Paradise in anonymity…back on the tourist track

Happy Valentines Day! So…I’m in Nha Trang!!

Yeah, it feels good to be here. Long story, but the short of it is that I set out to cycle from Qui Nhon the other morning (day of Tet), and at 7am already saw many people drinking on the streets. Took it as a sign to get off the roads and just get the hell down here. Found the train station after a 12 km ride, waited 5 hours for the next train, and arrived here at 7pm that night. What a great feeling to see so many other tourists for once!

Once here I knew I had made the right decision to train it. Sometimes you’ve gotta listen to your gut feeling and I had just sort-of become overwhelmed with bad feelings about the whole cycling in Vietnam thing. Also has something to do with finding out in Hoi An that an American female cyclist had been killed by a truck on the roads here about 2 weeks ago (on the same route as me). Hard not to think about that when you’re out there on the road yourself. Anyway I was glad to bail when I did.

So straightaway when I arrived at my hotel, I was invited to the family’s Tet party where they had free food and drink for all the hotel guests. (Wow, a generous Vietnamese family, how rare!) I met 2 guys there (one from England and one from Australia), and we wound up going to the Rainbow Bar on the beach for drinks. EXACTLY what I needed! Then I booked a boat cruise with them for yesterday but they were too hungover to go (I had left the bar hours before them) so I went anyway and had a full day on the boat. Did a bit of snorkling but mostly just cruised around. The weather here is warm and sunny and the beach is quite nice. Met some more people on the boat and had dinner and drinks with them last night. Such a good feeling to be relaxing and chatting with other people after being stared at, laughed at, looked at, and not spoken to for 5 days! I earned it!

Friends made on the boat trip – Felicity, Simon, and Austin (who had been stung by a jellyfish!)

View of the islands around Nha Trang

Fishing Village

Add comment February 14th, 2002