The flight went good, we travelled on Vietnam Airlines, nothing fancy. We arrived in Nha Trang, and it had a little airport. My goal before the trip was to be tougher around locals and not get conned into paying the high prices. A huge fault of mine, I'm a sucker and I know it. Coming out of the airport was my first test. There was a hoard of local taxi drivers who all swarmed me saying they would drive me to town.
"Where you go?" taxi man.
"Umm, Nha Trang, how much?" me.
"Meter taxi"
"Well, how much will that be?"
"Ummm, $20"
"I'll give you $10"
"No sir"
"Fine, I'll fine someone else," this move usually works for Kristin, and they give in, but it didn't work with me. No big deal, there are lots of other cabbies I can bargain with and hone my bargaining skills. I roam around, and then realize they all work for the same company and have fixed rates. I talk to another guy and choose the fixed rate in Vietnamese Dong (currency) as opposed to the meter, which works out to be around $10 US. Things are looking good. We hop in the cab, and he clicks on the meter. I assume this is just for comparison purposes, because I've seen this in Korea as well. We arrive at the hotel, I try to give him the predetermined amount, and he mumbles and asks for more. I try to stand my ground but he tells me that I need a ticket, which he grabs out of the glove box (looked more like car registration to me) to get the set price. How in the hell am I suppose to get a pre arranged ticket when I fly from Korea and you pick me up as soon I get off my plane? I'm pretty damn sure this little taxi company doesn't have a website where you can reserve and prepay for a taxi from the airport. Long story short, I failed my first test. There are plenty more of those on this trip. I do manage to win some.
Nha Trang wasn't what we had expected. There was a few nice bars, and some good food (I even ate crocodile), but the beach was far from ideal. I think a storm had just past through as the water was very murky. We took a walk along the beach, and along the way we noticed loads of coconuts smashed in pieces on the shore. That's cool, that's somewhat expected in places like this, I'm not complaining, it actually gives it a nice vibe. Also seen a bunch of sandals washed up. Maybe somebody left one of there sandals on the beach, maybe they decide to swim with their sandals on and it didn't work out, I dunno, but that's OK. Then, we see a dead chicken, that could be justifiable if he had just lost a cock fight on the beach. Not a likely scenario but you never know. Then, to top it all off, we see a dead dog just lying on the beach. We decided to go back to the hotel and just laze around the pool all day. Well, try to anyways. It poured pretty much the whole day. On top of that, I got pretty sick, the start of a few ailments.
We stayed two nights and then decided to head to our next destination. Mui Ne. We book a 4 hour bus ride for about $5 each, and hop on a bus at 8 am. We were expecting just a regular bus, but instead we got a sleeper bus, with a bunch of beds. Mine was a little small, but I tried not to complain. Its better than sitting, plus I took some meds for my cold so I'm probably going to fall asleep anyways. We drive around for about 30 minutes, then stop and pick up some more travelers. The driver walks to the back of the bus, and tells Kristin and I we have to get off the bus because we apparently didn't book this bus, but instead we have to get on a sitting bus instead. We hop off, take our bags and sit in a ratty old bus station. I'm beginning to think this whole backpacking thing isn't as easy as it seems, or I'm just too stupid to be able to do it. After about 10 minutes, another bus shows up, and we hop on that. To my surprise and delight, there were beds on this one too. They're bigger, and they have an adjustable top so you can make them into a seat. Beautiful, things couldn't be better, for me anyways. Kristin is sitting in a bed in the middle aisle just below an air conditioning vent and that's great until dirty water begins dripping out of it every time we hit a bump or go down a steep hill. Which in Vietnam is pretty common. We hit a rest stop and a few passengers hop off, and lucky for Kristin she gets a new seat. Everything is going great again, until, yes, more dirty water pours out on her again. This is probably the point where many of you are expecting me to be a real gentleman and give her my seat and let myself get the dirty water poured on me, but you won't read that here. Sorry.
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