Nha Trang, Vietnam

Arrival: 02/11/09 7:00pm

Departure: 02/14/09 7:00pm

Sight Seeing: Beach, market

People: Friendly

Food: Delicious, great seafood

Accommodations: Song Linh Hotel ($10 per night)

Pictures: Pictures of Vietnam

Summary: Nha Trang is a wonderful combination of city and beach without that many tourists. You can layout on the beach, grub on some super cheap seafood, or shop around the city. There are also a ton of islands to check out.

Details: We arrived after dark so we immediately took a motorbike (yes, at one point I cursed these buzzing bikes, but they are so much fun and way too cheap to pass up) to our hotel. Shortly thereafter we found ourselves in a Vietnamese restaurant eating fried tofu and rice with a tasty cold beer. After the long bus ride and dinner we decided to call it an early night.

The following morning, I checked our the market, which was just as uneventful as all the previous markets we have visited. No more markets for me. Adam and I ended up getting a killer seafood dinner with prawns, red snapper, and veggies all for a reasonable price.

The next day Adam worked and I relaxed on the beach. That night we had more seafood in the form of a hot pot which is basically a where the server cooks your food on a burner they place on your table. It was better than I thought it would be. Traveler tip: always have low expectations and you're sure to be pleasantly surprised, most of the time that is. That was another early night.

After laying out on the beach and getting a mile sun burn, or a base coat depending on how you look at it, we checked out of our hotel and stood on the street corner contemplating how we were going to kill seven hours until our bus to Hoi An arrived. With perfect timing, our motorbike driver, Quy Nguyen, came strolling along. After several failed attempts at trying to get us to go somewhere, he finally convinced us to go have a beer with him. Now this was not just any beer. It's called Beer Hoi and just a few street vendors sell it for 7,000 dong ($0.50) for one liter. AWESOME!!! Adam and I kicked ourselves for not knowing about this beer earlier. Eight liters of beer later, Quy and his buddies were reading our palms, telling our future, and teaching us how to say Happy New Year in Vietnamese (Choc Mung Nam Moi). It turned out to be the perfect way to kill some time. We ended up going on a walk around the town later, where my sturdy flip flops gave out and I had to go back to the market for another pair of sandals (which turned out to be horrible). After grubbing on some so-called indian food we made it back to our hotel where the bus to Hoi An picked us up. We arrived in Hoi An eleven hours later. Whew!