Vietnam: Nha Trang Day 3 and the Return to Saigon

We had one final day in Nha Trang, well we had until 1300.  We got up around 0830 and got breakfast at the hotel.  Brittany, Mischa, Ally, and I headed over to the beach and rented an umbrella and chairs for the day.  It cost us about $2 USD.  Great deal.  I laid under the umbrella and chilled and enjoyed just being on the beach.  The locals kept walking around and asking us to buy things.  Some of them were relentless and you’d actually have to be really rude to get them to leave you alone. The only thing I wanted was another massage.  I waited for one of them women to come by.  Eventually she did and I told her I’d give her 50,000 dong, or about $2.50 for a 15 minute massage.  She said okay, but told me she had to wait until her boss wasn’t watching.  She wasn’t supposed to be giving massages in the same area as the umbrellas.  She offered, not my problem.  But she agreed.  I got an intense massage, it kind of hurt since I was sunburnt.  A few people had gotten massages at the hotel the night before because they were so cheap.  One of the girls said they basically beat her up during her massage it was so intense.  The woman pulled her hair and punched her in the face.  It made me glad I had been too lazy to go and get one.  The boys talked about how great their massages were and how glad they were that they all got happy endings.  Wonderful, boys.One of the boys was mega sunburned and his masseuse laughed at him and called the other women in to look at his laugh and laugh at him.  They all dress in long pants and shirts and wear hats and are obviously dark skinned, so they don’t really seem to experience sunburns.After my massage I laid back down on my chair and fell asleep for awhile.  When I woke up it about 1130 and I wanted lunch.  Brittany and I walked down the street to our favorite place, the Sailing Club.  We had about an hour before we had to check out and be ready to leave.  Everything there was in slow motion so we cut it kind of close.  We got smoothies and I got a chicken parmesean wrap.  It was delicious.  I love the Americanized food.  Ally and Mischa met up with us here since we had the room keys.  We bought some postcards from an older man who could barely walk.  We gave him a big bill and decided he could use it more than us.  He seemed thrilled, and it really made us feel good.We walked back and packed up our rooms and checked out.  We waited for everyone and headed to the airport for our flight back to Saigon.  It was a quick flight, less than an hour, so I didn’t get to nap at all.  Almost as soon as we were at altitude, it was time to descend.  There were several crying babies, so we were all happy to get off the plane.We waited for the bus and headed back to the ship.  It took a little while to get on because everyone had bags that they had to check in security.When I finally got on the ship I was ecstatic to shower and find out where everyone else was.  Becca and Tania had a trip together so I was going to wait for them or look for Nic and the boys.  Almost as soon as I’d put my bags down there was a knock at my door, Nic!It was so good to see her, she had been in Saigon this entire time with no real plans or trips and seemed to absolutely hate this place.  We got some dinner on the ship while we waited for everyone to return.  After we’d all go out for a late dinner. Nic and I went over to the little internet café in port and used their internet at the price of a $1 USD water.  I posted a few pictures up on facebook from Mexico, Hawi’i, and from being at sea.  I didn’t even post all the pictures from Hawai’i that I wanted, but the internet was pretty sucky.  I wanted to video chat with people but it’s a 12 hour difference from the east coast, so no one was awake.When everyone got back we decided to go downtown, or whatever you’d like to call it, and find a place to eat that wasn’t Vietnamese.  We showered and dressed up.  Becca decided not to come, afraid we’d go out drinking or clubbing after dinner.  She had to be up early the next day.  Nic and I had nothing so we didn’t care if we went out or not.  Brandon met up with us and the four of took the free shuttle downtown around 2100.We wandered around the blocks debating what to get.  Eventually we settled on Japanese food as we were all missing Japan.  This place was run by Japanese people and was full of Japanese businessmen as well.  We were like okay, this is traditional Japanese, feeling all expert after coming from Japan. Haha.  I hadn’t seen anyone Japanese in all of Vietnam.  They all watched us order, talk, and eat and mostly laughed at us.  We didn’t care too much.  Although it occurred to me later that it was probably because we were loud and Japan is generally pretty quiet.We ordered delicious cocktails, Cassis Mango and Cassis Strawberry, just like our first night in Japan in Tokyo.  They were even better here.  I got some white rice and an order of pork and garlic dumplings.  Everything was pretty good.  We ended up being there for awhile.  We came to the consensus that we didn’t really want to go out clubbing.  We’d all partied and drank enough in Vietnam and were more interested in getting back and watching movies and sleeping.  We got in a cab.  The guy tried to charge us too much so we got out and found another cab.  We decided on $3 USD ahead of time and he agreed while a cop listened and helped us into the cab.  When we got back to the ship he told us $4.  Absolutely not.  We gave him $3, jumped out of the cab, and headed to the ship.  We got in bed by 0100 and I couldn’t have been happier to have a night off.I was glad Brandon was with us for the intimidation factor.  He’s really tall and big and could definitely strike fear into anyone.  Our 3 good guy friends are really good to all of us; they look out for us everywhere.  Everywhere we go they always do a head count and make sure we’re all accounted for.  This is our family, the 7 of us: Tania, Nic, Becca, Brandon, Nolan, Mason, and I, and sometimes Pat when he joins us.  We have family dinners together and always hang out together.  I really love them.