Sunday, July 30, 2006

Nha Trang Day 1

The bus ride to Nha Trang was a long one! Buses aren't the most comfortable way of transportation for taller people. Though I'm not the tallest person in North America, I do tend to tower over most people here, who the buses are for. We caught the bus at 8:00 pm and arrived in Nha Trang at 6:00 am. With the cramped space, the honking and the bumps I was very happy to get about three hours of sleep.

The bus dropped us off infront of a mini-hotel and being quite tired we decided to check into their pricing. It was a little overpriced, but being tired we didn't give it too much thought. We even got free coffee with ice to help us make up our mind. But agreeing to a room turned out to be easier than actually getting one. More on that another time.

While at the hotel we were looking at what nearby sites we could visit and how to go about. We decided to check out a tour offered by a place called TM Brother. We were to see Monkey Island, Baho waterfalls, the Cham towers and Doclech beach.

Monkey Island was fun, and like the name suggests, full of monkeys.

At Baho falls we met up with some people who looked Vietnamese, but didn't seem to speak Vietnamese. We guessed they were from a hill tribe. We hiked with them to the falls and tried to communicate using hand signals, it was quite fun. While hiking I came across a snake, quite close to my leg. I didn't think it was poisonous and it wasn't doing anything but resting, so I took some pictures of it. When the hill tribes people passed it they tried to kill it at first, then they put it in a bottle and tried to tell us with hand gestures that they were going to make snake wine out of it, which was to make them strong.

Cham towers was a very beautiful. It's a ruins site that overlooks Nha Trang. When we finished taking pictures of the ruins, we spent some time looking out over the city. There we met a girl named "Vee" who was trying to learn English. She claimed she was 18 but she looked much younger than that. She also claimed she spoke five languages, all that she learned from toursits. If she could speak those five as well as she spoke English, it's quite impressive. She told us that every day she comes to this site to speak with foreigners in order to learn other languages and become a tour guide someday.

The best thing about these sites we saw was that we went to them on scooters. We were going to rent them and ride them ourselves, but instead rode on the back. Our drivers, Dee and Dang, were very friendly and excellent drivers. We rode through some nasty weather, at times it felt like we were swimming rather than riding. Dang was quite curious about Canada and said it was on his list to visit. I gave him a Calgary Outdoor Club card and invited him out to hike, should he ever come.

When we got back to our hotel we were to go out for some food, but Kheang passed out and I was out on the streets on my own. I looked for Vietnamese subs and tried to bargain for a good price. I walked around trying to get one for 18 cents (USD) rather than the 30 cents that they usually sell them to the tourists for. I was successful! It was a very good 18 cent sub!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Marko you cheap bugger!!! You better take care of "our people" or woo and I are gonna kick your ass when you get back...

Actually I predict that by the end of the trip you will be sick and tired of arguing for a dime or so worth of savings...

Ben