nhon Beach


Anna doing the hard yards on her '70s bike to the Leprosy beach

Our private beach

Another adventure we had in Quy Nhon was a bike ride out to some Cham towers that are preserved in the middle of town. These towers dated from the 15th century (I think). They didn't look very far away on the map but once we got pedalling we realised they were quite a distance. It was also 5pm, rush hour traffic time. The bike ride was pretty intense, motorbikes and bicycles come at you from front and back and cars honk at you from behind but it was a big rush and when we found the little patch of serenity that housed the towers we were very relieved. They were just sitting in a patch of grass between two buildings, quite incredible really.

After Quy Nhon we got a (cheap) bus to Nha Trang. We didn't know what to expect as we had read that Nha Trang is one of the more dangerous cities in Vietnam with tourists targeted in street robberies. But it turns out we didn't have to worry about a thing, Nha Trang looked after us very well. The beach here was also fantastic, the afternoon we arrived we went down to check it out. We were going to go for a swim but we quickly became engrossed in digging a big hole in the sand. Kids! That night we had our fanciest meal in Vietnam right by the beach at a place called the Lousianne Brewhouse. They had NZ steak on the menu, who could say no to that? Anna got the fish and chips and then we had a fantastic dessert. The bill was about 410 000 VND! This sounded huge to us but is only about $NZ32, a steal really.

We booked a boat trip the next day and were up early to catch the minivan. We hadn't been feeling that flash over the past few days but we were in good spirits for the trip. We pulled up outside the backpackers and a big group of rowdy people our age, in different costumes got on. Looks like we were going on the party boat! After getting our first beer down at 9.30am and with the general atmosphere on the boat we were feeling pretty good. The boat trip operator 'Funky Monkey' outlined the itinerary for the day. First we went to an aquarium on an offshore island. There were sharks and turtles as well as an array of other exotic fish. Next it was off to a swimming spot where we could do a bit of snorkelling. The snorkelling was pretty average, I only seen 2 fish but the beers kept on flowing and we got to know the people on the boat better. Almost every nationality was represented and 'Funky Monkey' took full advantage of this by getting each country to do an item. The Canadians duetted Celine Dion, the Aussies did Waltzing Matilda, Mexico was the macarena, Ireland was the Pogues and myself and another NZ fellow had a go at the Haka which seemed to go down well. After the items, seemingly from out of nowhere, the boats crew pulled out a guitar, bass and drum kit and played a set of about 7 songs for everyone to dance to.

All this before lunch! Which was delicious; noodles, spring rolls, fried rice, fish, chicken and fruit. The afternoon was spent going around the islands in the bay of Nha Trang and stopping at a resort. We didn't get off the boat as that was where all the fun was. We arrived back to Nha Trang at 4pm and promptly crashed and had a 3 hour nap at the hotel (I think we both almost hit the wall this time Loren).









Aquarium and Boat Trip

The next day, after a big sleep, we went to the Nha Trang mud springs. At first we were dubious but that changed as soon as we arrived. First you have a mineral water shower, then get into a bath full of mud, after this you sunbathe for fifteen minutes until the mud hardens then you wash it off. The mud wasn't full of twigs or grit and hardened quickly in the sun. After washing it off you run through cold water jets, then warm water jets then get into the hot pool.

After the treatment we swam in the pool and had a good meal at the restaurant, it was a great afternoon!

For our next day in Nha Trang we decided to go to Vinpearl Land, an amusement park/waterpark/resort. It is located on an island that is visible from the beach. To get there you have to take a cable car, this cable car is the worlds longest over water cable car, impressive! Before we left I felt like Pho bo for lunch. Pho bo is the unofficial national dish of Vietnam, I think its delicious but Anna is not quite sold yet. The bowl of Pho I got was the perfect meal for a trip to an amusement park but I loaded it with so much chili sauce my face felt like it was melting off with all the sweat I was generating. Anna caught the moment.



Vinpearl Island was heaps of fun, after surviving the cable car we went on the rollercoaster twice and the pirate ship ride that practically tipped us vertical. There was also a huge arcade with every kind of video game, it was like timezone x10. We tried the bumper cars and both got minor whiplash after our fourth go. It was a blast! The water park was just plain scary. The slides were near vertical, we were literally shaking at the top of the huge platforms and the air felt slightly thinner. The slides were a big rush but very unforgiving so we weren't lining up to do them again.

Cable car, Vinpearl Island and rides:













For our last day in Nha Trang we went snorkelling, this time it wasn't a let down. We seen hundreds of colorful fish and amazing coral reefs. Schools of fish would just swim around us. We swam out quite far away from the boat to see more fish as the only hazard was the harmless Jellyfish that we had to dodge. We got about 2 hours of snorkelling which was fine because by this time we were practically raisins. The boat trip back was also very nice. We winded down our last few hours in Nha Trang with a bit of shopping and a nice meal. An early night also as we had an early morning bus to Dalat where we are now.

...To be continued

J & A