The Gang do Nha Trang

We arrived in Nha Trang tired, agitated, and an hour too early. Ordinarily the expediency of travel between locations is an achievement to be lauded, but rocking up at before 5am in any city, at least those whose citizens operate under the broad principle of sleeping till sunrise, poses certain logistical challenges.

Attempting to pounce on the opportunistic circumstance of the city's bus drivers not yet even eating their morning slightly-warmed bread and us being in a brand new place and not knowing where we were, several taxi drivers immediately offered to take us to our hotel. I told them the name of the hotel and they nodded in a knowing 'we go there all the time' manner and quickly calculated that the price would be 100,000 Dong, each.

This was pre-daylight robbery. We'd taken taxis before and, whilst just over £3 a head would be a borderline bargain in the UK, here it was extortion. In unison so synchronised it seemed rehearsed we balked "fuck off", turned and walked off down the street. Better we walk some indeterminate distance in a direction that transpired to be opposite that we wanted to go than part with a tenner for a taxi; so sayeth our creed.

They then gave mild chase and offered us the same deal for half the quoted price, which was still expensive but just within the upper boundary of our creed's excess limit. We loaded up, climbed into the taxi and set off. At the first junction it became clear that the driver had no clue where we were going, shrouding their charging structure into even further mystery. I turned-on my Google Maps and directed us to the red pin.

There was no hotel apparent by the name we were looking for, Alibaba, but investigation once again of a nearby dark alley proved fruitful. The hotel was, much like the alley, the city and Anakin Skywalker's force alignment from halfway through III till the last ten minutes of VI, dark. We dropped our bags outside and generally loitered about for a bit. After about half an hour we decided to try the door and found it was open but that there was somebody asleep behind the desk, so I quickly dropped my bag inside and we left him to sleep. At around 5:50am there was activity which, I realised in retrospect, was likely because the alarm in my bag that was supposed to make sure we were awake for the time the sleeper bus was supposed to arrive was going off, as it was supposed to, and whilst I suppose I should have turned it off I hadn't supposed it really mattered.

We couldn't formally check-in till 2pm so we secured our bags against the vague side-wall of the hotel lobby and walked across town as the sun rose. We stopped for breakfast and they brought us each a glass of strange green liquid that tasted fowl. They'd go on to bring us this, without ordering, at nearly every establishment in Nha Trang. Must be some local specialty; never did find out what it was. It would pair nicely with Hué Royal Rice Cakes.

Still hungry and in need of a sugar-boost to counteract the onset exhaustion consequent from our sleep-free night, Woody and I popped into a bakery. Woody had a 'Monster Cake', a massive piece of colourful cake that tasted like cake with artificial colouring. I had a doughnut and an egg-custard, something they've managed to improve upon massively from the UK version by simply not putting cinnamon on it. Seriously, less can be more. Also no fruit-slices in coke. Or cherries on bakewells. Or onions in anything.

First stop on today's tour-by-Mark was Christ the King Cathedral, a cathedral. Unfortunately it was Sunday morning so full of worshippers and the sign outside advised sightseeing was forbidden on Sundays. But cathedrals are big, far bigger than the sign, so despite its best efforts we were still able to get pictures from afar.

We then visited a pagoda/temple. I usually jot down the names of these places when we're there but I was tired so I didn't and, unsurprisingly, googling "[ANY VIETNAMESE CITY] pagoda" reaps rather inconclusive results. There was a giant Buddha statue on a hill, which also doesn't do much to narrow things down, but there was a fantastic view of the city. There was also a giant sleeping Buddha statue, whom I was deeply envious of.

We next visited a place far simpler to identify on a Google image-search, Po Nagar; a series of Cham temple towers built between 8th and 11th centuries and looking similar to the Mỹ Sơn ruins only less bombed-by-the-Americans, so less ruined. I guess this comparison conveys little as I didn't really describe Mỹ Sơn that much, opting to butcher an iconic British poem that day instead, but there'll be a picture below. Or above, or to the side, I don't know how this publishes. Or on Google.

Our next stop was a cluster of rocks on a jutting outcrop next to a small portion of beach that somebody had had the enterprising idea to put a ticket-booth next to. It was a fair enough place to take coastal pictures, and we did, but if there was any significance beyond that I missed it. With the gentle sound of the lapping ocean and beautiful surroundings I attempted some meditatory mindfulness, but it was difficult to clear my mind amongst hordes of yammering foreign tourists, presumably also wondering and loudly debating what exactly they'd bought a ticket for.

And so came midday, the hottest part of the day in the hottest city we'd yet visited. To celebrate we decided to walk five kilometers down the coast with rapidly diminishing water supplies and no shade. I think it likely at least one of us died of dehydration and remains with us now only as a spectral apparition. Possibly me.

En route we stopped-off for a brief lunch, finding comfort in ordering the least Vietnamese meal of our holiday yet; a beefburger between two slices of white bread with chips and milkshakes. At the precise strike of 2pm we checked into our room, which transpired to be rooms as they'd messed-up our booking, and shuffled off for afternoon naps.

After lying on our beds for a few hours, re-energizing, we decided to go and lie on some tables for an hour. At a nearby spa we each had a traditional massage employing ancient Vietnamese techniques. I'm not sure how ancient, but ceetainly post the invention of the cup as a primary component of the experience was the application of heated cups to our backs followed by their swift removal, so as to stimulate blood flow, relieve tension and incur nasty bruising by the following morning. At one point the small Vietnamese ladies conducting the treatment climbed entirely onto our backs, applying pressure with their full body weight for presumably therapeutic reasons. Or we misinterpreted their requests for piggy-back rides.

In the evening we went out for craft-beers at an Australian brewery specialising in Japanese food. Cultural.Read more