Nha Trang on the Hudson

Well the day time train ride from Danang to Nha Trang was interesting to say the least. First the train was delayed for an hour and then another hour. I was entertained by a young Vietnamese man who wanted to learn English. 

Richie photobombing my train station English lesson.

This wasn't the first time we had been approached by young people keen to practise their English, but this one had his grammar book with him. Bless! So despite my hangover from the Dalat wine, (back to the AFD for me) I chatted to him for about an hour, while we waited for our train.

We boarded the train, and our first guests were a pleasant brother and sister from Hue. However, they alighted a couple of stations later and then we were joined by a woman with her son. 

This is the day train but the airconditioning was so cold, Richie decided to rug up!

She proceeded to take over my bunk, by sitting extremely close to me when she wanted to eat, so she could access the table - I let her for a while - then did a snatch back and pushed her onto the opposite bunk. Her next delightful act was to let her son piss in an empty water bottle - which she then threw on the floor - yeww - pure class!

Next, we were joined by a father and rather cute young, chubby daughter. They seemed quite civilised, until said daughter decided to play her crappy music, on her phone, out loud at full bore - cue more teeth grinding from me. 

Danang train station

The cabin next to ours was full of upcountry Vietnamese, who ate like wild animals - when the lunch arrived all you could hear was slurping, munching and slapping of greasy lips - more yewwww! I imagined the guard stepping into the carriage and disappearing and a few gnawed bones being thrown out....

Maybe I'm getting too finicky in my old age - or I only like other people at a distance - quite a long distance in this case. Thank god for ear phones and Spotify!


Anyway we rolled into Nha Trang about 9.30 pm, the weather was delightful, and jumped a cab to our hotel, the Hanoi Golden 4. 

Another pretty decent Vietnamese hotel, just across the road from the beach. Nha Trang has turned out to be a really pleasant surprise. Yes it's full of Russians, Russian food, Russian karaoke and yes most of the menus and signs are written in Russian. However, Nha Trang has really developed into a fantastic holiday place and I think we can thank the Russians for that.

Nha Trang Beach 

There are huge beach beds to be rented for $3 a day, massage for $10 an hour and people serving all sorts of food and drink on the beach. Great water sports available,  including a weird new water jet powered thing called Fly boarding. 

Is that Iron Man on Nha Trang Beach?

The beach set up is very European but still spacious. We were only staying for three nights but extended it to a week. The Russians, whilst not exactly friendly are perfectly acceptable to the Ajayi's!

Another delicious Vietnamese salad - green papaya, shrimp & pork

Again, eating some great Vietnamese food. We went to a lovely restaurant called Yens (trip advisor to the rescue again). It had rave reviews and the staff were really friendly. We ordered Vietnamese curry and the waiter said "no, it's not good here"  us: "Sorry", the waiter: "no, it's not good here, whenever people order it, they always leave it and say it's not good". Well you can't argue with that kind of honesty can you! So we never tried the Vietnamese curry - I think it might be very different to Indian or Thai curry and it's not what people expect - but then again I'll never know now, will I?

все его России для меня во всяком случае and to you to! 

 Perestroika, glasnost, Gorbachev, 

Slobodan Milosovich, da!

Also had a good Russian meal. We aren't familiar with Russian grub so thought we'd give it a go. It was okay, lots of great pork dishes. Evening was good fun - had a really great Russian singer (who looked like Nana Mouskouri and could sing in about 5 languages, bloody show off!) and lots of jolly, fat, middle aged Russians getting jiggy with it - one of those evenings when you could have been anywhere!

If you're under 40, you'll have no idea......

So we generally spent our time either laying on the beach, being massaged or eating (I must own up to doing quite a bit of work in the mornings). We started skipping breakfast as well - had to cut out a few meals somewhere !

Art museum, Nha Trang Beach

So it's our last night in Nha Trang tonight - has to be a Fred Mcmurray - off to Omars Tandoori. Just spending a lazy Saturday afternoon at the Sailing Club, watching the world go by. We're catching a bus to Dalat tomorrow - it's picking us up at 7am - we're hoping it's a big bus and not another one for people with the 12" legs!

Omars comin', Omars comin'

After our 7 days in Nha Trang, we've decided it might be the new Lombok for us -  maybe? We'd need to come off season, but it's got a great beach, cheap massage, great restaurants - what more could you want. We could either go down market again - down our Russian end of the beach or go up market at the Sheraton or Novotel, a bit further along the beach.

Dosvidaniya Nha Trang - I think we'll meet again !

My Beloved,  just because I can