Parrot Fish & Free Booze
Nha Trang<, 26th
May 2002
The next day, the sun smiled and poked it's face out from the
clouds, so Gilad & I decided to hit the beach. Andy, with his pale
skin, decided not to join us, and instead set off for his own
explorations of Nha Trang.
When we got to the beach, we found that they had a big group of sun
loungers, under huge sun umbrellas, just like in Hoi An. We managed
to haggle the price down to 5000 Dong in Hoi An, so we tried to same
here, however, the guy refused to budge from 10,000. So, resolutely,
we lay on the beach, in the sun, near the umbrellas, hoping he'd
change his mind. But after about 15 minutes in the intense sun, WE
gave in and ended up paying for the shade. Oh well, it's only 50p.
Thirty minutes, the sun disappeared and it looked like it wasn't
going to return for the rest of the day, so we headed back to the
hotel.
After meeting up with Andy for lunch, I decided to check out the
nearby Cham Temples. However, as it was a 1 hour walk, the others
weren't interested.
On the way, I felt like I had a good chance to see real life for the
locals in this town. The walk took me away from the touristy places
and out to streets where I couldn't see any other foreigners. I
passed a lot of very fresh (still alive) fish stalls, with the
various sea creatures squirming around in small bowls. As Nha Trang
is on the coast, fresh sea food is a real part of this place. I also
noticed a pair of amazing, brightly coloured parrot fish in a small
red bowl (see, I learned something on my scuba-diving course in
Oz!). How people can eat these fantastic looking creatures I don't
know! What a waste of beauty!
When I reached the temple, I found I was the only foreign tourist
here, but the place was packed with Vietnamese tourists. (They only
paid 500 Dong to get in, but I had to pay 2000 Dong, but it's only
10p, so no worries). The temples were quite interesting to see, but
the ones at My Son (near Hoi An) were much better. I wonder if these
temple are of religious importance to the Vietnamese, of if they
were just visiting it like the English visit old monuments in their
own country.
After the one hour trek back, I spent an hour or so chilling in my
room writing postcards, then in the evening, we all decided to check
out the Rainbow club, a great seafront bar/club.
I won't go into too much detail, suffice to say it was a good night,
even if the place was a little empty. We met loads of people,
including expats, working travellers and other backpackers. Drink
flowed heavily throughout the night, and most of the evening passed
in a bit of a drunken blur. The free TVRs (tequila, vodka & redbulls)
didn't help too much! I do remember that at one point it started
raining suddenly, really heavily. And we did manage to get back,
somehow, without any troubles. Just the usual drunken lad
conversations!
One good thing about lots of alcohol, is that when you close your
eyes, and the world stops spinning, you fall fast asleep almost
immediately..
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