This was a wierd show the Vietnamese were putting on in the old city center.
Saturday, September 03, 2005
Independence Day celebration
This was a wierd show the Vietnamese were putting on in the old city center.
River people
A lady walked out ona this two-log pier to a small house (with tv antenna). Note the giant dip net in the back used to catch fish in the river.
Souvenirs anyone?
Lots of tourist souvenirs are for sale in Hoi An. It's like the Chiang Mai and Luang Prabang of Vietnam.
Crossing the streets in Vietnam
At a slow and steady pace, Robert crosses a busy road in Nha Trang. If you wait for an opening, you'll be waiting for a long time. You just have to make a committing step and slowly walk across the street. Make eye contact with the drivers, and you'll do fine. Traffic in SE Asia is much slower than in the Western world, but you can't assume they operate by the same rules. At first it seems like chaos, but slowly you realize their system works just as our system works back home.
Hot pot dinner -- before...
We found this noisy open air eatery full of drunk Vietnamese men. The waitresses were wearing one-piece Tiger beer uniforms and poured your beer for you (like the Hooters, baby!). The menu was in Vietnamese, so we just pointed at tables. For $4 we had this seafood hot pot. A crab, squid, shrimp, fish, scallops, clams, and vegetables.
Noodle stand
You can never find a pho house when you need one. We ended up at this stand for some noodles that sucked. But they were 30 cents, so what are you gonna do?
Po Nagar Cham Towers
The Cham civilization was in Central Vietnam a billion years ago. They left brick towers for their Hindu gods. This tower complex was just across the bridge from Nha Trang.
Tell me a bedtime story
Between diving days, we rented a scooter ($4 a day) and visited sites in the surrounding area. This is the reclining Buddha at Long Son Pagoda. We were followed by a couple of "tour guides" selling postcards. They were living at the monastery and going to school through the generous tips of tourists. They wanted us to buy postcards from them, or at least give them a tip, but we didn't want their guide services, and I wasn't interested in giving money away. They were pretty disappointed after following us around for a few minutes.
Hey man, this is supposed to be a Communist state, right? Isn't the state supposed to provide for those "have-nots"? Why do they have to pay for school? What the heck is wrong with Communism around here?
Dinner for $9 (and another plate coming)
We went to this al fresco restaurant and just ordered a bunch of stuff off the menu. It was great, but we could have fed a couple more people with the food left over. It's fun finding a restaurant for locals and ordering random things at $1-$2 a plate. Here we had fried noodles, crispy fried noodles (with seafood), barbecued beef, fried calamari, and french fries.
Tiny fish
There were baby fish hiding in the coral everywhere. They must have just hatched a week before. They darted in and out of the coral with their parents looking over them. A couple of them chased Robert away.
A swim through
On our two days of diving, we swam through caves formed between boulders at Madonna Rock. These nocturnal fish hid here during the day. It was "wow, amazing, super-fantastic...".
Nha Trang beach
Robert is practicing his Asian squat while watching Vietnamese beach goers. Nha Trang is a huge vacation spot for wealthy Vietnamese. They play in the surf (not too far away from shore, though) and play soccer on the sand. No one sunbathes.
Salt fields near Nha Trang
On the road to Nha Trang, we passed by large piles of salt next to shallow saltwater beds. Folks could be seen shovelling the salt around from the highway.
It looks like a desert
The climate on the east coast of southern Vietnam is dry. There were cacti and sand dunes, and it reminded me of being in the mediterranean. The mountains to the west of the coast block most of the precipitation this time of year, so while it's the rainy season in northern Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia, it's the dry season here.
What's that smell?
Fishermen in the area use these round basket boats to navigate the coastal waters just beyond the surf. Driving along the coast you could smell where they were drying fish. Mmmm...smells like low tide.
Robert stopping at a fishing village
Village women were oblivious to Robert, not even stopping in their busy fish-cleaning task. These may be the only women in Vietnam that didn't stop to touch him.
Weeeeee!
About as unexciting as it looks, I took a sled ride down the sand dunes to placate the little urchins. Man, I saw some guys do this in Step into Liquid on a surfboard.
Prepping for his sled run
These kids each had a plastic sheet for riding down the dunes. They prepped the run by throwing more sand down below to smooth out the ruts, and then laid a sheet down, piled it with sand, and laid another sheet on top of this.
Thumbs up!
These kids loved Robert. I told him they were a little young, but we were in SE Asia, so it didn't matter.
The coast around Mui Ne
We rented a motorbike for $7 and road around the coast visiting sand dunes and the fishing village.
Suoi Tien Mui Ne Resort
This is the place we stayed at in Mui Ne. It was $25 a night for an air-conditioned room and breakfast. Awesome.
Getting wheeled around like a gomer
We hired cyclos, pedalled rickshaws, for an hour ride around Saigon at night for about $1.30 each. We got to visit sites we didn't want to walk to in the daytime heat. They tried to take us to a go-go bar, but we declined the offer, much to the disappointment of the ladies that came running out to see us.
View from the Reunification Palace
This was the Presidential Palace before the fall of Saigon in '75.
Enjoying frog legs
A couple hours after the market, we went to enjoy lunch. What was the first thing Robert ordered? Frog legs.
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