We arrived in Nha trang after our first overnight bus.. Because of Tet (I.e. Chinese New Year) we had to get a sitting bus and pay a ridiculous price for it too! But it was a fun journey. We’d met a couple of girls from Denmark who were doing a similar journey to us. Mid way through the trip, I looked up to see one of the girls was missing and checked whether we were at a stop, but no, we were moving. As my eyes wandered down, there she was splayed out on the floor of the bus.. Not a bad idea to be fair..
It was 5.30am when the bus dropped us off in Nha Trang. After being offered a taxi for $2 to our guesthouse, we realised we were actually a 100m away from it and the taxi driver made a very speedy getaway without any passengers. Cheeky sod!
We woke up the guesthouse owner at the beautiful time of 5.30am! She didn’t actually seem too annoyed to see us… After a few moments, she suggested that we must be very tired and her guests obviously hadn’t checked out for the day, so she would do us a favour and take us to another brand new hotel instead so we could sleep… Hmm, how generous of her… So we walked with her to the new place and it was nice and clean plus available immediately so we accepted to stay there. She said it was the same price and quality as her guesthouse! As the hotel was new, they didn’t serve breakfast, which was included in price we were paying and so she suggested that every morning we walk back to hers for brekkie… Uh… No! I asked for discount instead and got a fabulous $6 per night discount – that’s for both mine AND rishi’s brekkie! That was after full force bartering!!
The new hotel was actually really good. Clean, simple and had the best shower we had so far… But didn’t quite add up to the $45 per night our lady was charging us. We got ready from our slumber to go and discover nha trang in its full sunshine glory and as we left asked the receptionist how much the room rate was… It was $30 per night!! Silly guesthouse lady was charging us 50% extra and the hotel didn’t even know about it!
We confronted her bout ripping us off, so she did what anyone in her situation would do …she called our hotel to shout at them!!… We did eventually come up with a sneaky plan with the hotel which involved us pretending we checked out; but can’t say was too impressed with the service so far (even though the hotel was really helpful, so quick shout out to ‘green peace hotel’)… There are many stories of being ripped off in Vietnam, but this tops them!
Aside from that saga, Nha Trang has a pretty beach (I mean don’t expect the Carribean but its good!)…
And a fabulous spa just outside of town where for $17 each you can go for a luxurious mud bath, have a quick hydrotherapy shower, relax in the baking hot mineral water pool and sit under a mineral water fall…o and then have a 45 minute massage followed by 15 mins in the steam room… Hmm, I can’t think of many better ways to spend a few hours for so cheap!
This part of the trip was purely chilling out on the beach, having the treatments and over eating from the wide choice of food options yet again…. It was so relaxed that we often were asleep by 9! I’m pretty sure I enjoyed 12 hours sleep for both the nights in Nha trang… To be fair I think we deserved it! Lol…
It’s a cool location for a break on the north/ south journey… Busy enough to keep you entertained but quiet enough to take a time out… Just don’t expect beaches like the Maldives cos you ain’t gonna get that. So keep that in mind and go visit Nha Trang!