When I arrived in Nha Trang I was buggered, I had no sleep spent way to much time travelling over the past two days, and felt wrecked. I had to pretty much get straight on a boat that told me of all the delights that were around Nha Trang, pristine waters, Vietnamese lunch, wonderful beaches yada yada yada.
It probably did not help that I was really very tired but I did not have the best time on the boat, it was good to have a swim and look at a few fish but it wasn’t all that. The food was ok, but it was pretty limited. The usual tourist story of this is the best thing since the invention of Scotch so you can’t miss it. The amazing coral and fish was not really there, the huge lunch was huge but nothing that i really wanted to eat, and at every stop to do anything you had to pay. They dropped us off at an amazing beach where you had to pay to get on, pay to sit down, pay for everything. The only thing that was free was the amazing rocky beach that reminded me of Niece. It was a good day though, and they did entertain us with a make shift rock band performance. That night I went out to get some dinner and a few drinks but then went to bed pretty early which was good.
Day 27
A few of us decided to get some motor bikes and to have a look around, it was a great idea and soon found the freedom that i craved. I managed to get a great deal about $3 per day for 5 days as I thought i would ride to Dalat and around the area. Well after a brief visit to the Po Nagar Cham Towers, a 2nd century Pagoda, we decided to ride to Ba Ho Falls which were meant to be pretty good. It was about 20km north of town and from the group I was the only one who had ridden a motorbike before. It is not hard and the others picked it up pretty quickly, we were even going on dodgy dirt roads for about 5kms, so they did really well.
To get there proved to be a bit of an effort driving past the unmarked turn off about three times. The directions were the start of my beef with Lonely planet maps and directions. I think Nick Ray author of the Lonely Planet Vietnam just asked some local in a Cafe rather than going to most of the places. The waterfalls were nice but not what i was expecting. It was more like an extended rocky drop with no real big waterfall. We had a swim which was good and very refreshing as it was one of the hottest days that I had experienced.
The ride back was good and I decided to stop at a market on the outskirts of town to get some food and a hat. It was a good market not many westerners so it was cheap and fun. When i was buying the hat, one lady wanted me to get one of hers but none fitted so she said don’t pay more than 20,000($1.30) at the next stall, so they looked after me! I bought two hats and some food, then almost had my first accident on a bike. When i was starting the automatic started was not working so I had to kick start the bike. It was in gear (normally not a problem for the auto start) and i gave it a little bit of throttle, so when it kicked in I took off just missing a stall, and one screaming Vietnamese lady. Quite funny for me not for her :(.
That night I went out to the sailing club and met some Irish guys who were awesome at pool, they would clean the table in two shots, and had a good night so it was great.
August 12th 2007
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Motorbike Nha Trang Vietnam
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