Vietnam - Nha Trang
13th August - A round boat, Ba Ho waterfalls, Cham towers and two big white Buddha's.
When we got in last night we had darted into the travel agents (that we had found in our guide book), booked a tour for today and swiftly checked into the cheapest guest house we could find in order to get a good nights sleep.
We had a bit of a lye-in, until about 8am, then found ourself a western style cafe which offered 'English Breakfasts', we thought that it would give us the perfect start to our day, little did we realise, our bodies are no longer used to western food. We couldn't even eat half of it and all that meat and grease actually made us feel sick. (Remind me of this when I am eating fry ups every weekend when I am back home). I couldn't believe it, I should stick to noodles, rice and French bread. We arrived at the travel agents at around nine clutching our full stomachs and got in to the car with our very strange Danish Tour guide. He actually seemed quite drunk, so I was relieved that he wasn't the one driving. Again, it was just us three on the trip. We had had such a fantastic time on our private trip in Mui Ne, and such a crappy one when there was 45 of us on the Mekong Delta, we decided to pay just a little bit more to go it alone.
Anyway, with great speed we headed off on our trip. Firstly we stopped off at the our Danish guys friends house: A very friendly Austrian guy. He gave us some green tea with lime and then we went out on a 'round boat' with his wifes oldest son. Basically these boats are traditionally used in south Vietnam for fishing, or to transport yourself to the bigger boats. It was more like a large round wicker basket than a boat, and the whole time we had to scoop out all the water that was coming in to avoid sinking. It was pretty hard to move, but with Kat and I each side with a paddle each we actually got pretty far out. Not many people get the opportunity to ride in one of those I thought to myself. Once we got back to land the Austrian guy gave us a guided tour of his house. It was huge and so lovely and open. He had four floors and from the roof was the most amazing view of the bay and his own private beach. I couldn't help but as him how he could afford all of this, he replied saying that it was incredibly cheap and with the money he spent on his house and his boat he could have barely bought a small flat. Now he said that he just comfortable lives on his Austrian pension. What a life huh. I wouldn't mind retiring out here one day.
We all got back in the car and headed off in the direction of 'BaHo Waterfalls', along the way we stopped off at 'Phu Huu' village to pick a few lovely bright pink, ripe dragon fruits. the Danish guide and the driver then dropped us off, showed us the direction to walk and said that we could meet them back there in a couple of hours. It was quite nice to go off on our own actually and not have to worry about trying to make polite conversation. Now the guide had made out that this was a 'nice little walk', but he had certainly never done it because, it was crazy. Well it started off ok, semi-paths, and small rocks to clamber over, but the further we got the harder it got. Every time we passed a water pool we wanted to stop for a swim, but were determined to get to the top. After what seemed like hours of heaving and clambering, I had to take off my flip-flops (not designed for climbing sheer rock face) The rocks were burning under my feet as i clambered and scrambled over boulders, wedging myself up between two rocks and heaving my body up onto any ledge I could find. It really was incredibly difficult.
By the time we got to the top, wit in seconds we had stripped off and immersed ourselves into the cool water pools, bathing our poor blistered scraped feet. Once we had cooled off we reaised how far and how high we had actually climbed. The view was amazing. There was no one around at all it was like we had the whole place, the whole mountain to ourselves. As we say in the pools with the beautiful backdrops, with trees and the bright blue sky, then the waterfalls I felt like we should be in some kind of 'herbal Essences' advert. Until now I didn't actually believe that places like this existed. I lay back simply amazed at where I was.
Before long, our two hours was almost up and we had to quickly make our way back down. This seemed even more dificult than climbing up. My feet were so sore that I had to wear my flip flops, but every time I stretched my leg down for the next rocky ledge, it would fall off my foot. Kat actually lost one of hers at one point, it fell down between two rocks and it was a bit of a mission to get it back. We were a bit late meeting our guide, but all was well and we headed off to our next destination.
After about twenty minutes we arrived at 'Po Nagar Cham Towers', they were built in the seventh Century, and actually took five century's to make. The Danish guy told us that they were originally built for Hindu worship, but now used for Mahayana Buddhists. The grounds had been used from as far back as the second century. Originally there were eight towers, covering 500 meters squared, but now only for or the towers were remaining along with the last bits of ten pillars leading up the staircase to the towers.
Thee place was swarming with local Vietnamese worshipers burning incense, praying and giving offerings to the gods. I tried to go inside one of the towers but my lungs immediately filled with smoke, and I fell out of this quiet place of worship coughing and spluttering.
We were right in the center of Nha Trang by this point so our guide offered to take us to meet his 'friends', who lived along the Mekong River, under the main bridge that leads into the city. I believe they called the fishing village next to it 'Dam'. I couldn't believe that people actually lived under this bridge, they had a whole community, all their beds made up, makeshift kitchens, even a little area with tables, where they served drinks to passing fishermen. Our guide insisted that these people simply trying to get on with their daily lives were his friends and told us that "They love it when I bring people down here", I didn't quite believe him though, because not one of them even acknowledged him and I didn't see anyone smiling at us either. It was rather awkward, but before to long he got the hint and we all moved on, passed all the fisherman and more fish drying in the dun (this time with chillies sprinkled on them too), back to our car.
The final stop of the day was 'Long Son Pagoda', it was very impressive, you can see it up high from pretty much all over the city. Half way up, behind the colourful pagoda, decorated with dragons, we marveled at the huge 'White Reclining Buddha', we also had the opportunity to actually sit inside a huge bell as it was struck, it was a very strange experience, it was loud but sort of dim too, inside the bell were prayers and Vietnameese writings.
Once we had climbed up the 152 large stone steps (with legs still in pain from this morning) we could look down on the whole of Nha Trang. Up here was another Buddha, this one was 30 feet high, sitting on a lotus pedestal. This huge Buddha is the one that I definitely recognise from my guide book most typical of the postcards you see around of Nha Trang. Behind this Buddha there was an entrance whereby you could actually go inside the Buddha to pray. Behind was a memorial site dedicated to the Buddhist monks who died protesting against the US supported Diem regime. On the way down I bought a nice cold fresh coconut to drink then we all headed back to the travel agents.
We all felt exhausted, but that we had had a very good day. It was nice because the trip was personally tailored to us, basically we had looked on the internet and in our guide book and along with a little of his advice we went exactly where we wanted. We literally paid about twenty quid for the hire of our guide, a car and its driver for the day. It was definitely an action packed day!
That evening we enjoyed a delicious meal at the Cyclo cafe, the decor was beautiful. We then went for a few drinks then headed off to bed.
14th August - Mud Baths and hot springs.
Today we had planned to go and visit a museum where Lewi Pasteur had one worked, to be shown how they still produce vaccines today, and then go and visit one of the local markets, but lethargy and aching legs got the most of us so we instead decided to set off to spend the day at 'Thap Ba Hot Spring Center'. I was so glad that we did.
The place was quite far out, but when we got there it was beautiful. Quite literally in the middle of nowhere. WE got changed into our bikinis and got shown to our own tub (it was about the size of a four man jacuzzi). we took a seat then the tub slowly got fulled with warm sloppy mud. It was almost green in colour and it actually smelt of weed. As the tub filled up to our necks it was so hard to stop yourself from slipping and sliding about. Once your hands were covered you could no longer wipe your mouth or mud that splashed into your eyes. We just lay there squirming about in the mud. All of a sudden a photographer came along and persuaded us to use some coconut shells to poor the mud over our faces for a picture. Of course we did, it was pretty fun actually. After about 20 minutes of soaking, and massaging each other in this mud that was supposed to be rich in sodium , silicate carbonate and other micro-elements that were supposed to be good for our skin and stimulate nerves etc, we got out looking and feeling like swamp monsters.
We were then to sit and 'dry' in the sun. I couldn't stop laughing, the other two looked ridiculous, absolutely COVERED from head to toe, (as I am sure I did too). Next we all took a fresh water shower to remove all the dead skin cells, then we plunged into some 40 degree salty mineral pools. It smelt really funny, apparently the minerals were from 100 meters deep and were meant to deposit all these special elements into our open pores and anti-stress us. It did feel good, but was bloody hot, our whole bodies were bright pink and it actually discoloured all of my silver jewelry within seconds :(
The next stage was 'High Pressure Jets', where we walked through a little passage way with water blasting through giving us a water massage. Once this was over it was time to move onto the swimming pools and waterfalls. It was pretty strange as the swimming pool was actually a fresh water pool and was 38 degrees, needless to say I didn't do much swimming. After a couple of hours we decided that we better go, we got dressed and left smelling of salt and weed and headed back into Nha Trang.
We collected our backpacks from our hostel and went out for some food, I had the most delicious bowl of pasta with mixed seafood in a creamy basil sauce. It was the best meal I had had in ages. We then boarded our bus bound for 'Hoi An'. It was actually a local bus, and was filled with Vietnamese people. The first half of the bus was filled with boxes of hideous statues, so we all had to quash up near the back. It was very hot back there, and I could see that I wasn't going to get much sleep. It was a horrible journey. Thankfully I could open my window to get a little air, but it was still very hot and I kept having to peel my body from the sticky, sweaty plastic seat. There was a family of Vietnamese people who were playing music from their mobiles really loudly. It was dark so I couldn't look out of the windows and all of the lights on the bus were switched off so I couldn't even read my book. Every time we tried to dose off a loud honk would wake us up or a Vietnamese foot would come poking through the gap in my seat.
After we stopped off at a very grim rest stop, apparently one man decided that he didn't want mosquitos getting in and that we had to close all the windows, All the Vietnamese obayed, but when he came to my seat. I tried to explain that I was too hot. He was having none of it and leant over me and closed my window. With that my already hot blood began to boil. I pulled the window open again, the he slammed it closed. This went on for a few minutes before he started hitting my arms. Then scratched me with his long nails. With this I was livid, yelling from the top of my lugs for him to 'get away from me' and I must admit a few swear words popped out. My scratch was actually bleading, but before long he went back to his seat and the bus set off. To be honest I should have just done what he said. You never know how crazy these people can be and I could have got chucked off the bus in the middle of nowhere. I just think he couldn't understand how hot us westerners get. I hope he got bitten by a lot of mosquitos.
- Posted by emily1183 on 08/09/2007.
- emily1183's site
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