Nha Trang

I woke about 7am on Saturday but since I wasn't meeting the others until 11am I chilled in my room. Not writing my blog, obviously as I am still behind with this, but I am up to date with my photos on FB. I met Denise and Carrie at the Han Van hotel, it has an amazing roof top terrace with views inland to the mountains and out to sea. I started with a coffee but didn't feel like breakfast, we moved onto the Oz Bar as Justin was meeting a guy there about renting a scooter.Denise wants to rent one as well, but the guy Alan only has one available at the moment and it's not an automatic. After this was all sorted out we went to the local supermarket which was good for me as I needed a few things. We dropped the shopping off in town and left Marjorie behind as the rest of us went to Binh's house. Binh is a local businessman who had invited Justin and Carrie out to his house for dinner, the rest of us were tagging along. The house is amazing but that is not the first thing you see as you approach it. It's across the Cai river and out of the central part of town. It sits next to a granite cliff with boulder outcrops. This cliff has been sculpted and is now terraced, they've even built a couple of waterfalls on it. Binh and his family took us on a tour of it. The view is beautiful and because you are up so high you feel totally removed from the city. An amazing place, then there's the house. It has a Frank Lloyd Wright art deco feel to it. The colour scheme is mainly white with lots of glass. The interior has a running water pool that goes under the exterior wall and continues to an outside pond.
The dining table was set up outside the front of the house and as it began to get dark we began to eat and drink. I am almost ashamed to say this, but outside of my breakfast baguettes this is my first traditional,non-restaurant Vietnamese food on this trip. No complaints but where you eat really does depend on who you are with. The last time I was in Vietnam I was with Betsy and we stayed with Lai, so we ate a lot of street food. Now I am staying in a tourist area so I am eating at restaurants in that area, i.e. no street food. Anyway the food was great, the main course was a goat hotpot, very,very good. We had to wait a while for our taxi to come so we eventually left after 9pm having arrived at 4pm. It had been an amazing evening. I am so lucky.
We met earlier the next morning than we had on Saturday. Despite not having to work to a schedule I am finding that I am usually awake around 7am. Denise,Cal and I had coffee together at our usual street coffee stand. I can't remember the last time I drank so much coffee, probably on my last visit here. The three of us than chilled in Denise and Cals room, I was reading a magazine and looked up, the two of them were asleep. I left them a note and went to the beach for some sun. We had dinner together at Guava, an expat bar. They make fantastic Bellinis according to Denise, so of course I had to try one. And one turned to two. I stopped there as they are more expensive than the beer, although the Guava Bar is generally more expensive than other restaurants in the area. And when I say more expensive, it's all relative. The Bellinis cost £1.25 but when you can buy a beer for 25p, well you can lose perspective on what things cost. You think "I could buy five beers for this one cocktail". And forget comparing the local prices with beer prices back home, there is no comparison. I spent all of Monday at the beach as well, although I am now a little disappointed with the Sailing Club. You rent a sun lounger from them and they rope off their area of the beach and post signs saying no hawkers. This was not the case today, I don't know if the security guard wasn't on duty but I was disturbed a few times. However I guess if that's all I've got to worry about, then... it was another beautiful day and I am loving having such easy access to a beautiful beach. I had dinner with Denise and Cal, once again at Guava Bar. No Bellinis this time.
I decided to give my skin a rest day from sunbathing and went sight seeing. I rented a bicycle from my hotel and went to see the Cham Towers. The kingdom of Champa was an Indianised kingdom that ruled parts of central Vietnam for over fourteen centuries. Scattered along the coast is remnants of their religious sites. On the Nha Trang site it's thought that there were originally ten towers on this site, now only four remain. I think the towers throw up more questions then they answer. While they give a good idea of what and how the Champa worshipped, from what I saw they provide no other information. Now that may be because there is no English language information there or simply because the towers are still in use today as places of worship and so aren't seen as museum pieces by the local people. After wandering around the towers I took my book and sat and read for a while. From my spot the city,river and coast were all laid out before me. Not a bad way to spend a couple of hours.
Before I had left my hotel I had checked Google maps on how to get to the hot springs as they weren't on my guide book map so I cycled off in that direction. It wasn't too bad as Binh had said that the springs were just another 400m from his house and I was confident that I remembered how to get there.. What I wasn't confident about was the road conditions and the traffic. The road turned out to be a gravel track in some parts and I was so afraid that I would come off my bike and at best scrape my leg and at worst lose some teeth. Then of course there are the scooters to deal with, they come at you from all directions and you do need eyes in the back of your head. The mind set seems to be just to go the way you want to regardless of what else is on the road. Any number of times when I've been crossing the road I walk across and think that the scooter coming towards me will go behind me, but they will have decided to go in front of me and regardless of anything that's where they are going to go. You just have to jump out of the way. Anyway I made it safely to the hot springs and a lovely lady explained my options to me. I opted for the collective bath, she made it quite clear that I would be sharing the bath. I said that was fine and could even do it naked if required, it wasn't. I rented a towel and track outfit to bathe in, I didn't want to get my bikinis covered in mud. All the signs there are in Vietnamese and English so I just followed them to the baths.
In a Japanese Onsen the baths are constantly filled and you bathe before you get in them to soak. Here the baths are kept empty and only filled when someone gets in. One of the workers filled up a bath for me and I began my mud soak. I was eventually joined by a Vietnamese family, both the mother and father took turns to pour water over me and the son translated for the three of us. The mother told me that she liked my white skin, I said I wanted her brown skin. She also told me that I looked 27 and was beautiful, this was balm to my soul after being shouted at in the street the other day and called fat. OK, yes I am fat but it's not seen as an insult here in Vietnam, it's just a comment, but still... All four of us then moved onto the hot water bath, I couldn't get in at first, it was so hot. Then my Ninja Onsen training came back to me and I sat down in it, my new friends were suitably impressed!! Next was a corridor with high pressure water shooting out from the walls, I loved this and if they had given me a chair, been there all day. If that wasn't enough to make you tingle than the hot waterfall would. I sat here for a while, I've been having shoulder trouble and I hoped a bit of pummelling might help ease it. I finished off my visit with a swim in the hot spring pool and a soak in the jacuzzi. Not bad for £4. I had such a relaxing afternoon and it's amazing the hot water makes you forget about the outside heat, so much so you don't even sweat.
So much for being relaxed, the cycle ride back to the hotel was a bit fraught. First I was cycling in the middle of a storm, second there was the gravel track to negotiate and thirdly the crazy traffic when I did make it back to the main road. I enjoyed the ride back, the feeling of being in imminent danger makes you feel alive and I know I was cycling with this huge smile on my face. I was passing a parked lorry when I almost got pushed over by a couple on a scooter, so I bumped them back but smiled as I did it and we got into conversation. All of the guys friends thought it very funny. I'm definitely going to be a road user at some point of my stay here, it might even be as a scooter rider. I picked up my laundry and got back to my hotel just as the heavens opened. I have to buy an umbrella as well. I had dinner with Cal and Denise at an Italian restaurant and then I went to the Bia Hoi place. It's where the local fresh brewed beer is sold for 15p a pint. I had tried twice before to come here but both times it had been closed. I say place, it's not a bar. In this case it's the ground floor space of a house with a few plastic tables and chairs. I had a couple of pints and called it a night. The physical exercise had been very welcome and did me the power of good. I will seriously consider buying a bicycle in Phan Thiet as opposed to a scooter.