Before I start talking about Nha Trang I thought I would clarify some things up about the events before leaving Ho Chi Minh City. Well firstly, you might have noticed that in the last blog post I mentioned a peacock in the title of the post but failed to describe what the peacock was. For starters there was no peacock, the malnutrition and overbearing heat has actually gotten to Laurens head and she now thinks and refers to herself as the peacock. Let me explain, we were walking through the Ben Thanh Market on our second last day and decided to pick up some fans courtesy of a pushy little child insisting on selling us them (laurens weakness for little children got the best of her and we caved and bought 3). After the incessent groping all throughout the market (to the point where two girls would grab both hands and not let go), Lauren developed a noise (pronounced 'beh-ahhh' or a high pitch 'bahh') that acted as a defence mechanism whenever a threat is perceived (i.e. when a stall owner was going in for the pinch). This noise , which resembled a warning noise given by birds when there is a threat to their safety, eventually started arising in places other than the market (i.e. when she was hot or bothered or very tired). The noise coupled with the fan correctly placed upon her head and spread in a peacocks tail feather formation, gave rise to what we now know as 'the peacock'. So now whenever lauren is tired, hungry, bothered or anything in general, she has given up on the ye old reliable english language and resorted to primal instinctual short bursts of noise! I will try and upload a photo of the peacock sometime tonight as we dont have the memory card reader on us.
For all of those who read the first post (of when we arrived), you would have gathered that our perceptions of Ho Chi Minh City were a little cautious as the city is a bit intimidating at first glance. However all this changed looking back now as we found Ho Chi Minh City to be one of the more interesting places to visit in Vietnam. It is in no way suitable for the faint-hearted as there can be some (more like heaps of) nerve shredding moments sometimes with the language barriers or raod crossing but after you familiarise yourself with their way of life you find it is actually quite a peaceful, organised-chaotic little system that rules their way of life. Also as we mentioned earlier last week that it was looking like KFC for dinner, it didn't happen! We found a few quite nice (and very cheap) restaurants to eat at through the course of the week.
After leaving Ho Chi Minh City headed for Nha Trang, we boarded our first 'Golden' train sheduled to leave at around 8pm sunday night. To be honest, we were a bit nervous as to the conditions we were going to be staying in for the next sub-10 hours. However as the old rickety train rolled up, these fears rose ten-fold as the train was an old dirty thing that looked like it belong in the museum. However as I had previously read, and seen as though we were sleeping in the A/C soft sleeper class or first class, there was a seperate nice carriage attached to the back of the train for all us VIP's. The little dorms were actually very nice, with a plastic floor board look on the walls with power sockets coming out of every crevace making the trip more than enjoyable. The only weird thing was the fact that you were sleeping on a train, as neither of us had ever slept on one before. That weird feeling of when the train stops at one of only a few stations at night (which wakes you up) and for a split second you think your in a hotel room until the train moves again and you think its an earthquake. The only annoying thing was, as we were sharing a compartment with a chinese man and his daughter which were both really nice, the mans phone went off at 1am and scared the crap out of both of us as we were in deep sleeps faciliated by the smooth rocking motion of the train. However, after your phone rings and wakes everybody up, you'd think he'd put it on silent just in case? We'll your wrong, it rang again 20 minutes later just as we were getting to sleep! But wait, theres more! It rang a further 3 more times distributed throughout the night and early morning. As nice as he was, I did have an overwhelming urge to throttle him.
So we arrived in Nha Trang yesterday after our 9 1/2 hour train journey from Ho Chi Minh City. This is the kind of place we have been craving after the hectic and oh so crazy events in Ho Chi Minh City. It really is a lovely place, it has over a 10km beach strethcing right around the bay overlooking the mountainous Island of Vinpearl which has the iconic hollywood style "VINPEARL" white letters high in the mountain for everybody on the coast to see. We didnt get up to much yesterday as we were pretty much unwinding after our 5 days in Ho Chi Minh City. The only problem with yesterday is that we arrived in Nha Trang at around 5:30am and couldnt really check in until 2pm that afternoon. However persistence paid off and we were let in around 9:30am most likely because we were cluttering up their foyer. After a break in the room, we headed to the pool and the beach for a bit of a swim and a rest under the shady stick huts (where the peacock fell asleep). Turns out there is a brew house literally across the road from our hotel which is really really really nice (and to our amazement and confusion has its own pool even though its just a restaurant and not connected to any hotels).
That brings us to today (Tuesday 5th of July), we are basically taking it easy, going to have a walk around the main strip and purchase a hat to hide the peacocks head feather.
We will post some photo's tonight after dinner so they will probably be up by tomorrow morning considering the 3 hour time difference.
Also let us know if anyone felt the earthquake!
Until then we hope everyone is well and stay safe.
Kristian & the Peacock
Note: Stay tuned later on to hear about our crazy cyclo (psycho) and the midget that has a crush on Lauren. I forgot to mention until now.
Again sorry about any spelling errors or if anything doesnt make sense as this keyboard is horrible and this computer does not have spell checker.
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