A short flight from Danang and a rainy 40 minute taxi ride along a 30km stretch of beautifully wild, undeveloped beach. There are hoardings here to suggest that some mega-resorts are going to be built and, on the opposite side of the road, some shacks have already been pulled down and are being replaced by rows of 2-storey brick buildings. We pass several cemeteries, where the bodies are encased in brick and concrete tombs and at one, we see that several of the tombs are smashed open but no bodies are inside. We’re not sure if the damage was caused by a particularly strong typhoon or something more sinister…
As we pull up to the our hotel in Nha Trang Bay….a flood, right outside our hotel!! It’s the only stretch of the whole street that’s under any water – just our luck! But the Golden Hotel provides us with a huge room with two double and one single bed, a sea view and it’s bang on budget, so it’s not all bad.
Nha Trang is the perfect spot to arrange diving at one of the 71 outlying islands and this was our original plan. Unfortunately, the diving season ended two weeks ago and visibility is currently too bad for snorkelling to even be viable. From the beach, we can see a couple of these islands, including one with a huge Hollywood-style lettering in the hills saying VINPEARL. Truly a blot on the landscape.
There’s quite a European feel to this place with beautifully manicured gardens and children’s playgrounds set directly behind the beach and before long, we find the equally European Sailing Club where we settle back for sunset drinks. Ruby and Harley are playing at the waters edge when some particularly wild waves come crashing down, taking Harley with them. Before we can reach him, Ruby’s turned into Pamela Anderson (without the plastic surgery) and pulled him up and out by the back of his shirt. This must have (finally) given her an appetite as she devours 18 pieces of tuna sashimi like a woman possessed.
Next day, we’re heading over to the harbour to charter a boat and notice a cable car stretching across the sea, out to one of the islands, so we make for that instead. Only as I’m buying 4 tickets do I see that there’s an option to buy a package to include “all attractions”. It seems the cable car will take us over to the afore-mentioned Vinpearl, where the Vietnamese equivalent of Disneyland awaits. Unfinished and unsafe it’s a bit of a tacky affair owned by Sofitel (who owned the gorgeous beachfront hotel we stayed at in Bali earlier this year), the normally classy French hotel group. I don’t know whose idea it was to be associated with this venture, but I will forever now associate them with tack. Still, the kids had a great time and are now itching to get to Hong Kong where they will visit the real Disneyland.
Chartering a boat the next day, we get Captain Pugwash to take us on an island-hop. First stop is a fish farm on Hon Mieu which also boasts an aquarium. Housed in a huge concrete boat, I’m hoping Johnny Depp might be aboard but I have to make do with the cast of Finding Nemo instead. Next stop Tam Island for a spot of swimming and lunch. Will orders up some fresh crab for lunch and at £1.50 for 3, I think I might be curbing his extravagant taste. Ole Pugwash beckons us back onto the boat where he’s got a couple of totty sitting with him and tries to convince us it’s time to head back to port. We’re more convinced that he wants to turn into Seaman Stains, so Will puts his foot down and insists he take us to the nearby fishing village, as planned. This proves to be the highlight of the day as we hop onto a raft, pulled into shore by rope and watch the comings and goings of the fishermen in their gaily-painted boats. They’re moving from shore to boat via round, bamboo coracles, one of which we see destroyed by the local machete-wielding coconut picker who has failed to properly secure the rope used to drop them gently to the ground and instead they drop from 30 feet onto the boat and ruin some poor fisherman’s week. Not sure he’ll take a coconut as compensation.
Our evening foray takes us to a seafood restaurant called Truc Linh 3, where, not only is every single waitress in the place fawning over Harley, but Will is fawning over the selection of live seafood. Only Harley asking Will if he could go to see where someone’s chosen lobster was going (to the kitchen to be murdered) deterred him from choosing the same and he made do with a pile of prawns, each one as big as your hand.
There’s a photo gallery some way out of town where the owner Long Thanh (if he was Thai, would he be called Love You Long Thanh?) displays his black and white pictures of rural Vietnamese life for which he’s won several awards. He is a lovely man, easy to talk to and his equally lovely wife sits the kids down with a plate of fresh pomegranate so we can have a good look around. I particularly like the picture of a young boy running over the backs of wallowing water buffalos, whilst Harley appreciates the slightly more obvious qualities of the bare-breasted hill tribe women.
The kids are worried about missing out on Halloween and I fortuitously stumble across a bar (unfortunate turn of phrase there) hosting a Halloween party that night. I manage to beg, borrow and steal some black bin-liners and a broom and before you can say Blue Peter, Will and I have whipped up a rather fabulous outfit for each of them, turning them into a witch and her cat, for which, at the party, we’re rewarded with a free shot of something alcoholic and yummy.
We change our plans to head west overland to Dalat, home to the country’s vineyards and decide to continue south in our seemingly never-ending quest to find the sun. After the laidback, European feel here, we’re wondering how we’re going to cope with the onslaught of Ho Chi Minh City. But there’s only one way to find out….
No comments:
Post a Comment