Henrik and I went to the train Station to catch a train to our next stop, Nha Trang! We got hard sleepers because all the soft sleepers were booked out for the time we wanted. The cabin was small with 3 bunks on each side (6 in one room). We got the lowest bunks-they're more expensive but more convenient. The cabin smelled kinda bad-in a over powering cleaning solution kind of way. and I was afriad of getting lice from the pillow. But, for adventure sake, I sucked it up and lay down for the night (after covering the bed with my extra mickey mouse blanket). The toilet was nasty as expected, one for squatting, one for sitting.....at least they had toilet paper! Good thing I chose to go the the bathroom back in Ho Chi Minh and drank minimally after that. Everything went ok for awhile until I woke up sensing someone sitting at the end of my bed. Figuring it was Henrik, I looked up and had a fright when it was a man from one of the bunks above!!!! I was thinking WTH as I looked over and saw Henrik reading on his bed, who gave me a little nod like he knew and he was watching.....ok.........so I couldn't get back to sleep for awhile when finally the man climbed back to his bunk. 5 minutes later, a woman from one of the bunks above sat at the end of my bed. WTH....I wonder if its a common thing....I'd say its more like a creepy thing.

Day 4

W finally get off the train and took a cab to a hotel we read about in the Lonely Planet Guide, Hotel Phu Quy. We were shown some rooms by one of the receptionists and were too tired to look around more and settled. The room was a little bigger than at Ho Chi Minh, but the bachroom smaller. I was bought by the pretty rooftop terrace of the hotel! And about USD$20 a night again.

This location was our "chill out" relaxing section of our trip, so we decided on spending the day at the beach! It was only a block away (about 5minute walk) from our hotel!

We had a little breakfast at this random cafe across the street from the beach. The waitresses were dressed as sailors and were helpful, but a little confused. The food was actually not that great, but I found it rather amusing when Henrik's cheese omelette come as an omelette and litterally a slice of cold sandwhich cheese on the top of it. HAH! Good thing I stuck with simple bacon and eggs! Poor baby's coffee didn't even work properly!

The beach sand was crazy hot! It was hard to walk barefooted and the white man was covered with about 3 layers of sunblock. We started off just lying on the sand getting some sun when every 2 minutes someone would come over and ask us to buy something. Its amazing all the useless crap you can get, like nail clippers, all sorts of snacks, pirated snacks, drinks, painting, sunglasses, medicne, fans etc etc. After like the 100th person, we were getting REALLY irritated. Not only were they bothering our reading and relaxing, most of the conversations went like this:

seller: "You buy something?" *shows their merchandise*
us: "No thanks, we don't want any"
seller: "But whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy???"
us: "no reason, we just don't want anything"
seller: " But its so cheap! You buy something?".....continues to beg and pester

There was even a guy who asked if he should come back later and we were like yea ok whatever thinking he wouldnt remember or even be able to find us but he did!!


Later, we moved to a shade (we paid extra for but was worth it!) with lounge chairs. The view was amazing, we got our tans and even took a couple dips in the cold refreshing water! We could watch people parasail nearby. For lunch we had freh fruit from a walking vendor wich was sweet and delicious! We also got a massage on the beach!-It can't get anymore relaxing than that! And Finally I got a manicure and pedicure on the beach by some very nice Vietnamese women. As the sun began to set, many more locals came to enjoy the beach. They had picnics of ginormous lobsters and such.....I wonder if they knew how much they could sell those for!! yumm!!!

For dinner we decided to get a burger! Baby was craving like a pregnant woman for something western and I couldn't agree more. It was at a small "Texan" burger outlet with cowboys on the walls. The burgers were surprisingly big and delicious! Plus had my favorite little umbrella decorations poked in. haha (ok I have to admit I was still a tad hungry afterwards so we shared a bowl of Pho later =x)

For dessert and drinks, we went to a little backpackers bar that looked happening from the outside. We had Ice cream and pancake! yummm but the happenings ended shortly when the police came and started checking out the back and the music was lowered. Its times like this I wish I knew the Vietnamese language.

Day 5

We woke up in the morning for a quick breakfast and were picked up by a bus to our booked Mama Linh boat trip! We were driven to a dock and boarded a cute little boat. As we drove out, the surrounding islands looked gorgeous! The sea was calm and the sun was up. At our first two islands, we went scuba diving! There wasn't much to see as the coral looked like they were dying due to abuse. However, the cool blue water was great to be in as it was a relief from the ever scorching, humid weather.

When we got back on the boat, lunch was being served. The seats in the middle had been converted to tables-very much like a futon. We filled up on noodles, springrolls, soup, shrimp and other local dishes with fruit to follow.


Follwing lunch, while the passengers were digesting, the boat crew put on a show for us! They took out this drunk set made of empty barrels and buckets, had a guitarist and a singer. They picked guys from the crowd (who were obviously tourists) and asked them which country they were from and sang a song from that country. It was so funny! lol The words to the songs were barely legible covered with a thick Vietnamese accent, but the tunes were familiar to most as the songs were classic to their native countries. We had such an entertaining, funny, loud crew! Loved it!!

After their performance we had a floating bar! As we jumped into the water, floating tubes were thrown to us so we could sit/float. We were then served the cheapest, most horrible tasting, local made (or possibly boat made!....one will never know) wine- though the guys still managed to drink all available bottles- and fresh pineapple slices. Though the wine was undrinkable, I stil throughly enjoyed myself! Good people, Good times!!!


The next stop was a pretty island (that we had to pay extra entry fees for >=/) with a few different activities we could do, such as jet skiing or parasailing-for a price of course. But we chose to chill out under a staw cabana instead with a couple of guys from our boat.


The last stop was at an aquarium! It was small with local tropical fish and I absolutely loved the sea turtles!! Though not like the many big, fancy aquariums we're used to, this one was very creatively built like a pirate ship and the basment styled like an underwater cave!

In the evening, after our fun but tiring trip (baby also a little sickly with a cold) we relaxed at the Hotel's rooftop terrace. The view of the ocean at night, plus the fresh air felt so peaceful. We could even order dinner up...though I felt bad for our waiter who had to run up and down the 4/5 floors of the hotel lol. We had noodles and delicious butter shrimp!


Day 6

We woke up for breakfast at the rooftop terrace for our last day in Nha Trang! We couldn't get enough of that place as it was usually desserted. It seemed like the other hotel guests didn't know or didn't care so much for it. hehehe

We rented a motorcycle from the hotel to ride a litle further out of the city to see the sights! The roads were pretty easy to navigate, but then thinking about it-I'd probably not have gotten anywhere without my map reading baby!

Our first stop for the day was the temple Po Nagar. Founded somtime before 781 A.D, the temple is dedicated to Yan Po Nagar, Goddess of the country. The individual rooms/temples were built on top of a hill. It was pretty tiring to climb, but the view was totally worth it! The rooms had a strict dresscode of long sleeves and leg covering apparel. I suppose the Vietnamese people had forseen unknowing tourists to come with lesser clothes than required as they had some monks robes we could borrow. The insides of the rooms were totally hazy from incense smoke but each statue inside were intricately decorated.

After we finished exploring the temple, we rode our bike for about 20 minutes to a spa! Our package included a mud bath, a hot springs bath and useage of the pools and waterfall. The mud bath was increibly fun. It was the first time for the both me and Henrik! The mud was totally grey/brown but didn't smell like anything. At first the mud looked a little questionable, but after we got in we really ejoyed it! Plus, when we came out, our skin was as soft and smooth as a baby's bottom!

The hot springs bath tub was so cute! It was shaped like a heart! However, the water was absolutey crazy hot! We found ourselves sitting on the edge of the tub with our feet hanging in after every 5 minutes of sitting in the water. Whoever can take that boiling water probably has skin of steel!!!


Hoping for a little relief from the scalding water, we hopped into the pool! No such luck there as the water was at 35 degrees farenheit!!! So after finding the exit ladder, we took refuge in the muh cooler waterfall! ahhhhhhhh =D! We later found a much cooler pool and relaxing longue chairs.

Our last stop in Nha Trang before we had to catch a night bus to the next city, was the Long Son Pagoda. At th entrance still under renovation is a statue of Quảng Đức, a buddhist monk who burned himself to death in 1963 protesting the persecution of buddhists.


As we walk further into the temple's complex, there was a building which seemed like monks or at least people learning to be monks lived. Which was cute...it was like a little naked headed village by itself away from the rest of the world. Staight ahead was the big temple with the usual magnificant pictures and decorations of a buddhist temple.


Towards the right of the temple, there were 152 steps to a big buddha. On the way there was a concrete statue of a sleeping buddha. It was huge! almost as big as the one we saw in Penang! Surrounding it were kids trying to sell items. When they decided we weren't going to buy anything, a little boy signed to Henrik that I had nice boobs. Why thanks little boy!!!

Finally completing our 152 steps we got to the Big Buddha! Towering at 24 meters, the statue is visible to visitors who enter the city by train or the National Highway.

Before heading back to the Hotel to catch our bus, we decided to grab some lunch as we were starving! We spotted a little restaurant at the temple and decided it'd be a good, adventurous idea to eat there. We sat down, I quickly browsed the menu and told Henrik I'd like a beef Pho before I took off to the *restroom. When I returned I saw Henrik surrounded by 2 waiters, all three looking equally confused. He was acting like a cow-literally! "moo moo" and all to tell them what we wanted and they kept saying no!....Until I realised......ohhh myyy goddd we're in a buddhist temple and buddhists are vegetarian!!! And those who aren't, don't eat beef! LOL!!! So, with a good laugh from all of us, confusion cleared, we ordered interesting looking vegetraian dishes from the menu. Henrik had some sort of vegetable stirfry and I had some sort of stuffed bittergord in claypot. Mine looked delicious, but didn't taste so delicious (in my opinion cuz for some reason Henrik liked it) though I liked the spicy gravy.


We headed back to get our bags from the hotel as the sun started to set. What an interesting day! *happies*


*Ohhh myyy Goddd the restroom was absolutely disgusting. There was water flooded about an inch deep, a thick trail of ants all along the wall and only gross squat toilets!! I had to tiptoe my way around trying not to touch anything, wash my hands and make a quick getaway!

**Note: Though we had a wonderful time at Nha Trang, there were some incidents we were not quite happy about.

Our hotel, reccomended by Lonely Planet Guidebook was pushy and demanding. Though not a bad place to stay, we expected some refuge from the pushy sales people at the beach-only to return to a place that seemed ready to push us over the edge. They begged us to go on their boat trip though we had already told them we booked our Mama Linh boat trip reccomended by our friend and got, "But whyyyy? We hab boat trip too! Ours betta!". Followed by begging us to take a motorcycle tour after we told them we wanted to go by ourselves. Also pushing the hotel restaurant (which we actually ate at one night and one morning). Finally, constantly demanding to know where we're going next, how we're getting there and wanting to book our entire trip's transport for us. It even got to a point where Henrik had to take out our plane tickets out to prove we already had transport booked. I think its ok and helpful for a hotel to ask if you need help booking a trip or transport but its downright irritating for them to beg and demand and try to manipulate. If I had a choice I wouldn't ever go back there, I'd try a different hotel. I strongly suggest Lonely Planet update and redo their Vietnamese book as their descriptions and prices weren't anywhere close to accurate on a lot of things due to crazy inflation in the country. (Though I must say its still a good book to have in terms of places to go, things to see, what special foods to try)