THURSDAY
On Thurs we had a day in the local markets, which we had not yet ventured to. They were much nicer than some of the others we’ve been to, and we only once got the dreaded ‘market smell’. Seeing all the local fruits, vegetables and spices is wonderful. The warm smelly meat, left out on tables and covered with flies, was no so great. I rather expect that is what we have been eating since we got arrived. Must have stomaches of steel.
I bought a pair of sunglasses and bartered the seller down to 70 dang and promptly gave him 700 dang by mistake and left happily thinking I’d got a bargain. We went for some lunch in a little cafe – some delicious local soup – and about 2 hours later it dawned on me what I’d done. I had, inadvertently, just paid about £30 quid for my sunglasses. We went back to the market to beg for my money back and lo and behold, my money was just handed back for a small fee of about a $1. How refreshing!
FRIDAY
We left Hoi An at 11.40am for Nha Trang, which was about 10 hours south by train. So far we have done Vinh, Danang, China beach, Hoi An and now Nha Trang. Lizzie and Gill decided they would rather be in the seated carriage, which is considerably cheaper. Donna and I were still quite sleepy and so opted for an aircon sleeping carriage.
It is understandable, but quite tiring how the locals assume that because you are western, you are rich, which I suppose in comparison to them, we are, but in reality and relatively speaking, we are not. They are constantly finding ways to swindle you. They see white skin and automatically associate it with money. If you ask how much anything is, the price is doubled. Even the lady behind the counter in the train station swindled us on our train fare. You can’t really argue, because most of the time you’re unaware until after the event. It is understandable, £2 is a lot to them in comparison to us but getting ripped off by nearly every person you buy from, every day, soon adds up and makes you disheartened and weary.
Donna and I settled in our train carriage and made our beds with the sheets, pillows and duvets provided. We shared with one other traveller, a local man of about 40. He was very quiet and didn’t really speak english – with the exception of hi and bye. He spent most of the time out in the corridor. I don’t think he felt comfortable sharing with 2 young western girls.
The train provided us with food: an assortment of rice, a thin soup with leaves in it, pork with green beans and some beef in a kind of juice. I was so starving that I even attempted the rice. The first time I’d had rice since trekking.
There are 4 types of class on the train: hard seat, soft seat, hard sleeper and soft sleeper with aircon. Most of the locals can’t afford to pay $13 for the soft seats, let alone the $20 dollar price for nicest aircon beds, so it is mainly westerners and ‘rich’ locals in the soft sleepers. The 10 hour journey flew by with gorgeous scenery to be seen out of the window.
We arrived in Nah Trang at about 10.30pm, checked in to a hostel called Blue Star and headed out for a snack before bed. We found somewhere called Shorty’s Place, run by an English guy. I had a jacket potato with cheese and beans! As you are all at home, eating whatever you like, day in, day out, you will have no understanding of the delight a jacket potato can create.
Pete and Victor, our trekking friends, were already in Nah Trang and had kindly booked us on a very traditionally Vietnamese booze cruise with them for the following day. You can take the girl out of England…
We set off at 9.30am in a rickety old, blue wooden boat. I had sent a local youth out on his moped earlier in the morning with my cash and the instruction to buy me a bottle of Malibu, for a small fee. The booze cruise was the standard affair; visiting a few islands, jumping in the sea, lunch and port (!?) provided. The weather was gorgeous and we started drinking quite early on, in hindsight, far too early.
After a few hours and copious alcohol, we thought it a good idea to jump off the boat. So Lizzie, Gill and I all held hands and leapt off the top together. The boat ‘crew’ threw us some rubber ring and we just floated about in the sea. A man with a ‘floating bar’ poured us glasses of wine and port to drink while bobbing about in the sea because that is how Vietnam rolls.
After this, I decided it would be a good idea to dive off the top of the boat to teach everyone how it’s done. Looking back, this was probably not the most sensible idea I have ever had. I had by this point consumed my entire bottle of Malibu. Nonetheless, it was actually a rather good dive.
Back on the boat a banquet of rice, noodles and foreign looking fruits and meats had been laid out for us. I was actually quite pissed and spent quite a lot of time in the bathroom being sick down a small hole, as there was no actual toilet, per se All the while being rocked about by the waves, not very pleasant.
The boat staff then set up a ‘band’ with home-made kitchen utensil instruments. Very Blue Peter! They played a selection of well-known songs and dragged people up to sing along. Lizzie, Donna and I got dragged up to sing Yellow Submarine. After a while, everyone let loose and started dancing all over the boat to renditions of the Lambada and the Twist!
A quick visit to a beach gave Lizzie the opportunity to jet ski with Einar and for Pete and I to go paragliding. Everyone was quite impressed with my turn around after spending the previous hour chucking up in the minting ‘bathroom’. After the beach, the boat took us inland to an aquarium in the shape of a pirate ship! It housed stone fish (one of the most poisonous fish in the world), turtles, sharks, little tropical fish, moray eels and other big stuff. The turtles and eels were most impressive, except for the dead turtle in the corner, which had turned yellow.
All in all, a thoroughly enjoyable day.
We are heading off to the southern capital Saigon soon and will be spending about 3-4 days there doing “CULTURE”.
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