Dawn broke:
… to the accompaniment of honking and bumping. It was 4am. The road was pitted, and the horn is used as part of driving in Vietnam. It’s not aggressive (well, only occasionally), but to warn other (especially smaller) vehicles that you’re there. And the bus is big. So lots of honking. This is not conducive to sleep. But I was tired. So with my eye mask and ear plugs I managed to sleep for six of the nine hours, including through two wee stops*. There weren’t many people on board, and I was surprised at how much sleep I got – enough to function the next day. On a busier bus, however, it’d be very uncomfortable, not least because the berths are designed by and for Vietnamese who are at least a foot shorter than me, and significantly narrower.
Arriving in Nha Trang, I immediately didn’t click with the place. I was expecting more life (and surf), but the streets were lined with characterless hotels, and the water was flat:
So I booked into a local hotel (I couldn’t even find it on TripAdvisor, let alone on any booking sites), and admired the creativity of their key ring design team:
Made me chuckle, anyway – it looked just like an upside-down “T” 😉
Two sights in Nha Trang, which I did in an afternoon. The pagoda (what else you were expecting?!) was a circus outside (Chinese tour groups overran the cafe immediately outside the top building), but pleasantly calm inside:
And here’s Great A’Tuin**:
Or, of course, it could be Chukwa or Akupara from Hindu mythology, but my bet is that Pratchett’s reached here.
There were terraces outside with what appeared to be rows upon rows of funeral urns:
Each one with a plaque:
Tourists lined the beach, but just one block inland was dominated by locals:
Cards, dominoes and Chinese chess were being played on plastic tables (with low plastic chairs) at the side of the road:
With an outdoor barber (I had to do a double take):
And then I went via the bridge:
… where I saw this motorbike – there clearly aren’t regulations regarding the carriage of goods. It was very impressive:
.. to the temple where, on arrival, a funeral passed, complete with brass band and coffin (which surprised me because the Cambodian’s cremate, so I was expecting the Buddhist Vietnamese to do the same):
“Ruins of the temple” were looking surprisingly good. Like new, in fact. And a small exhibition (completely devoid of visitors, as ever) showed what it looked like before:
And here it is in all its present glory:
Walking back, I looked for a place to eat. Unsurprisingly, seafood featured highly and most were pick-your-own: in the colour bowls are live animals/fish so you can choose exactly which one you want:
Menus were a little unappetising – the “Grilled fingernails with green onion” had obviously lost something in translation***.
And my first artistic shot:
I wanted out, so detoured via the station to check out my escape route. Standing in the queue, someone just came and stood right in front of me. I’d been warned about this – the concept of queuing is alien to them. A friendly but firm “Er, I think I was here first” caused a slightly embarrassed smile, and a move to the next cashier. Then sunset on the beach before a night in a proper bed. Bliss 🙂
*When I asked the driver if there was a toilet on board, he looked at me in confusion. Whilst we have the privilege of being aware of the rest of the world and, in some cases, experiencing first-hand how other people do things, I have to remind myself that most of the people I meet here don’t. So the concept of “another way of doing things” is often beyond them.
**Another Discworld reference that you’ll all, of course, appreciate by now 😉
***I forgot to mention the case where translation had enhanced the message: at the pool in Kratie, the penultimate rule of a long, serious list was “No pissing in pool”. Exactly.
