The Long & Winding Road

We left Dalat on Wednesday for Nha Trang and it was one of the most beautiful drives I've ever been on.  Nha Trang is the most popular baech in Vietnam and we were hoping for some sunshine after the cold weather up in the mountains.  We were only planning on staying for 3 days but we've been having so much fun here that tonight will be our 5th night here.  On wednesday night we went out for some drinks and ended up staying out pretty late.  My first mistake of the night was using the ATM and bringing all the money out with me instead of leaving most at the hotel whichI usually do.  My second mistake was not realizing I was being pickpocketed on our way home as we were surrounded by a motorbike gang made up of ladyboys, ladies and boys.  The bastards took my wallet out of my pocket, stole the 1.7 million Dong which is about $115 CDN and returned the empty wallet, thankfully, which had my credit card inside.  I didn't even realize what had happened until we got back to the hotel.  I was so pissed off that I was tupid enough to carry that much money on me but at least they put my wallet back in my pocket after robbing me.  The next day we walked around town to check outthe city.  Went to a really cool photo gallery of a local photographer who had some serious talent.  All black and white photos of Vietnam and the local people here.  After that we checked out a pagoda which kinda sucked other than one of the hugest Buddha statues I've ever seen.  It was pretty impressive.  The next day we just hung out at the beach because it was a really nice day and we just wanted to relax.  Crazy big waves though that were just crushing us.  That night we went out and were surrounded again by a gang and the ladyboy/trannie that robbed me 2 days before was with them.  I pushed him off his motorbike then kicked out the back tire of the bike as he tried to drive away looking pretty scared of the big westerner coming at him.  We threw some rocks at the gang as they drove away and then headed back to the hotel.  When I get to the hotel, don't I realize that my wallet is empty and I've been robbed again.  I couldn't fuckin believe it!  This time it was only like 10 bucks so I didn't really care but I admitted they were really true professionals and knew the fine art of pickpocketing very well.  Yesterday we went on a boat cruise to some of the surrounding islands which was really fun.  We went to an aquarium first which was ok.  After that we posted up to jump off the top deck of the boat and do some snorkling.  Had a great seafood lunch which was all you can eat and then the boat leader dude went out in the water in a floating bar and he served us red wine and pineapple while we floated in buoys.  The wine was pretty bad but it was fun drinking in the sea.  The funniest part of the whole trip was this elderly French couple on the boat that just looked absolutely pissed right off that they were a part of this booze filled party in the sea.  They didn't even participate in any of the activities the whole day and just sat there with grumpy faces.  We thought they were going to just lose it and tell everyone to stop having fun.  After the floating bar it was karaoke time but the catch was that they picked the songs and the singers.  They had a guy on the drums which were made out of garbage cans, buckets and a ragged cymbol.  Another guy with Buddy Holly glasses rocking their selected setlist on the guitar and they trip leader was singing.  It was so funny.  They asked me where I was from, I told them Canada, so they dragged me up on stage to sing Yellow Submarine.  No idea what the connection between The Beatles and Canada are but that was song I was selected to sing so I rocked it out as best as I could after a day full of beer and wine!  Everyone else got a song connected with their home country.  I guess they didn't know Oh Canada!  The whole trip was one of the funniest days of my life.  Another really weird thing that happened yesterday was after we went out for a couple drinks we ended up walking through the big town square area to find a very strange sight.  It was really late, like probably 4:30am and the whole place was filled with people just stretching and doing squats and lunges on all the park benches.  We were pretty drunk so we obviously joined in.  Then we see a group of people surrounding a big tarp with a Buddhist shrine and incense burning.  But there was also tonnes of snacks, dumplings and fruit on the tarp.  They invite us to have some food so we start eating dumplings with our new group of friends of Buddhists that meet at 5am to exercise, pray and eat Choco-Pies and tangerines together.  Have to say I had no idea what the hell was going on and why all these people were up that early.  It was definitely one of the weirdest moments of my life.  Then all of sudden the street lamps go out and everyone in the group other than me and Matt are gone within 2 minutes.  So weird!  Got home at like 6:30am wondering what the hell we just were a part of.  Today we just slept in till around 1pm and hit the beach again for a tough day of swimming and frisbee.  God I love having no job, best feeling ever if you have cash in the bank but no work schedule.