Nha Trang

I just realized, the last three days I had the wrong journal date...I've just fixed it up.

As much as I complain about horns, I actually do appreciate the trucks and cars and other motorcycles honking from behind when I'm on a bike! Also, the intersections are scary trying to navigate on a bicycle, because there are no stop signs or anything, people just drive through from all directions, honking their horns. The biggest vehicle always has the right of way.

Anyway, last night, the bus picked us up about 6:30, and we stopped at other hotels, and eventually the bus filled up. Everyone's bags were piled high in the aisle of the bus. At any toilet breaks, everyone had to climb over all the bags. It was quite humorous.

About 11:30, the bus stopped at a restaurant for about 30 minutes.

I didn't sleep much on the bus, I think I finally dozed off for an hour at about 5:00AM. The road between Hoi An and Nha Trang is absolutely terrible, way worse than ANY road in Laos. The whole road system between the two was under construction.

We got to Nha Trang about 7:30AM, and the bus stopped at Chi Tranh hotel. $6US/night, so Court and I took it. Ok room, but nothing special, and the hot water shower tap doesn't work, which is ok, it's so flipping hot, it doesn't matter, and the cold shower isn't actually cold, it's a very nice cool. We slept until about noon. Then we walked down to the beach, quite nice, but not as nice as the beach in Hoi An. It's actually quite dirty, lots of litter and refuse and pieces of vegetation on the shore and in the water. Parts of the beach are cleaned up, so their ok. You do see all kinds of strange things floating in the water, like plastic bags, pieces of fruit, branches, straws, chunks of styrofoam, and lots of other stuff. And there's hardly anyone on the beach.

We had lunch, walked back to the hotel, got changed into swim gear and went to the beach about 2:30. The water is quite warm, much warmer than Hoi An.

We ran into Esmerelda and made arrangements to meet at 7:00 at the Sailing Club bar, apparently it's the place to be. We left the beach about 4:00.

We started walking to Shorty's bar/restaurant about 5:30 (got a flyer for them on the beach). Along the way, met another couple that was on the bus at another restaurant. He was drinking 800mL buckets of alcohol for 30,000 dong ($3CDN). When we got to Shorty's, they had 1 litre buckets of booze for only 25,000 dong! So I got one. They also have happy hour specials, two drinks for only 10,000 dong ($1CDN), that's what Court got. I also had the most excellent double hamburger since leaving Canada. Yum. This restaurant (Shorty's) is run by a white guy, from Australia, I believe.

At 7:00, we went to the Sailing Club to see if Esmerelda was there, she wasn't, so we went back to the hotel so Court could change clothes, and watched MTV until about 8:30, then walked back to Shorty's, and had a couple of more drinks, and Court ordered some food. As we were sitting there, Esmerelda was walking across the street, so Court went and got her, and she sat down with us, then the three of us went to the the Sailing Club about 10:30. Lots of people, very big, open-air bar on the beach. The night flew by. They sell small bottles of water for 10,000 dong! EXPENSIVE!!!! You can get a large bottle of water for 5000dong at most stores! At 2:00AM, the music stopped, and I hadn't seen Court in a long time, and I couldn't find her, so I started walking back to the hotel. On the way back to the hotel, a Vietnamese woman (in her 20's), drove her motorcycle up onto the sidewalk, jumped off, and starting running at me, grabbed my hand, and was trying to get me to with her to a hotel, telling me she wants to have sex with me. I kept resisting, saying no thanks, finally I got away. In the meantime, three girls from Britain had just got dropped off by a cycle driver, and they saw this, and were teasing me a little bit. Then they told me that they were lost, their cyclo driver screwed them around, just took them into a big circle. They wanted to know where the Sailing Club was, and I pointed about a block down. That's where they were originally, and they were trying to get back to their hotel. I pointed them in the general direction of where they said they were trying to go (I kinda remember it from Lonely Planet), and I was going the same direction, so walked with them for a couple of blocks, then made my turn off. When I got back to the hotel, it was all locked and caged up, so I rang the buzzer, and a guy sleeping in the lobby opened up the cage and door and let me in, asked me what room I was in, I told him, he then dialed the room number, and handed me the phone, and Court answered, and I told her I was coming up, and went up. Dunno what the deal with that was.

Avril Lavigne has the number two song on MTVAsia's Hit List, with "I'm With You".