Dalama Adventures Tale of two corporate types ditching their jobs and traveling the world for 14 months... check out all photos, blogs & interesting tid bits at http://www.dalama.net

We arrive Nha Trang mid-morning. Stepping off the bus, we could be in any major ocean resort town in the US. Big hotels and tall skinny mini-hotels line the streets. Beach huts, palapalas neatly line the beach front. Every third shop is a scuba diving shop, and speed boats cruise down the shoreline, floating dangling para-gliders in the sky behind them. Public cement badminton courts are in full swing along the boardwalk, and the competitors are exerting far too much energy for this kind of heat and humidity. An amusement park reels at the end of the boardwalk and a gondola in the distance shuttles people from mainland to island. For the most part, this scene could be Ocean City, NJ; Mission Beach, CA, or Miami, FA... but another closer look, we're definitely in Asia. Local Vietnamese line up on the sea wall, drying their fresh catch of the day (squid). Ladies are heating up black coals in portable cookers, ready to prepare mobile meals for passer-byers. Men wash their motorbikes in the sea, shining up the rims, which will probably rust soon from the salty water. Ladies in pajamas, gloves and rice hats carrying bamboo baskets of fruit cruise up and down the beach. Girls touting home made jewelry, manicures and massage peck away at the beach tourists like annoying chickens.

Nha Trang is probably the most developed, commercial beach resorts in Vietnam. Surprisingly the water is emerald green and crystal clear, despite all the boats, ski-doo's and other pollutants in the water. There's supposed to be some good diving around some of the local islands, however, with the visibility only around 5M, and the mere fact that all the dive boats and snorkeling/booze cruises all descend upon the same few sites, we've opted to pass on the diving and save up for diving the Red Sea in Egypt. That said, we've decided to take a couple of days to relax and enjoy the high activity beach life here.