Our first adventure in Vietnam began when we almost missed our train in the morning. We thought the train was leaving at 650AM, so we thought arriving around 630 would be a good idea. When we arrived we walked up to the ticket counter and asked for a ticket. The lady looked up at us and asked ‘When?’, I replied ‘Now’, not realizing the train was actually leaving at 625AM and it was 626AM. She looked confused then panicked, called someone, sold us the tickets quickly and told us to run to the gate/tracks. We did and the door was already locked. The lady summoned her friend to open it and we found ourselves running to our train car and making it inside just in the nick of time. Nha Trang here we come! :P
Trains in Vietnam are ok and comparable to Indian trains. Some compartments are better and some worse than Indian trains. For instance, the coach chair car we had from Jaipur to Agra in Northern India was very nice. The seats were comfy, they fed us and the compartment was quite nice (as nice as any first class compartment on a Polish train!). This same train car in Vietnam was quite dilapidated, but still provided the same function and got us to Nha Trang on time. In contrast (as we learned on later train rides), the sleeper berths are nicer, more comfortable, and more private on Vietnamese trains. So it really depends on each section. Also, the food they sell on Vietnamese trains is better (in my opinion)—but that’s probably only because I prefer Vietnamese food to Indian!
Nha Trang is a beach resort about 7hrs train ride north of Ho Chi Minh City. It seemed like a logical first stopping point on our way up North towards Hanoi. We got there comfortably at 130pm and decided to walk to our hotel from the train station. Bad idea. It was only about a 1km walk, but it felt so bad in the intense humidity. I was drenched in sweat by the time we arrived. Not a pleasant walk at all and I told myself a repeat of that is unnecessary. We found a cheap hotel in the center of Nha Trang, a 5 minute walk from the beach. It was $16/night! We have found ourselves using more hotels than hostels in Vietnam and before in India, only because it often comes out cheaper for us. In hostels, you are paying for each person staying there, so $10/person becomes equivalent to a $20 hotel room in our case. And, often, the hotel provides a free breakfast too. So we have slowly transitioned to staying more in hotels due to this. However, we learned in India that staying at a ‘better’ hotel wasn’t necessarily worth it….since they often didn’t have reliable wifi or hot water either! In contrast, Vietnam has no problems with these issues and is very tourist friendly—sometimes too tourist friendly!
Nha Trang is a good example of Vietnam being too tourist friendly. It is a typical beach resort town catering only to tourists- both Vietnamese and abroad. It is the Miami beach equivalent of Vietnam. The beach is nice and there are plenty of decent places to eat. It is definitely an easy and convenient vacation spot. One thing that was both entertaining and annoying was how much it catered to Russian tourism---yes, yes, they are both Socialist countries after all, and Russia did give help ‘socialize’ Vietnam, which did unify the country (hence, the Vietnamese can be quite proud of this socialism). On every restaurant/hotel/business establishment in Nha Trang you have things written in Vietnamese, and then directly below the Vietnamese it is written in Russian. It is hilarious. On every corner there are Russians, and sitting next to you at every restaurant are Russians. It was this surreal tropical country of Russians—which sounds like a predicament—tropical and Russia?! Anyways, it got old very fast as it felt like a baby Russia. However, it was cheap, and the hotel we stayed at was good. We rented a motorbike from them almost every day we were there for about $5/day and they even let us leave our stuff there when we headed up the coast for a few days (more on this later). Also, there is a decent amount of things to do in and around Nha Trang.
The first thing we decided to do was to put our Open Water Diver Certifications into good use by doing an afternoon of scuba diving. It cost $45 for 2 dives, half day on the boat, and lunch. Well worth the cheap price! The visibility was great and there is lots of marine life to explore around Nha Trang—it is the best dive spot in Vietnam. We also took a drive to see Ba Ho Falls which were ok. It was more of a cascade and stream as we came to find out, but it was a nice, lush, secluded area we came to find. It was easy to spend an afternoon there surrounded by nature. The greenery and tropical feel of it really reminded us of Costa Rica. We ate good and cheap food, and just generally relaxed for a few days.
We hadn’t yet planned out our next step from Nha Trang, but Tom left the decision up to me since my birthday was coming up a few days later. I didn’t know what would be the best idea, but I knew I didn’t want to travel on my birthday. I also decided I wanted to do NOTHING for my birthday. As in, be lazy and seriously do NOTHING (rare for me)! The idea we came up with turned out to be a fantastic random decision. In our ‘Rough Guide to Vietnam’ book (borrowed from Julia and Bart—thank you!) we read about this secluded Jungle Beach Resort about 60km north of Nha Trang. It was a difficult spot to get to but it boasted a secluded beach, simple beach bungalows, prepared meals, and spectacular surroundings i.e. a PERFECT place to do nothing and relax. We couldn’t find the place on hotels.com or hostelworld so we sent the owner an email. He didn’t respond to us so we gave him a call. We did get a hold of him and he told us about this place, including how far it was from Nha Trang. It was not the easiest accommodation we have arranged, but boy was it WORTH IT! After planning things out, we decided to rent a motorbike from our hotel in Nha Trang for 3 days (a whopping $15!) in order to drive to the resort ourselves (a plausible suggestion the owner made and ofcourse Tom was all about the motorbike again!). We knew it was a long drive but we thought we would take it slowly and make our way up to the place. The plan was to stay there for 2 nights, come back to Nha Trang after my birthday to drop off the motorbike, pick up our big backpack from the hotel (which allowed us to leave it there for the 3 days for free) and catch our afternoon train to Da Nang.
Off we go…..
