Nha Trang

Tuesday 20th January 2009

Sure enough as the days go by I start to get itchy feet again so its time for some place new plus I hope to make it to Hoi An for Tet (Chinese New Year). Nha Trang is the next stop...the Lonely Planet describes it as having a split personality...tourists one side of the town and the locals the other...it could be another Phuket I'm thinking?!The bus trip is a tale of two halves. From Da Lat we probably take one of the worst buses on the road, looks Ok on the outside but once you get into it you are thinking what on earth is this...you feel every bump and not alone that its the slowest thing around, getting up around the mountains you are thinking we'll have to get out and push this thing. Anyway our luck is in we stop half way on the trip and are told to change buses. What a contrast...we hop on to a sleeper bus which has every mod con under the sun...it even has a drop down flat screen TV!
When I arrive in Nha Trang I'm kind of happy to be back along the coast and am looking forward to a few days of relaxing along the beach. I get the shorts on and head for beach. Supposedly Nga Trang is Vietnam's main dive resort so I trail the beach and price up a few places. In the end I find a place that offers me two dives in a day & food for $50 so I decide to take it up. On the morning of the dive I discover that our instructor for the day is from Co. Clare, Ireland. He's pretty laid back about the whole thing..."we haven't had anyone die on us yet this year" he tells a Vietnamese couple who are also taking the dive...nothing like filling them with confidence eh?The Vietnamese couple have not dived before so as we head out to the dive spot on the boat he goes through all the basics...at a rapid rate! I'm just thanking God at this stage I managed to get a dive in in Koh Tao...not sure I would have known what to do basing it on what this guy tells us.
Unfortunately the visibility for the dive is pretty poor, only up to about 7meters but we manage to see some fish & some impressive coral. All in all it was nice to get a couple of dives in, certainly felt on the second dive I was a little more confident and able to maneuver a bit better.
A funny thing I've noticed about Asia is that if people are in need of a toilet (a number 1 that is) then they have a tendency to do their business against a wall or some quite area. When in Cambodia, there was an ally way down to where I was staying. It seemed every tuck-tuck drive under the sun used it as a toilet. There were plenty of other scenes but I'll spare you all the details...some were just comical!As for what Nha Trang is like, well its not as bad as the Lonely plant suggests. There are very few people here at this time of year, the beach is almost empty...then again it would be hard to fill a 6km stretch of beach! Other than diving, visiting the island and chilling out on the beach there isn't a whole lot else to do...which is grand if you just want to relax.