Vietnam Part III - Nha Trang and Ho Chi Minh City

Pictures from Nha Trang and some from Ho Chi Minh City can be found from my picasa album!

Nha Trang

We arrived to the hotel at 6 am with the open bus. Found an affordable accommodation right away, only 6 USD per night. We booked the rooms and jumped back to bed to rest till 9 am, after which we enjoyed a breakfast on the roof terrace with beautiful view opening over the Nha Trang beach and city. After the breakfast we wandered couple of kilometers by the shore.

Nha Trangs is actually the most famous seaside resort-town in Vietnam. It is more lively and urbar in character than other beach destinations like Phu Quoc and Mui Ne, also serving as a scuba diving center of Vietnam. One cannot wander the street noticing that it has reached its current state due to Russian tourism, which can be seen everywhere as everything is translated also in Russian.

Located on a small hill at the mouth of the Cai river at Nha Trang, we found the temple of Po Nagar. It is said to be named after the goddess of local origin who is said to have created the earth, eaglewood and rice. The temple was built and rebuilt in 7th-12th centuries during the Hindu period of Champa and thus the images of the goddess takes the form of Uma, wife of Siva.

The temple is nowadays used by Vietnamese people and they have dressed the goddess in Buddhist robes. There is speculations of comparison between this temple and the towers of Lolei, near the Angkor Wat in Cambodia, which were built at the end of the 8th century.

Next place we visited was the Long Son Pagoda, which is the home of the giant seated Buddha, and it is the oldest Buddhist pagoda in town. The pagoda was established in 1963 and built on the site of the first pagoda in Nha Trang to honor the monks and nuns who died demonstrating against the Diem government. The famous giant seated Buddha is 79 ft. tall and has a shrine inside.

While walking back to the hotel we stumbled upon the Nha Trang Main Cathedral. The construction was started by the archbishop Louis Valet who had the top of the mountain blown off with 500 mines to obtain flat surface of 4,500 square meters. The cathedral was finally completed after 7 years of construction in 1935. The cathedral still holds its majestic beauty and its unique architecture.

When we arrived back to the hotel the girls met this older random Russian guy who was just arrived to the Vietnam and was completely lost. We continued to our room, but awhile later they all stumbled upon our door to ask us to join. Long story short, we ended up sharing a bottle of vodka with Igor on the roof sharing some stories. Apparently he had spent 20 years roaming the sea as a ichthyologist, and also that almost all of his cousins live in near Turku. The guy didn't speak any English so the girls worked a bit as a translators. It was a really weird evening and a night.

The next morning started with a walk around the close by quarters while enjoying some street food. We then separated to groups of boys and girls. I ended up resting a while before going to gym for one hour and thirty minutes followed by a solid thirty minutes of stretching.

Later, as a one group again, we enjoyed a nice dinner with some crocodile meat on the side. Others said that it was a bit more chicken like but for me it was a bit more white fish meat like than chicken - same same but different.

Also after the dinner my 1 year 11 months unplanned Movember ended. After the dinner we went to barbershop to cut my hair, and around 20 minutes later I had become 5 years younger. I love my new old hairstyle, how's that cutie in the picture? The whole thing was filmed and archived.

After the dinner we went actually to order a movie night on a local cinema like theater. The cinema had room for almost 20 people and you were allowed to book what you wanted to watch, we ended up choosing the Daybreakers. I could classify it as a B-grade vampire action strip with some idea in it, IMDB gives quite surprising 6.1 out of 10. In the end it was a entertaining movie enough but not that much to say or to add. We had the whole theater for ourselves which was nice. To note, it wasn't actually like a proper theater, it was more like a living room private cinema.

For the next day we had booked a 4 island boat tour. The boat got backed up with around 30 to 40 people ranging in age, sex and nationality, mainly some older Chinese and American people in our situation. First stop was an aquarium island, which we had to pay 50 000 dong (1.5 USD) more to see it. Was a bit of a ripoff though, it was even smaller aquarium than the one in Särkänniemi back in Tampere, but I still enjoyed it with all the sharks and weird coral fishes etc. they had.

Second stop was close by the Monkey island. There was a possibility for swimming, jumping off from the boat roof and lots of different expensive water sports. They also offered a change for scuba diving for the price of 25 USD, luckily snorkeling was free, but as a misfortune, the past night was so stormy that it had made the seabed unclear. I didn't feel like swimming although the sun was shining, ended up just blazing myself in the sun.

Third stop was close to the Bamboo island, we actually anchored ourselves next to a floating fishing village where you were able to buy some food to be cooked for you. The lobster felt really pricey, a one huge over a kilo in weight lobster cost 120 USD and the animals were left to rest in peace. After that the backs of the benches were turned down and they formed a big table. The lunch was offered, it was amazing, the food so vast and vary accompanied with fruits later. After the dinner was cleared it was time for a party, the "boat nr. 4 trip" crew had their own boy band and so they started to play music. We also tried some sea urchin.

Everyone from any different culture had something to sing, I had to sing "Jaakko kulta herää jo..." song. My Russian friends song the communist song that goes in Finnish something like this "Sirppi ja vasara ne taivahalla loistaa", but as a young girls they were, they didn't recognize the song. And we are quite unsure if the band was actually singing it in Finnish. It took me quite awhile to understand the "Jaakko kulta" song too from their pronunciation. My Spanish friend started with the Macarena song, which he didn't know at all. He actually guessed that song is going to be for him. The song was followed by a party song that got all the people dancing on the table. After that we heard or rather saw quite a good version of Spanish national anthem. And also other people from all the different cultures or countries song something; some French, Canadian, American, Chinese and Vietnamese to say at least.

Performances were followed by a open bar floating party in the water, so if you wanted to join you just had to jump in. The crew throw always some liferings "pelastusrengas" in to the water for everyone to float with while drinking the local port wine that was offered for the brave ones. And of course, what else, I was one of the first ones to jump into the water - styling the entrance with a back flip from the roof of the boat followed by applause. After a while of floating and drinking we started to do more jumping with my Spanish friend.

The last stop was on Moon island. It was a beach island, not a resort and you had to bay 20 000 dong (1 USD) entrance fee. The weather was rainy so the beach didn't tempt that much but we entered to the beach and started to play some cards. Just before leaving the island we got a grasp of sun to put a smile back on our faces. While going back to the shore the sky fell loose and water was pouring like never before, okay, I admit, a bit of execration.

In all together we enjoyed the boat trip, thank you crew of the boat nr. 4!

After the trip I stumbled upon some reviews about these 4 island tours on Internet. Most of them described our tour really precisely in details, except that on those tours the reviewer didn't enjoy, what a pity to them. But I guess it is always the group and the friends who makes the atmosphere. We had also already heard about these boat trips from other backpackers the girls met in Hoi An and they told the boat trip to be the most fun thing on their Nha Trang visit.

After the trip we chilled awhile and confirmed our open bus tickets to Ho Chi Minh on the following day. We went to book something for the last day too but in the end decided to skip ostrich and elephant as well as expensive water park rides. After that we divided, the girls wanted to party and I wanted to see a movie with my Spanish friend. We chose to see Peter Jacksons movie District 9. The movie was entertaining but not quite what we expected. It could have been a bit better if would have understood the aliens speaking to each other because the alien language of the Prawns was only translated in Vietnamese. Luckily we were still able to follow arch of drama in the movie. The movie has surprisingly high 8.1/10 in IMDB.

Last morning in Nha Trang also my Spanish friends birthday started with a good two hours session exercising at the gym followed by some stretching. When leaving from the gym and walking across the street to buy some fruits for breakfast from a street stall, the saleslady popped up a question, where are you from? Followed by a statement, you are so handsome. Made my morning and got a smile on my face. The rest of the day was spent relaxing in the hotel lounge and diner before the open bus company picked us up at 7.30 pm towards Ho Chi Minh.

Ho Chi Minh City

Ho Chi Minh, formerly Saigon, is the biggest city in Vietnam in terms of residents and population density. The capital of Vietnam, the Hanoi is still bigger in terms of ground coverage. Some say that Ho Chi Minh and Megong Delta has nothing to offer except views of reality of the harsh local life in Vietnam. They are not favored by tourist or backpackers that much.

We arrived to Ho Chi Minh early in the morning, around 6 am. We had scheduled to meet with our Danish exchange student friend at the Ben Than market at 7 am. One thing to remember from Ho Chi Minh was that in the morning the park was filled with people exercising, walking, running, stretching and playing badminton. Close to the big roundabout in front of the Ben Than market main entrance we reunited with Frederik and turned our heads towards a bus station, more precisely just a street to get a bus ride to Cambodia, more precisely to the capital Phnom Penh.