The Real Easy Riders part 2 – Nha Trang

After our eventful road trip we arrived in Nha Trang at around 5pm, met up with Sam who had been put on a different bus company for some reason, and found ourselves a hotel. I think our first night was fairly quiet after a tiring few days.

 

The next day was all about the beach, there isn’t many surf beaches in Vietnam, but they certainly have a nice outlook even if they are ferociously hot. (Even now, as I sit in Hanoi now at 8pm I’m have sweat dripping off me)

 

The biggest downside to Nha Trang as beach is the constant hassling by street sellers, even if you’re asleep on a sun bed they will attempt to wake you just in case you wanted to buy another pair of fake Ray Ban sunglasses. Or as I have mentioned in an earlier post threaten to kill you or de-man you if you don’t buy something from them. I did buy one thing though, for $1 I got a whole pineapple that had been nice cut up and served in a plastic bag. They do it all while sitting in front of you and even cut out all the slightly deeper bits of peel with a spiral shaped cutting technique.

Saturday night was the night we had been planning for for a while, it began with 2hrs of free beer or spirit mixers with any meal.

Me battering with a street selling child over a fan, that I didn’t need nor want, but she still felt compelled to hassle me while I drunk my free beer.

It then progressed into the organised pub crawl by local canadian-expat Gerry for his birthday. Things after that begin to get a little Hazy.

This one in particular I have little recollection of partaking in, but the photo says I did.

Straw beach hats were distributed to all on entry to the highlight of the evening, the Sailing Club.

The night was themed with a Hawaiian theme and Vietnamese dancers put on a bit of a show.

   

Andrea and Amara used their charms as pamphlet distrbutors during the day to get free entry and free drinks.

 

The night ended around 3pm, good fun was had by all, Sunday turned into a relaxing hangover curing day, and as such, no photos were taken. Enter Monday and the return of the Real Easy rider team as we made the trip to Ba Ho waterfall about 27km North of Nha Trang on there national highway.

Similar to the Mui Ne trip, this one followed the coast closely for much of it with spectacular views of fishing villages and sheer cliffs besides water.

In this photo, I believe Nick is taking a picture of a dead pig on the beach below, I didn’t feel the need to take a photo of this one.

This scooter was dressed up to look like an awesomely fast race bike. It wasn’t.

Along the way, we lost Sam with what he suspected was Malaria. (it wasn’t just a slight cold but he needed to sleep it off anyway). Andrea, Amara Nick and I continued on found the waterfalls through an intricately poorly signed series of unsealed roads and minor creek crossings. (I felt very adventurous… haha)

After a 10-20minute hike we found the falls. The heat left us desperate for a swim.

The water was superbly cool and I enjoyed the slightest bit of a chill for the first time since I’d been in Vietnam.

 

With a final glance of the water, we made our way back down the mountain, and promptly found ourselves as hot as we were before the swim. Gotta love hot weather.

Tuesday, we took on the infamous Nha Trang boat cruise and snorkel trip. Who would have thought my pale skin could take this much sun…

Here is Sam and Nick waiting while the boat departs from an overfilled marina.

There is an island here that is accessible by a cable car, and we’ve since found out has a great water park. Ahh retrospect is annoying at times.

We took the Mama Linh boat tour as it was reputed to have the most young people, and was supposed to be the most fun. It turned out alright, although our friendly vietnamese guide was sure to tell us she wasn’t “Mama Linh”. You’ll not how she is wearing so much clothing, everyone here is paranoid of the sun since it darkens there skin, as such they tend to go around in huge amounts of clothing including gloves and masks to avoid any exposure.

Lunch was served a banquet fit for many more of us than was on the boat.

After lunch the “entertainment” started. Enter the impromptu rock band. Hilariously enjoyable.

They had drums made of buckets complete with a kick pedal arrangement.

A guitarist, and two lead singers.

Nick was called upon to sing Waltz Sing Matilda to which he did quite admirably.

 

Sam did a less good rendition of Yellow Submarine, their choice for a British Song. As it turns out not many people know much more than the chorus of that song – me included.

(note the hole above Sams head, it was for “tall people”

Then we were all asked up to dance on the tables, I barely fit, well I guess I didn’t. I had to pretty much be on my knees to fit between the tables and the roof.

Then the swimming began. Right next to a fish farm. Water parasites anyone? Or other dodgy water born stuff.

The floating bar was a bit of a let down at first, haha, but it turned out alright once everyone was in the water.

Pale skin that doesn’t tan, versus Andrea and Amara’s which does.

The beach cost 40,000 dong to go ashore, so people just jumped in and swam around the “toll booth”.

 

 

After that we returned to the mainland, and had a quiet night out. The next morning, I went SCUBA diving for the first time overseas, went with a mob with the creative name called “Scubadiving” run by a bunch of French and French canadians. Was a good dive with a really nice boat, but I had a bit of a problem with the path they chose through the water, preferring to rush over the reefy area and explore the plane sandy bottom further offshore. The reasoning they gave was that the reef was fairly shallow at between 5-10m and they wanted to take us deeper. Stupid frenchies. Anyway… Was a great dive and then on that Wednesday evening, the real easy riders was disbanded and Nick Amara and I took the bus to Hoi An, and Andrea and Sam headed to Saigon. The night bus was good, slept really well and woke up in the small town of Hoi An with little or no difficulties.

Mui Ne – Beach Resorts and Sand Dunes

On The 15th of May Nick and I got on a morning bus to Mui Ne and arrived around lunch time. After getting off the bus, we proceeded to the nearest hotel/beach resort and asked them how much. At US$30 a night, it was/is to be probably one of the most expensive nights we’ve paid to stay anywhere, with the average hotel with own bathroom and A/C costing only about US$9-12. The room however was the nicest we’ve stayed in and had a door at the back that opened to the beach.

After a short dip into the resorts glorious swimming pool complete with bar and Water fall, we decided to try the beach that was a whole 10m away. (Literally, here in Mui Ne, they’ve had some significant issues with erosion and much of the beach has become reinforced with concrete sandbagging.) Along the beach we ran into Andrea, Amara and Sam, people who were part of the tour in the Mekong Delta and it was here that was the birth of “The Real Easy Riders” in honour of the countless number of motorbiking tours here that call themselves “Easy Riders”. Mui Ne is famous for a number of things, in particular the beach and Kite Surfing, if you come the right time of year, which we apparently just missed, the water is filled with countless numbers of people kitesurfing or learning to kite surf. Its also famous for the neighbouring sand dunes, those that remind you of a desert scene in a Hollywood movie. The trouble is, they start from about 10k’s out of town, so we as a group decided to hire some scooters and set off to find this sandy wonders.

 

The First stop on our bikes, was one that just needed a picture to describe, from up on a cliff overlooking this small bay, we discovered the Vietnamese fishing culture.

And here is me, overlooking said cliff in my trendy biking gear.

Once out of town however, we were in for a treat, the roads were empty, the sky’s clear and the views were spectacular. Travelling along at speeds anywhere from 30kph to 80kph on our scooters we ALL wore huge smiles.

After only intending to find the closer of the dunes, (the red sand ones), we got a little lost and decided to try for the white ones, a little over 25ks out of town. We weren’t disappointed, and after paying 5000 dong to park our bikes in the shade and negotiating with a boy of about 8yo for 5 sand toboggans we headed up towards the sand.

Right beside the dunes was the Lotus pond, a superbly picturesque lake with a great outlook.

The sand was pretty hot, so it was a trade off as to where pluggers or not as we made the climb up the largest dune we could find.

At the top, Nick and Sam posed for a photo before starting a race to the bottom. It was kind of a let down with both of them coming to a stop within about 2m from the start. We modified techniques, and I found the best result came from a dive down onto the sand to get the momentum going.

After staying as long as we could, we packed up and headed back into town so we could make our buses coming in just after lunch time.

The cafe just next to the hotel was gloriously cheap, and served some of the best food around, and resulted in us eating there for pretty much every meal while we were in Mui Ne.

Kite Surfers just before we left. There were also a number of wind surfers trying the wind too.

It was suggested we take a sleeper bus for a little more comfort than the sitting buses, and boy were they right. Each person has there own bed and I could even stretch out almost completely. Haven’t taken a sitting bus since this trip for that added room. It’s three beds across by 2 levels, something that would make bus trips in Oz and probably everywhere else much more enjoyable.

Un fortunately we had our second flat tire of the holiday just out of town adding about a half hour to our trip while the local tire shop (read: every 100m down the side of the highway there is a tire shop) repaired the inner tube in the tire. Apparently pretty much all the tires here are tubed which I find fairly intriguing.

After a 4-5hr hour journey, the Easy Riders were in Nha Trang, the bigger beach city in Vietnam.