At the end of our stay in Hoi An we booked a taxi from the hotel to drive us to Da Nang train station to get our train to Nha Trang. This time it was not a sleeper train, but left at 11:30AM and arrived at Nha Trang about 9:30PM. The train fare was 242,000 Dong each (about $14).
This trip was a bit long, and while there was a dining car on board, it was almost impossible to order anything due to language difficulties. This was different on the Sapa train earlier in the trip where the staff spoke English. The train stopped a couple of times at stations where we could have bought food, but again due to language problems it was impossible to know how long we would be stopping for and whether it was safe to get off for 5 or 10 minutes to get food. I enjoy trying to master a few words of a foreign language, and did try my best with a phrasebook, but to no avail. Should have taken snacks with us as we’d done on earlier train trips. There are always shops at the stations where you can buy noodles, candy bars, drinks etc etc.
So we arrived at Nha Trang tired and hungry. Our mood was not helped by our experience with a dodgy cab driver as soon as we arrived in Nha Trang. The driver quoted 60,000 Dong, and assured me this was still the total fare even after realizing that I would have to ride on a motorbike with his mate (both of whom had been drinking) while Narrelle and the kids rode in the taxi.
That's another trap – these guys offer you a taxi ride while still inside the building, once you accept they take your bags but you still have not seen the car. We generally need a mini-van, hatchback or similar if we have all our bags, but they try and cram it into a small sedan.
Anyway, when we got to the hotel, I gave him 100,000 Dong and after no real pretence of searching, he announced that he did not have change. The buggers even laughed at us as they drove off! What were we to do, standing on the sidewalk in front of a closed hotel, after a 10 hour train ride with no food, with 5 bags at 10:30PM? Ah well, 40,000 Dong is about $2.30. Note to self: Make sure to carry smaller denominations! (ATMs usually give out 100,000 Dong notes so it’s easy to end up with a whole bunch of them and nothing smaller).
Apart from that we really enjoyed Nha Trang. It was a nice, laid back place to spend the last major stop of our trip. We stayed at the Sea View Hotel (see review on Tripadvisor if interested). While we were there we hung out on the beach, rented a jetski (700,000 for 30 minutes) and I went parasailing – excellent experience, 250,000 Dong (about $15).
We went to the amusement park on nearby Vinpearl, via the cablecar that is supposedly the world’s longest over water. The kids enjoyed Vinpearl – I think it was 250,000 Dong all up, including the cable car ride, which equates to about $15 per person. They have waterslides and other rides as well as indoor amusement games and 3D movies etc.
We also went on Mama Linh’s boat cruise to the islands nearby, where we went snorkeling again (better than at Hoi An – but got stung by jellyfish) and enjoyed the ‘floating bar’ and the band. My wife even got dragged up to sing Waltzing Matilda (again!!!), complete with kangaroo movements, as can be seen in our photos. They do a song from each of the countries represented on the boat, and pick out an unlucky person to get up and sing it with them.
It was good to be somewhere for a week or so, not moving around every few days. We got to try many of the restaurants in the area and on the last day I paid a motorbike taxi to drive me up to the Long Son Pagoda (giant Buddha overlooking the city) as well as the Po Nagar Cham Towers built many centuries ago by a Hindu culture that once ruled over the area. We were sorry to leave Nha Trang and would certainly visit there again if and when we return to Vietnam.
Click here to see our photos from Nha Trang.
We flew back to HCMC on 28/7 to spend the final day and a half before our flight home on the night of 29/7. We had looked at going with Jetstar again but they had no flights on the day we wanted to travel. The girls at the Sea View Hotel in Nha Trang phoned the airlines for us and found us a flight with Vietnam Airlines for $48 USD each. The flight was fine - again as with or last domestic flight we were among the few westerners on the plane. The airport at Nha Trang is about 40 km from the city so it takes a while to get out there. Again the hotel organized a cab for us. 400,000 Dong (about $25) if I recall correctly.
The last few nights in Saigon we stayed at this little place called the Thien Hong - newly built or renovated, clean, rooms quite small but adequate, run by a family and located in one of the many alleys or laneways between Pham Ngu Lao and Vui Bien. They don't seem to be on Tripadvisor or I'd write them a nice review. Two rooms, A/C, one was $16pn, the other $14 from memory.
We visited the Ben Thanh markets again for some last minute shopping for gifts and souvenirs – gave the kids $1 million Dong each (about $60) to do some shopping. We also stocked up on more DVDs – both movies and TV series. There are quite a few places selling these - both in Pham Ngu Lao and the Dong Khoi area which is more the centre of the downtown. Didn’t do much else except go up to the Rex Hotel to have a few drinks at the rooftop bar there. The Rex was quite a landmark during the Vietnam War era - journalists like Mike Carlton used to gather there for the 'Five O'Clock Follies' which I think was the daily press briefing from the US military about how well the war was going!
I was going to take the kids out to Dam Sen waterpark again on the outskirts of the city, but the weather was not looking good. We’d been there during our first stay in HCMC and it was really good. Pretty much up to the standard you’d expect in a western country.
At the airport we were relieved to find that we had just come in under the weight limit of 20kg per person by about 1.5 kg! Knew it was going to be close...