Channel Steve

Nha Trang, Feb 10-14

My first Tet was spent in Nha Trang, a modern coastal town about 450km north of Ho Chi Minh City. Contrary to popular opinion, Nha Trang was practically deserted. Well, compared to Lakes Entrance over the Australian New Year it was. Streets are wide and traffic is light. The beaches were white, spacious and quiet, although your rest is punctuated regularly by ladies selling seafood and fruit.  The water is warm and a beautiful green, but there is a quick drop from shallow to deep so you can’t venture out too far or engage in extended body surfing.

I spent four days here, staying in the three-star Hai Yen hotel – I don’t recommend it to you. The rooms are big and clean, but the staff are very lazy and unfriendly. Three days were spent on day trips. The first to see the surrounding area, the next on a typical (not very enjoyable) tourist boat affair, and the third to the modern and quite attractive Vinpearland.

Here are some of the notes I made whilst on holiday here.

Cute, fluffy & very edible ducks in open water farms are everywhere surrounding Nha Trang. In one large pond surrounded by lush green rice paddies, a lone chicken tentatively stepped through the shallows looking for stray seed.

A big surprise was seeing my first flock of Vietnamese sheep. They don’t look much different from Australian sheep. Over four days I saw one group being driven down the road and three other flocks in paddocks.  Nearby, cute black & white goats frolic around in the sun while majestic black water buffalo doze happily in their mud holes.

Sheep droving near Nha Trang

Grazing sheep on the way to Mui Ne

Just passed a cowhand amusing himself by leaping onto the backs of his grazing buffalo herd then lying down and whispering sweet nothings into the ear of a chosen one. I guess they’re really long days if you don’t find ways to keep you from severe boredom.

The countryside changes dramatically in short spaces as we fly by in our motorized can of human traffic. For short periods it’s as typically Vietnamese as the postcards lead you to believe, then the next kilometre brings stoops of gum trees behind an old outback shed. This could be Central Victoria. In fact, much of this trip showcased towns that brought back strong memories of Wedderburn in Central Victoria. The housing seems to be of the same vintage, materials and disarray, with only small hints of Vietnamese culture betraying where I am. In one particularly arid region I found myself searching for banksia, tea tree, emu and kangaroos a la Wyperfeld.
A little further on and I was in Ned Kelly country a la Benalla or the Bendigo region, complete with rocky hills and inaccessible bush. This inspired me to relate bushranger stories to my travel companion, all of them impossible to fully understand, I suspect.

Shack in lotus pond

Rocky hinterland a la central Victoria

Could quite easily be a Victorian farming shack

The roads are in a terrible state, and the “sleeper” in Sleeper Bus is an idea only. As I write I am in the bus from Nha Trang to Mui Ne, and it actually has decent suspension. I’m still being forced into many typing errors though. It also affects those responsible for line-marking.

Wobbly line-marking

Wobbly line-marking

The night bus from Saigon to Nha Trang took 12 hours and was a real bone rattler. Not surprisingly I actually had bruises in my hips and spine the next day. The reason for such a long time on the road is because there seems to be a convoy of trucks and buses stretching the entire 400-odd kilometres. No-one is willing to stay in their own lane, so a two-lane road is more often utilised as a four-lane, the result all too often being a bus accident. I awoke just before 6am to pass last night’s misadventure for one group.

Bus accident near Nha Trang

I’m having a run of bad coffee, some too bitter, too sweet, too milky, too weak, too small. The feeling I had on the Mekong last year – hot, sweet, life-saving pleasure in a cup is becoming a distant memory. I need to do some serious detective work when I get back because I know Vietnamese coffee is so much better than what I’ve been drinking lately.

Roasting coffee beans in Nha Trang

On to Nha Trang itself. It’s surprisingly similar to western seaside towns such as Lakes Entrance or something on the eastern Tasmanian coast. It seems to be a big tourist draw-card. The beach is pretty nice with a big drop causing short, big wave curls and I had some fun trying to body surf waves for all of 6 metres before being unceremoniously dumped onto the shore. I discovered through that process that my back seems to be fully restored to it’s original robustness. My face discovered the full power of the sun, though. After not needing sunscreen in all my Asian travels I got caught out by the sand and water reflections. Oh well. Another lesson re-learned.

Nha Trang foreshore

A visit to Nha Trang is not complete without taking the cable car to Vinpearl – a very professional and modern resort complete with water park, aquarium, amusement rides and man-made white sandy beach leading into crystalline waters. A long walk around the park didn’t lead me onto any of the water rides, so I still haven’t ever been on a waterslide, but the aquarium was a very pleasant surprise. Just the previous day I had to stomach the most pitiful excuse for an aquarium I’ve ever seen, so it was with great relief that this one turned out to be world class. The entire Vinpearl experience is distinctly non-Vietnamese, reeking quality planning, construction and a professional customer experience. I must look up who owns and built it.

Vinpearland from the cable car

Man-sculptured beach at Vinpearland

Vinpearland Waterpark

Maze of water slides

The Nha Trang hotel (Hai Yen) proudly advertises itself as 3 star, but the staff service allows it only a 2 in my mind. Such a bunch of unfriendly, unhelpful misery-guts employees I’ve not seen in Vietnam. I was allocated this hotel by the travel agent in Saigon, the spiel containing authentic concern that accomodation would be near impossible to find. Well, the last four days have been spent in a ghost town and the hotel, which looks to hold around 400 guests, would not have had 10% of that. I’ll be going back to Tripadvisor and bookings by email from now on.

New Year’s Eve itself was a total non-event thanks to a number of things, the main one being my exhaustion bringing early sleep, fully-clothed on top of the bed covers. I vaguely remember some heavy banging and what could have been explosions competing with many car and bike horns, but it could have been a dream. I’ve been dreaming quite a bit lately, so who knows?

Street decorations, Nha Trang

Happy New Year, Nha Trang

Lion dance in Nha Trang

On to the first two days of the New Year. How’s V Day going at home? Almost no sign of it here, thankfully. It always disappoints me when people get caught up in obvious retail exploitation. Show how you feel, when you feel like it, not when the local Chamber of Commerce agrees that you should. So my next two days will be commercialism-free, sunny, hot, sandy, surfy, luxurious and relaxing.

I’m told by more than one person that the Canary Resort in Mui Ne is classy, so I’m looking forward to relaxing there. The view out the window is looking distinctly familiar so I think we’re almost there. I’ll wind it up for now so I can take a few blurry, cloudy snapshots from a shaking, speeding bus.

Feb 15-16, Mui Ne

Reception will only accept smelly valuables.

Mui Ne - About 25 minutes remaining until sunset.

Always a stiff breeze at Mui Ne, so great for kites.

Having done enough work for the day the boys catch up during a dip.

Yep, them's cows.

There's no end to the unusual views in Vietnam.

Mui Ne sunset is a magnet for photographers

Mui Ne is a wonderful place at sunset.

It’s my second time in Mui Ne, and I can’t wait to go back.

Postscript

The entire set of Tet photos will be uploaded to Flickr some time in the next century. There’s some really nice images in there and I hope a few of you will still be alive by the time I get them online.

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Steve McGrath
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
rockportrait@gmail.com
www.channelsteve.com
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