The sky was bright when we arrived at Nha Trang. It was about 7.30am, I think? We were greeted with a gush of cold wind as we sleepily alighted from the bus and retrieved our bags from the storage compartment. I panicked a little then, thinking that it would be this cold throughout the day, but thank God that afternoons were warmer.
We then set off in search of our Blue Star Hotel, which Brice had booked beforehand. Many locals tried to promote their hotels to us as we did so, asking if we need a hotel. We declined by telling them we are going to Blue Star Hotel, and I thought they would just leave us be since we said we're going to their competitor, but some of them gave us directions despite that! First impressions of the Nha Trangese (I'm not sure what to call them) were thus positive, to me at least :)
So we managed to locate our hotel...
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| I didn't take this photo upon arrival but this would do. Just to show the entrance :) |
Since we were so early, and check-in time was from 12pm, we decided to just try our luck for our room. It wasn't ready, but they very graciously allowed us a holding room for us to rest and wash up! Provided us with towels too! Thumbs up for such excellent service! :D We were all grateful for their hospitality because we hadn't had a bath in more than 24 hours and were still wearing our outfits from day zero. It was a much needed and comforting bath.
Below: all clean and grease-free!
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| I dunno wth are those things on Ivan's eyes |
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| Phone capture to show my bf the state of our holding room and us all fresh from bathing! |
Of course we took the chance to charge our phones and use the wifi too hahahhahaa.
Then we locked all our belongings in that room and headed out to grab some breakfast/brunch at 10.30am. We were mad hungry by then. Settled at a decent looking shop where we were the only customers around at that time.
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| Little girl taking our orders! :) |
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| My pals' first beers in Vietnam. I didn't wanna have beer so early in the day. |
Then our food arrived! :D
Can't remember if the blur bottom right photo is one of deer meat or what, but it tasted delicious. My favourite was that oily squid. Mmmm.
After fuelling our hungry selves with some energy, we went to look for tour agencies again to get quotes and negotiate for tour packages for the next three days' activities. Just aimless walking around and making enquiries whenever we saw such agencies.
Suddenly, a little mewing thing caught our eyes:
How could this kitten be so cute!!! Haha we played with it and here it's trying to grab my camera wrist strap! It's quite a friendly kitten and I'd look out for it whenever we passed that area :) Ivan spammed shots of this kitty and some of them turned out really good but he hasn't uploaded them, so I can't feature them just yet. I have, instead photos of him and this kitten.
It's much cuter in real life! Haha we had to pry ourselves away from it. Actually, just Ivan.
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| This doggy was quite fierce! It kept barking at us, which was funny as well. |
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| Credits: Brice. Barking in progress ^.^ |
Went back to our hotel to check in at close to 12.30pm!
The room Ame and I shared for three nights!
As typed in my preface, this hotel was generally fine and comfortable except that the guys' room's toilet bowl had some flushing problems. I went over to pee once and discovered that when flushed, it would be flooded with water but not everything gets flushed down - it took me like five flushes to get all the shreds of toilet paper down. As a result, peeing was still okay there, but they had to either come over to our room to shit, or use the common hotel toilet downstairs. Oh, and the walls are really thin so if you're having diarrhoea or something, your roomie is sure to hear everything.
Dropped by this atas coffee shop to get frappe/coffee to go, and there was this cute puppy :)
For lunch, we went to this com tam stall we saw earlier, situated near our hotel. The smell of BBQ attracted us and we wanted to go back to this stall to try it.
Our first taste of eating like a Vietnamese in the streets - sitting on low plastic tables and chairs, eating by the roadside while vehicles zoomed past. That's also when we discovered their awesome chilli sauces and oils which they place on the table.
Also, every stall provides toothpicks, tissues/tracing paper, and dustbins for each table! How very thoughtful!
Ah, THE com tam which Ivan fell head over heels with. Which we had to eat every day. We usually ordered two plates to share, then go in search for other food later on, but sometimes this isn't enough for the guys and they would have a plate to themselves each while Ame and I shared one.
Next, we continued in search of tours and activities for our next few days - cliff jumping, mad bathing, rafting, snorkeling. I've never bargained so much in my life before. Such things were usually left to my parents while I waited and got bored. This was a first. Haha.
Since we decided on the specific activities for each day, and we wanted to go to Ba Ho Waterfall the next day on our own without any tour guide, we went to rent motorbikes! Just two, though, for Ivan and Brice to try.
The kind uncle who helped set Brice off for his his ride. I didn't manage to get a picture for Ivan because he was too fast and went ahead already lol. They then rode around the area while Ame and I went to book and pay for our tours.
Later; we went to walk along the beach and in search of a place for dinner.
Our one and only beach photo for this trip! It's quite a pity that we did not hang out at the beach or play around there, given that we were so close to the coast. Sobss :'(
Dinner time; walked down the stretch where the night market was, and later stopped by at two places.
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| Credits: Brice |
(Literally) hidden gem behind those metal boards. Curious place that smelled of BBQ, with lots of plastic tables and chairs, and a couple of locals. If the locals eat there, it has to be good, right? :) We had chicken and intestines, which were chewy. There was a cute doggy from another table which kept running around too and had to be constantly picked up by its owner lol.
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| Credits:Brice. I cant possibly have taken this haha, too creative. |
Second food stop was somewhere next to this stall, which had a chill, laid back atmosphere with comfy chairs that faced the streets and old school music, allowing us to just enjoy our food and people-watch.
I'm going to post less about where and what we ate from unless I have pictures hahahhaha.
Third food stop - stumbled upon the best. Vietnamese. Dessert. Ever. I am not kidding.
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| Credits: Brice |
So good, we had it for all our three days in Nha Trang. Unfortunately, I don't have the address and I can't describe the exact location. The main point is that this particular che chuoi is my favourite Vietnamese food hehe. A quick google search returns recipes for the che chuoi, and none of them include the sticky rice!!! I really like it with the rice :)
Ivan and Brice then went to get more practice with their bikes while Ame and I walked around. We almost couldn't find our way around :/ I bought a bikini set for 150,000d, slightly less than S$10 after bargaining :D
Then Ame went to try riding under the guidance of Ivan and some assistance from Brice, to see if she could ride on her own to Ba Ho the next day. We watched her fall from the weight of the bike. I was reminded of how I watched her fall from third tier during a cheerleading routine back in year 1. The bike fall was definitely less scary.
Day three: Ba Ho Waterfall, Mud and Mineral Baths
This was also the day of course registration for us and we had to make sure we had our modules added before we could proceed with the rest of the day zzz. Thankfully for me, Melvin had kindly agreed to help me add my major prescribed electives and add my unrestricted electives to waitlist. I owe him so much!
Breakfast before the day's activities....
No prizes for guessing where we went and what we had. We were their first customers for the day and they set up just one set of table and chairs for us first :D
After breakfast, we got our hotel reception to get us a motorbike taxi to accompany us to Ba Ho, and to ferry one of us there. Reason being, Amelia wasn't stable enough to ride, I obviously couldn't ride given that I can't even cycle, and Brice wasn't confident enough to have a pillion rider with him. It turned out to be a good choice to get that uncle, because judging by the road we had to take to get there, I think we may not have figured out that we had to take that particular road (video below).
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| Uncle obviously didn't change his shirt. Scroll up.... |
Uncle stopped us by this place along the road that overlooked all these boats :) Beautiful :)
Back on the bendy highway for awhile before the uncle stopped us at another place to look see look see. A market.
Okay enough of photos of our journey to Ba Ho. Here's a video!
Ivan was quite a steady rider, even with those muddy and rocky roads. I've got to take my hat off to him. He just needed his pillion rider to hold him tight at all times because "(he's) got phobia". We only almost fell once, haha. I saw how Brice fell sideways while riding on that road and was quite horrified at it, but he picked himself up and caught up with us later. For Ame, needless to say, the uncle she was riding with was the most stable and experienced, cool with all road conditions.
We arrived at the entrance to the waterfall and had to pay a small fee to park the bikes, and entrance tickets for the four of us, which I still have with me in my brochures/tickets/receipts bag. After which we started on the trail that led towards the waterfall.
Here, we were lost as to how to to proceed and had to seek directions from the locals. One of the women guided us there and back. Again, I'd say we wouldn't have made it without her help because *yikes* we had to cross a river with scary-looking running water by walking on long pipes (not funny okay, this one) and later climb HUGE rocks to get there. Well I've never done anything like this before so that in itself was an achievement.
There were many other tourists there who were all friendly and encouraging; cheered for everyone who jumped. Some even asked if we're local, but I forgive them because I can't even tell, from their faces, where they're from. Haha. So I suppose it's okay for them to think we may be Vietnamese.
Below: video of their jumps! I'm didn't jump because, well, I can't swim and I was afraid I'd drown in there... I know, I sound like such a loser.
Brice took, like, four videos of his and Ivan's attempts at encouraging Ame to jump from the higher cliff. She was visibly scared, standing up there for at least 10 minutes before finding the courage to leap off. So proud of her! :) :) All three off them jumped off the lower one with ease, but the higher one clearly required more guts to jump off. And for the higher one, Brice took over my camera to video from above while I waited at one of the huge low rocks for them to jump and cheer them on from there.
I also managed to help pull a big-sized Caucasian man from where I was standing. He was so heavy, but I was glad to help! :P
Hahaha Amelia looks naked here :P
My camera survived through our waterfall visit!!! I was concerned that the water may damage it or one of us would accidentally drop it on a rock or worse, into the water. Thank God it didn't! Dug out a random plastic bag from my bag to protect my camera as we climbed and passed it around.
We left shortly after Ame's jump, because there would be a bus picking us up from our hotel at 3.30pm to take us for our mudbath. The same woman appeared when we tried to climb back where we came from, and guided us out again. We tipped her I think 50,000d? Which was quite a lot, but it was a genuine token of thanks from us :)
Rode back to the hotel, I can't remember what we bought for a quick late lunch, then waited for the bus... we were still waiting by 3.45pm, and when I called the office, they said it will come at 4pm -_- okay.
If we could choose another timing to visit the mud bath place, I would choose not to go just before the sun sets, because that is when the temperature starts to drop. We were freezing when transiting between mud and mineral baths! The place was huge, and it reminded me of a mini theme park haha.
We had to lock all our stuff in our lockers provided, so, no pictures of the muddy us :( It's like, we would sit shivering in the stone tub and wait for the mud or warm water to (slowly) fill up the tub. The warmth it brought was therapeutic and I'd say it was a good experience getting all muddy and splashing at one another like little kids. Unfortunately, we couldn't soak ourselves in there for long because the temperature eventually dipped and it started to get cold, forcing us to get out and move on.
Washing off the mud was troublesome, because bits of mud would remain in my bikini top and bottom and I had to rinse it off without looking unglam or exposing myself >:( There was an umbrella-looking thing which held all the taps, and we had to turn them on to get the clean but salty water running. So everyone stood in a huge circle where the so-called shower was and watched one another while rinsing ourselves. I'm kidding. Some of us faced the outside cos' it's a little awkward to be watching each other, hahaha.
There was a swimming pool too, where we stayed in for awhile before leaving the place. It was dark when we left and waited for the bus to take us back to our hotel.
Hairstyling... and the final product didn't stay for long lol.
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| The guys started playing with their phones and we were like, not again..?! What boring people. |
Finally, after waiting for what seemed like forever, the bus came and took us back to our area. We alighted where the night market was and walked to this hotpot place which we saw the night before, to have our dinner.
Ordered beef hot pot!
I really liked this because it had my favourite rice noodles and the soup was beyond tasty. Just too bad that the portion was so small! So it obviously wasn't enough for four of us, and we went to satisfy Ivan's need for com tam.
I feel hungry just by looking at this.
We also tried our first banh mi!
This auntie was so cute! Posing for us with her bread :) Haha even the man at the left is laughing at her!
Spot Amelia!
We ordered 2 banh mis, which the owner cut into halves for us. This is like the Vietnamese version of Subway which we all liked :)
Went back to the previous day's che chuoi shop!
Tried this san bo lo (this is what it's called but I can't find it on google!!), which is something like Singapore's cheng tng. I didn't like this very much.
The best. This made our dinner complete :)
We went back to hour hotel to bathe, and then tried this coconut wine thing that tastes like vodka, which we bought the day before. Ate that with longans! We had to go out to get a mixer halfway though. Our spontaneity costed us a bit because this coconut thing didn't taste very good. Still, we managed to finish it by playing some drinking games.
Ivan was the first to retire for the night as he had a little cough and took Ame's cough syrup. Totally knocked out after that, so it was just Brice, Ame and myself finishing up the cheap coconut wine.
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