We spent the afternoon of Valentine’s Day drinking discount cocktails and quizzing Lou and Trina on their knowledge of each other’s vital information, like “If she were dying, what would her last meal request be?” and “If she could be a shoe, what shoe would she be?” While this caused many laughs (and a few tense and awkward moments), it also caused us to lose track of time. As we politely encouraged the cab driver to hurry the F up, worries mounted that we might miss our flight to Nha Trang for a weekend away with friends.
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Me, Lou, Trina, and Lisa taking a break from yelling at the traffic
to pose for this taxi selfie |
Missing our flight is the OPPOSITE of what happened when we arrived at the airport. We DID miss the ridiculously strict window of opportunity to CHECK IN for our fight. But we did not miss the actual flight. We tried everything to be allowed to check in: begging, pleading, reasoning, lying, threatening, backing away slowly as security began to surround us. Nothing worked. We could not check in for the flight.
Not to be shut out of the fun and sun promised in the brochure, we anted up and swiped our credit cards for a new flight on a different airline, leaving just an hour later. I could write an entire blog post about the events that followed that evening at the airport, but let me sum it up quickly: Vietjet is a ridiculous airline and we ended up arriving in Nha Trang about 3 hours BEFORE our friends who didn’t miss the check-in with Vietjet.
The next morning, Lisa and I woke up bright and early and made a plan for the day. After strolling along the beautiful beach, we convinced Hannah and Heather to join us for a cycling tour of rural Nha Trang.
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| Nha Trang Beach |
Using my trusty TripAdvisor app, I found Vietnam Active and set up a private tour with our guide Thanh. We chose the City and Countryside Bike Tour because it was advertised as “Easy”. No sense exerting ourselves while on vacation.
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| Heather, Lisa, Hannah, and me cycling around Nha Trang |
The tour took us first to Po Nagar Pagoda, which dates back to the 7th century Cham population. Thanh told us the temple was built in honor of a woman who appeared in town as a child during difficult times. She was deemed lucky, as things began to improve after her arrival. Legend has it she disappeared into thin air one day, and the townspeople built the temple to honor all she had done.
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| Po Nagar Pagoda |
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| Po Nagar |
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| Nha Trang from Po Nagar |
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| Po Nagar |
Next we continued cycling along the coast toward our first rest stop at Hon Chong, known as Husband Rock. Apparently some lady waited so long for her husband to return from sea that she turned to stone. Ah, love.
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| Careful there |
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| Standing on Husband Rock |
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| Nha Trang Bay / South China Sea |
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| Hon Chong |
Back on the road, we took a turn down a gravel path and meandered through the countryside and a sweet little village. Sparse motor traffic and beautiful landscapes made the cycling very pleasant.
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| Nha Trang Countryside |
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| River |
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| Lisa cycles across the rickety bridge |
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| Nha Trang |
Next stop on the tour was Long Son Pagoda. As the temperature rose steeply in the mid-afternoon sun, we wandered around the temple complex and stumbled upon a monk striking a bell. Thanh told us that if you sit inside the bell and make a wish while the monk strikes the bell and chants, your wish will come true. Of course we could not pass up this opportunity.
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| Long Son Pagoda |
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| Monk |
I don’t remember what my wish was (probably not a good sign), but sitting inside the bell as the monk chanted and rang the gong, I looked up and saw a collection of wishes written in markers on the inner surface of the bell. It was such a strange experience, but quite lovely!
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| Making a wish |
To commemorate our time together, Thanh bought us each some calligraphy from one of the monks outside the big Buddha statue.
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| Can you tell what he's writing? |
Our final destination was the Nha Trang Cathedral, a French church built in the 1930s. To be honest, by this point we were pretty tired and hungry, so I can’t remember much about the history. But here’s a few pictures to prove I was really there.
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| Nha Trang Cathedral |
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| Nha Trang Cathedral |
That night, we showered up and set out for a Nha Trang pub crawl, organized by yours truly. Basically I consulted TripAdvisor for the most popular bars and plotted their location on the free map from our hotel. Then I spent the entire night making sure we did not steer off course, which became more difficult with each sickeningly sweet bucket of booze.
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| Official Pub Crawl Route |
The next morning, we relaxed on the beach for a while before packing our bags and riding an electric golf cart (??!!) to the mud baths.
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| Nha Trang Beach |
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| How do I always manage to get the front seat? |
Now, these mud baths... Wow. Nha Trang has several mud bath spas, but we went to the iResort, as recommended by, you guessed it, TripAdvisor. I should be getting sponsored by those guys. We started off in the crowded changing rooms, throwing elbows to find enough space to get near enough to our assigned locker to cram our bags inside. After a wander around the immense spa, we squished and squashed ourselves into a mineral mud bath. It was runnier than expected, but after a few minutes of uncertainty and skepticism, we embraced the cool muck and rolled around like .... well, I was going to say ‘pigs’ but we are way too stunning to be described in such a way!
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Lara, Lisa, Sarah, me, Hannah
Wallowing :) |
Had we planned slightly better, we could have taken full advantage of the many mineral pools and waterfalls around the spa. You could easily spend the entire day there, hopping from pool to pool, soaking up the curative minerals through osmosis.
Sadly, we had a plane to catch, and heck if we were gonna miss another flight! The whole group met for an early dinner at Louisiane Brewhouse. The cherry on top of our weekend of delights, the restaurant served delicious Witbier brewed on sight.
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| Good beer, how I've missed you! |
A somewhat-sketchy unmarked taxi ride back to the airport followed dinner. Of course the return flight with Vietjet was delayed. I won’t complain about it here because I want the weekend in Nha Trang to end on a positive note. So I’ll just leave you with this creepy doll sold in the airport shop to sum up once again how I feel about That-Airline-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named.
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| Eek! The stuff of nightmares! |
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