Mud Baths, Nha Trang

We took a late flight from Da Nang to Nha Trang followed by a bus to our hotel. We didn’t get in until 10pm so grabbed some food and went straight to sleep. This is a flying visit having only planned to spend a day and a half in the city. Nha Trang is known for its nice beaches and a place to generally relax with fewer sights to see.

Yesterday, we visited Thap Ba hot spring mud bath. There was more to this than your typical mud bath as it was recommended you followed a series of steps to maximise the benefits for your skin. The ‘treatment’ went something like this: change into swimwear and shower off first. Then a bathtub was filled with hot mud where we soaked for 20 minutes. We then got out and dried off in the sun until brown and crispy, then showered off once more. Once clean we walked through a hydrotherapy water jet tunnel. This was no more than a tunnel with lots of high pressure water jets shooting inwards as we walked through, although borderline painful! We were then greeted with a hot mineral soak for 3 minutes in a large jacuzzi before finally relaxing in another still hot bath for 30 minutes. Given the water temperature was around 40C we would have welcomed cool air as it was hot today. After the treatment we moved to a chill out area around the swimming pools to further relax. The largest pool was heated to 38C however we gladly stayed in the cooler pools floating around on tyre inner tubes. Being completely honest, we were both a little skeptical of this experience having not really enjoyed a previous mud bath in Turkey, however we actually did enjoy this one.

Given the clear blue skies and sunshine, the afternoon was spent on the beach until after sunset. As the sun lowered, more and more people joined until the beach became busy, not what we expected and a complete contrast to the quiet beach in the afternoon. Locals must come out to play after work!

Later that evening we wandered another night market, although this one was quite underwhelming so we decided to head towards a beach club we’d seen on the first night on the beachfront. With music blaring, lights flashing and fire dancers dancing we couldn’t say no so ordered a pitcher to share, although unlike Koh Phi Phi, we did manage to get home in one piece this time!Read more