Nha Trang

Once we finally managed to get to our room, Nha Trang became a haven of all luxuries a median London salary can buy. For $60 a night, we booked ourselves into the 4-star Michelia Hotel located on the quiet end of the busy strip that was Nha Trang's nightlife.  This suited us fine; besides drunk Russians, the tourist centre gravitated around strip clubs and bars pumping out loud rave music late into the night.  

Besides not ordering room service, we spent a lot of the late afternoons reclining in air-conditioning and enjoying our sideways sea view.  Michelia really spoiled our ability to book a hotel in Europe ever again.

That aside, we also had a wonderful base for exploring the 'reality' of Nha Trang.  For us, this meant wandering away from the centre and instead Northwest into markets, sipping Pho at street vendors where Paul had his first encounter with a giant rat and sitting on quieter strips of beach.  That was fabulous.  People were kind and either smiled or ignored us.  We found a restaurant on a random residential road that served us a tabletop BBQ grill made of stone.  We cooked our squid and prawns on our table and left $8 lighter.  

We also discovered Nha Trang's Catholic Cathedral, a cinderblock wonder with delightfully Asian touches.  Notably, the LED backlit crucifix at the altar, above the statue of Mary, etc: 

We got into a bit of trouble trying to backtrack to the beach, mostly that we had no idea where we were and signs like this were only modestly helpful: 

 

 When we eventually found the strip of sand that was the beach, it was admittedly beautiful. Unlike Hoi An though, this beach ran along a busy thoroughfare of a road and touts wandered in and out of beach chairs selling their wares.  My particular favourite was this woman, whom I dubbed 'Lobster Lady':

 She carried a gigantic stick balancing, on one side, a pot of prawns, squid and lobsters on ice and on the other side, a charcoal grill well-fired and ready to cook.

 The process was remarkable.  I was only sad that we'd just eaten breakfast so I wasn't able to partake in Lobster on the beach.

 Besides that, I wasn't charmed by anything the tourist centre had to offer.  Food was relatively expensive and mediocre compared to other places on the rest of our trip and the setting felt altogether too brash.  There were charms to be found but we had to go digging.  With only two weeks in Vietnam, it's not exactly what we wanted.

One temporary reprieve--we found the Thap Ba Hot Springs, a resort-like venue north of Nha Trang that, for a nominal fee (can't remember at the moment, sorry) dipped you in hot spring mud, laid you out like a pig in stink and then massaged all your woes away.  Entry also included access to the geothermal swimming pools, waterfall and hot tubs.  Definitely worth a visit:

 

Alas, after three days of relaxing and beach hopping, we learned from past mistakes and booked ourselves onto a flight from Nha Trang to Ho Chi Minh.  This included a rather decadent transfer where our hotel concierge accompanied us to the airport, took our luggage and checked us into our flight.  All part of the service!