Vietnam: Nha Trang

We had to be up and ready to go in the union at 0345.  This is not morning, this is still middle of the night status.  But they were nice and gave us chocolate croissants.  I knew a few people on my trip: Brittany and Emily and I recognized a few others.  There were only 30 people total on our trip, which was nice after 98 people on my Xi’an and Beijing trip.A few people had gone out the night before and stayed up all night.  I’m pretty sure this would have killed me, they all looked deathly.   We took a half hour bus ride to the airport.  Our flight left at 0600.  It was less than an hour ride so I barely got any sleep.  When we got to the Cam Rahn Airport we were greeted by our tour guide, a young Vietnamese man named Liam.  He was awesome and so energized, definitely the best tour guide so far.  He took us to our hotel first to drop off our bags and grab some breakfast.  It took us almost an hour to get to the hotel, we followed along up on cliffs and hills along the coast.  The water was a beautiful blue and mountainous islands sprang up from the ocean.Everything was so great and gorgeous.  We stopped at one point to take pictures.  There were tons of fishermen out in the bay in little boats and fishing nets were everywhere.We stayed at the Quo Huong Hotel which was right across the street from a gorgeous beach.Vietnamese breakfast was different.  There was some croissants and pasta with a sweet tomatoe sauce and some different banana egg roll things.  It was delicious.After breakfast we got back on the bus for a tour of Nha Trang.  We first went to the Long Son Pagoda, which has the second largest Buddha in the world.  It’s up on top of a hill and can supposedly be seen from all around Nha Trang if you know where to look.  It is 24 meters high from the lotus to the top of the Buddha’s head.  It was cast from 1963 to 1964.  The purpose of this statue of Buddha is to pray for peace.  There were 150 steps leading from the pagoda at the bottom to the statue.We got to go inside the pagoda first and it was gorgeous.  Everything was so ornate and colorful.  There was a service being held when we were in there.  We walked up all the steps to the top.  Along the steps are people trying to sell you things and people begging for money.  It was sad.  From the top there was a great view of the city and the ocean and butterflies were flying everywhere.  There were tons of them, apparently this is the season for them.  It made everything seem even more magical.  We could walk all the way up to the Buddha and take our shoes off and go inside to a shrine.We walked back down and got back on the bus to head to the Po Nagar Cham Towers.  Right before these towers is a bridge right in the heart of the fishing boats.  They’re so colorful and pretty.  We walked across the bridge and took pictures.The towers consisted of a few buildings up ontop of a hill.  They were amongst some trees and gave a great view of the fishing boats and some of the city.  The buildings were shrines and you could take your shoes off and walk inside and check them out.  While inside people would be offering sacrifices, mostly of fruits and foods.  Families and friends were gathered around the different shrines outside eating and laughing together.  A few even offered some food to us.  There was a beautiful little garden up there, too.  Again, it was ridiculously hot and we all sweated so much.  We got some ice cream, much needed.After this we went to the market and got to shop around for about an hour.  We bartered with the different people for jewelry and other things.  They sold electronics here as well as luggage, clothing, artwork, souvenirs, hats, you name it.  We all bought the triangular hats, like rice paddy hats.  Brittany and I also got some luggage.  I’ve started acquiring so much stuff through this entire trip that I knew I needed another duffel bag for some of it.  This was the place to get it.  I paid about $10 USD for a fairly large blue duffel bag.  It was awesome.  I felt more relieved to know I could bring everything home.  That’s about all I saw there that I wanted.  Everything was fake.  They manage to make almost perfect imitations of designers and brand names that are just of lesser quality.  I don’t know how they do this.  But its worth it for some things, such as a cheap duffel.We headed to a restaurant that overlooked the ocean.  It was beautiful.  Unfortunately this meal was mostly seafood.  And as we all know, I don’t really like seafood.  I kept trying though.  The best part of the meal was ostrich meat.  It was delicious and was marinated in a sauce that made it taste like beef with onions and peppers.  I had some noodles with broth from the soup made of octopi, squid, and other friends of the ocean.  This, mixed with chili sauce, was actually quite good.  I’ve acquired a new taste for spicy foods.When lunch was done we went back to the hotel and were assigned our rooms and roommates, alphabetically.  I was with Ally, we were up in 206.  She’s really cool and we have a lot in common.  We had one giant king-size bed to share.  We later found out that we were the only ones who shared a bed; we just figured every room was like that.  Nope.  It just added to the bonding experience.  We had the rest of the day free until dinner at 1915.We all put on our bathing suits and went across the street to lay on the beach.  Everyone had been saying all day how they wanted to lay on the beach and pass out after such an early morning and a good deal of socializing.  As soon as we all got there we jumped in the ocean.  The boys went and bought bottles for us all to share and we all played in the water for the rest of the day, aka several hours.  After plenty of drinks we all got to know each other.  The local women selling things on the beach loved us.  They convinced us to buy bracelets and a few people got massages on the beach.  At around 1730 we headed back to shower and get ready for dinner and meet up at the bar an hour before dinner at the hotel.We ordered more drinks and the boys paid.  These boys know how to treat the girls, several of them are obviously southern.  By now we’re feeling pretty good.We had dinner down the street at a local hotel.  Dinner was mostly seafood again.  A few of us really don’t like seafood and this posed to be a common theme of this trip.  Luckily here there was some chicken.  Enough to make a meal out of it.  A few people were starting to crash at the end of dinner.  Brittany, several of the boys, and I stayed to watch the cultural show that we were supposed to be watching.  Not even the teachers and adults on the trip stayed.  It was kind of stupid, especially in comparison to the shows I saw in China, so we left soon after.There was a big beach bar down the street from our hotel called the Sailing Club that we decided to check out.  It was right on the beach and was wicked nice.  It had tons of tables and umbrellas and had a stage set up right in front of the water for the night with a live band.  It would remind you of a resort, without the hotel aspect.  There was a cover to get in, but the boys decided to get us bottle service for the night, so we got in for free.  Aside from a few of the boys, none of us paid for anything the entire night.  We got one table and started out with some Grey Goose and JD.A few of the girls trickled over from the hotel to join us, but a lot of people had gone to bed.  The boys just kept ordering more and more bottles, including Patron and a few bottles of champagne.  It was a good night.  We met up with a few other SAS people who had traveled up to Nha Trang on their own.  One of them is from Wellesley.  I didn’t know there was anyone from Wellesley on this ship, so needless to say, I was stoked by this discovery.The band played while everyone drank and there were a few competitions like limbo and stuff.  After those were over they turned on these crazy rave lights and turned on a fog machine and everyone raged.  It was so sick.  They played techno music for the rest of the night and we danced and sweated our asses off.  Mike and I danced with Pierce and Brittany for most of the night.  It was one of the most fun nights.  The best part was that this was the night we were going easy, we were going to rage hard the next night.When it started getting late (keep in mind we’d been drinking since 1500, so it was probably only 0200), people started heading back to the hotel.  One of the guys got sick and had puked in an ice bucket and was sleeping at the table.  I woke him up and took him back with me and dropped him at his room, which as conveniently next to mine.  I was so excited to go to bed.  Ally was already passed out, she went to bed after dinner because she’d gone out the night before and not slept.