Beaches & the Easter Bunny April 2 - 5

We arrived to Nha Trang by overnight bus at about 7:00 am. It looked like something was going on, many of the streets were closed and there were people everywhere. We got booked into the Nice Hotel and Karen and I headed back out to check out the goings on. Turns out it was the 35th Anniversary of the “Liberation” of Nha Trang (the end of the American Vietnam War in Nha Trang). There was a massive parade with many different military groups, school groups and groups from many of the big businesses in town. Afterwards, there was a dragon dance in the main square by the opera house. It was interesting to see the celebration and it gave Karen and I a chance to meet a few locals. Later that night, there was a huge fireworks display by the opera house as well. Loads of people were out that night at the beach and hanging out in town.

The beaches in Nha Trang are very pretty and the water is wonderful. On days we weren’t doing other things, we could be found at the beach.

We celebrated Easter in Nha Trang. The Easter Bunny did manage to find Tim, but not everything he left was as good as what he leaves at home. Not a lot of searching either. We started the morning with a snorkeling trip out to a few islands. It was nice snorkeling, although I managed to kill the water proof camera (turns out it was semi water proof). We saw a number of fish and the coral was pretty good. The tour ended with lunch in town and Karen and I talked with a lovely German couple and their son for a few hours. In the evening, we made our first big splurge of the Asia portion of our trip and walked to the Novotel to have dinner at their buffet. We hadn’t eaten much in the way of Western food and definitely not this quantity. We had leg of lamb, sushi, salmon, three kinds of cheese, seafood from the grill, numerous deserts, including several chocolate sundaes. Great dinner, but we were all food drunk the rest of the evening.

Our last day in Nha Trang, we took in a bit of the local flare. We played pool for several hours at a local pool hall. The locals loved Tim and enjoyed talking to him while we were playing. That evening, we found a fantastic local restaurant and ate dinner and played cards for three hours.

Overall, Nha Trang was a good stop. For me, it was nice to see the changes since 1997. When I visited at that time, the town was very seedy and a bit dangerous. If you went to the beach you might see ten people and no locals. Now the beaches are filled with locals, they have built parks all along the beach and it is very safe. Quite the turn around.

~Jeff~

We had the experience of riding bicycles through rush hour traffic which really means that the streets are full of cars, motorbikes, bicycles and people going in all directions. Really crazy but once you have been in the traffic it really does just flow and you go with it, of course yielding when necessary.