Nha Trang

We finally found the sun.

Three weeks in, but we are only now getting past halfway down the astonishingly long coast of Vietnam.

Nha Trang is a real beach town - if the stretch of China Beach had (the beginnings of, at least) resorts like Cabo and Kona, the white sand of Nha Trang invokes Waikiki - bound to the shore by high-rise resorts and a bustling, hustling tourism.

We found a nice (not great) hotel a few steps back from the beachfront, and were at first lamenting the adjacent construction site and its potential for noise. Then we started to walk around town and wondered where we could stay that would not be adjacent to a construction site! it seemed every block of Nhe Trang featured a new concrete high-rise resort being built - they covered the land like Starbucks on Vancouver.

30-story towers replacing the older 7- to 10-story hotels. Sheraton, Melia, Best Western, you name it, they are all here. There is a serious boom going on in Nhe Trang. Even the (very rare) appearance of American Fast Food is here, as the Colonel's benevolent gaze offered us "Ga Ran Kentucky".

...we chose instead a street-stand baguette sub sandwich that, for 50 cents, put all Subway "sandwich artists" to shame.

The second thing we noticed about Nhe Trang is that, for the first time in our travels in Vietnam, English is the third language. Cyrillic text dominates, as Nhe Trang is a popular resort for Russian tourists. As we learned in Langkawi a few years ago, Russians make their mark on a tourist town, from the volume of conversation to the drinks offered, not to mention the glut of critically-strained speedo fabric on the beach (I'll spare you the photos of the latter).

But at least we found a beach, and the sun came out for some more-than-brief appearances, and there is brewpub that makes flavourful beers, and the rooftop lounge at our hotel makes lychee mojitos and Tig'n'Pat are set up for a happy Christmas.

Even if the construction next door might go on a little later than we hoped...

 

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