Rise and shine! Our plan for the day was rafting! We woke up a little late though, and the hotel reception had called us to inform us that the bus had arrived outside to pick us up, at 9am. Whoops. We made them wait a little, bout 10 minutes, but thankfully it was a small bus and there was only one other couple in the bus. Breakfast was some bread bought the night before. No time for com tam; that stall wouldn't have been open so early anyway.
We booked this activity with [horror of horrors, I didn't record this!!], and paid 630,000d per pax for this (S$37.50). Here's the information on the brochure, which does not include the name of the travel company.
9:00 Pick up at your hotel and take you to the starting point. It is 1 hour from Nha Trang city.
10:00 Start rafting down stream about 8kms. The biggest rapids are class 2 & 3 (safety for beginners).
10:45 Visit the fruit garden, enjoy the tropical fruit.
12:00 Have lunch with BBQ and Beer.
13:00 Continue rafting along river 6kms.
15:00 Finish rafting and return to Nha Trang.
15:30 Arrive your hotel.
Included: Transport, guide, dry bags, equipment, food and drinks, insurance.
We did not visit the fruit garden to have fruit, and honestly, the rafting didn't feel like it was 8 + 6 kilometers. Anyways...
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| Our only selfie in the bus. |
Sidetrack a little - this was the day I wore my new bikini, hehe. It's a good thing that I found one that looked decent (also thanks to opinions from Ame) or I would be wearing the same cobalt blue bikini set for all three days in Nha Trang -_- I now have two sets, yay, and I'd like to acquire more :P
We travelled for less than an hour to this river, reached at about 10am, and had to take this small, rocky and muddy road in. It made the ride bumpy, but I'd rather take a bumpy minibus ride than motorbike ride.
It was also on this road that we saw how our bus driver and guide help another Vietnamese guy on a motorbike get unstuck from the mud and pushed him along. Simple acts of kindness can be so heartwarming :)
The sky was very blue that day; we were blessed with good weather!
These are the rest of the people in the group - Russians. The Russians are like regular visitors in Vietnam. Guess we can draw parallels to the Mainland Chinese in Singapore...
While they set up the necessary equipment, we were fooling around with our hotel towels. Or rather, Ame was helping the guys to do stupid stuff and I was capturing those moments.
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| What in the world... |
For obvious reasons, our rafting pairs had to comprise of a guy and a girl. Ivan and Amelia went into one raft, Brice and I in the other. Also for obvious reasons, few photos were captured during while rafting.
By right, our hair should not have been wet because all we did was to row row row our boats gently down the stream~ Yes there were some strong currents every now and then - and they were fun - but we didn't actually get thrown off our rafts and into the river to get wet. Yet we got wet because we were splashing at each other whenever we passed, LOL. Sometimes we competed a little to see who could move faster, but still had to slow down to wait for the rest of the group. Other times, we just used our paddle to scoop and deliberately splash water at each other. Most of the time it was just Brice and I vs Ivan though; Ame was errr a casualty :P All that splashing resulted in a lot of water in our rafts, of course!
Stopped halfway for a short break by this huge tree, where our guide offered to help us take a group photo.
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| Quite a nice composition that included the two boats :) |
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| Where the Russian men peed |
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| Instagramming... |
We continued chill-rafting down that river, had time to stop by now and then to just sit there and bask in the sun.
Brice and I were slightly ahead of Ivan and Ame, then he suddenly took out my camera from the bag and took the above photo. So beautifully captured :) All I did was to auto contrast and post it.
Soon, it was time for lunch. Our guides stopped by this area where a large canvas sheet draped across tree branches to form a shelter, and set up plastic tables and chairs retrieved from a house up the little hill.
There was an entire fruit plantation behind this humble house.
Ame and I climbed back down the slope; the guys didn't go up to explore with us and some Russians.
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| Our guides preparing some barbecued food |
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| The ingredients needed to make the Vietnamese spring roll |
It was here that we made our first Vietnamese spring rolls with rice paper, BBQ chicken, fried rice paper, cucumbers, tomatoes, carrots, lettuce, and mint leaves. They are dipped in that chilli sauce thing. Hehehe I really love the Vietnamese spring rolls! :)
Besides these, our guides also whipped up a whole feast of barbecued meat for us. I would have eaten much more than I actually did if I weren't wearing a bikini. #femalepains #tummywoes
There was sooo much food that we actually gave some to the random chicken and dog that were waiting nearby.
That was one smart dog. It appeared like it was watching the featherless chicken from afar, but made its way towards us ever so slowly, but surely, all the while panting and drooling. I casually threw a chicken bone over and it leaped it up immediately. Then I threw half a spring roll which I had dropped onto the sand by accident, and (duhh) that dog did not eat it. The chicken did, though. We were talking about how disgusting it would be if the chicken ate cooked chicken if we threw them towards it...
After we ate, our guides washed all the plates and cutlery in that same river. I was so horrified because that was also where the men peed!! I can't begin to imagine how unhygienic and filthy that is, and I haven't even talked about how we made our spring rolls with unwashed hands....... that must explain my stomachaches during this trip :(
We rafted back to the place where our minibuses waited to take us back after lunch, and that's about it. Guess it would've been more fun if there had been stronger currents.
On hindsight, I really appreciate how Brice was so patient with me whenever we were gonna crash into some bush or tree and I panicked, not knowing how to paddle. He had been a canoeist for a semester previously, so naturally, he is experienced in such situations and is better able to weave out of it. I didn't retain much of what he told me about paddling though. And, his arms ached the next day whereas mine were completely fine, heh heh.
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We just chilled in the hotel room post-rafting, and went for a full-body massage after dinner. This was our only massage for the trip.
It's a good thing that we split into two same-sex pairs, because our masseuses wanted us to strip - leaving only our panties T.T We almost did not split into same-sex pairs, so I actually felt really relieved that we did at the eleventh hour! Ame and I were still wearing our bikinis so that meant that we were in our bikini bottoms. I tried not to feel weird; I'm totally not used to being topless in the presence of others! The only other time was in 2007 where I was in an onsen in Japan with my school mates. Yikesss.
The whole massage lasted for 90 minutes and it was so comfortable that I fell asleep halfway. With my masseuse kneading and pulling at various parts of my body. We were asked for a tip (second and last time we ever tipped during the trip) and gave 20,000d each, the amount the guys gave too.
Then it was dinner.
Randomly stopped by this place which had seafood. The address can be seen on the wet tissue packets there. I remember having kangkong and some other meat dish in addition to the featured steamed crab and baked oysters, and I've got to say that Singapore and Malaysia have far better seafood restaurants than this... :) What we failed to understand was why the kitchen staff do not crack the crabs for us! It's as though they just cooked and served the crabs whole. The result - we spent more time trying to pry open the crabs than savouring them.
Found this this photo of the che chuoi shop in my phone, which I had snapped just before we left the place. That was our third and final night there; we had conveyed our thanks and praises to the shop owners. Part of the final exchange went like this...
Me: Tomorrow night, we -
Lady: You come here?
Me: No, tomorrow night, we go to Saigon.
Lady: Oh! You go to Saigon! Okay okay!
I felt a little sad then, cos' she sounded like she wanted us to come back, haha. we were such loyal customers :')
Final stop before we retired from dinner was an ice-cream parlour right next to our hotel. We ordered a waffle with a scoop of ice-cream and whipped cream.
Let's just say, I am grateful for all the Western desserts that are available in Singapore :)
The night ended with us getting a few bottles of Saigon beer from the hotel at 10,000d per bottle, which was ridiculously cheap. Drank those bottles with some drinking games and then got our much-needed sleep to recharge for our final day in Nha Trang.
Day five: Snorkeling, Overnight Train to HCMC
Checked out from our hotel early morning because it would've been too late for checkout by the time we return from the day's main activity. The bus picked us up at 9am from our hotel lobby.
This activity, snorkeling, was booked with NT Tours via our hotel, Blue Star Hotel. Our receptionist offered us two options for snorkeling - this, and the four-island tour. We paid a total of 1,300,000d, which works out to 325,000d per pax, or about S$19 each. It puzzles me, how snorkeling actually costs less than rafting. Hmm. I've always thought that snorkeling would cost more.
[I should have kept the brochure for this, but I didn't D: ]
We saw another group at the jetty, and all of them bought and brought little floats up their boat. Cute :)
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| Setting off! |
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| Brice took this with my camera :) |
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| What we saw along the way |
It seemed like quite a long ride, so apart from taking pictures and applying sunblock, the pals were either asleep or just gazing out into the sea.
We stopped by Mun Island and Mot Island. I couldn't tell the two apart! And by that, I mean we didn't get to the shore; we were either swimming/snorkeling in water, or sitting around on the boat, just as we were told when we decided on this package.
So that was my first snorkeling experience, and Ame's too. The water was so damn cold, I had to muster all the courage I had to get into it :( I didn't dare do jump into the water from the boat, and chose to climb down through the ladder instead, haha.
The water wasn't that clear, and it was pretty deep, but we still managed to see some corals and fishes! Then silly me did not look at my surroundings properly and rammed into the corals :( The fact that we were in the sea did not help; the salt water's contact with my wounds made it sting and swell! I had a scratch and a swell on my right wrist, and some on my right thigh that made them look like mosquito bites.
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| yeah yeah, I don't have the best looking skin. |
It doesn't seem like much in this photo, but it sure as hell made me howl in pain in the water!! Even the other tourists on board asked if I was okay upon seeing the swells. Checked with one of the guides and he said that it would go down in 20-30 minutes so I didn't think much of it (as of today, 8 Jan, it has been itching and scars have been left behind, sighhh). Because of this, I did not stay in the water for long and chose to climb back up the boat soon after the accident. Ame went up too as she could not take the cold.
We moved off to another island (I can't tell which is which) and had the option to continue snorkeling or to chill on the roof of the boat. The pals and I chose the latter. More pictures!!
For someone who hardly ever goes for water sports, or even overseas, I thought the scenery was beautiful :)
The other boat had loud music and its occupants seemed to really be in party mode. For us, we had the entire upper deck to ourselves and were mostly just chilling and sunbathing 8)
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| Hahahaha. I was trying to stop Amelia from running away |
We were then asked to go back to the lower deck for lunch!
They had converted all the benches into tables by lowering all the backrests, laid out this huge tablecloth, before placing the food on it. The people from the other boat came over for lunch, so it felt like we were this big family. That guide in shades was from the other boat and he was being such an asshole (pardon my language). He insisted that his tourists sit on his left and the rest of us were to sit on the right. And he spoke with such authoritarianism, it annoyed the hell out of me even though he was only directly addressing the people from his boat. I was so thankful that our guide (pictured placing bowls on the table) wasn't so full of himself.
Drinks were not included in this package and we had to pay for them.
Food wise, well the Asian tourists (Japanese and us Singaporeans) finished whatever was placed in front of us, and even ate from the plates of the non-Asians', who did not seem to like the food very much. There were prawns, fried spring rolls, fried noodles, rice, kang kong, fried eggs, chicken, and fish. I guess for us Singaporeans, this was quite close to what we eat back at home, so we didn't think it was horrible or anything :)
Climbed back on the roof after lunch to laze around for a bit! The guys jumped off the boat from the upper deck just for the thrill of it...
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| Checking out the video I took of them jumping off. Photo credits: Amelia |
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| Wrapped up to protect their faces from the sun! Credits: Amelia |
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| Whoa I never knew that my back was that scarred :( Credits: Amelia |
Went back to the lower deck at about 2pm, where we journeyed back to the jetty.
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| Check out Ivan selfie-ing behind |
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| My failed panorama shot. I really liked the view but it turned out like this because, according to the pros (Ivan and Brice), the boat was moving. |
Back to Nha Trang city, and we paid 15,000d each to enter this place that looked like a pasar malam (Singapore's version of a night market). Except that this didn't operate only at night. We had passed by this place earlier when the bus took us back to our hotel, and walked a distance to get there, since we had time to kill before our night train :)
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| I hope this will be how I'd look like if I were pregnant... |
We tried to catch the sunset..
Finally reached the place! We were hoping to get some food there...
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| Selfie before entering the place |
That's like... S$1.50 sandals. Freaking cheap. But they look quite ugly as well :/ They have all sorts of household goods, including pots and pans, bedsheets, clothes, helmets, furniture, rice, detergent... you name it! But not much cooked food as we had hoped :(
Hahaha here, Ivan was pointing at the food pictures on the banners placed outside the area and how deceptive it was!
It was a distance that we had to walk, so... selfie time! :D
Then the guys wondered why we were walking so slowly, and this was their reaction when they found out what we were doing.
Hahahhahahah I love this picture :P
We tried to look for a dinner place, and stopped by here to check out the menu
Unfortunately, that was too expensive for us poor people, and we just got a bunch of mini bananas from them before we continued walking around.
Finally settled on this place:
It was like a cai fan stall (mixed vege rice). Nothing impressive.
Walked back to our hotel after that.
Passed by this church.. I'd love to walk in and see, but we had to return to our hotel to shower and leave for the train station. We paid US$1 each to use their common bathroom to bathe, and they even provided us with towels :) I love the service from Blue Star hotel! It was about S$10 per night where we slept comfortably for three nights and had friendly staff to answer all our queries.
Cabbed to the train station for close to 50,000d, if I remember correctly. We got our soft sleep train tickets via the hotel reception. That means proper beds, and four persons in a cabin.
To be honest, the train station really isn't tourist-friendly. All the signs and directions were in Vietnamese, and not a single English word was in sight. We had to ask the staff where to go and what time we should head inside the gate, and each time we showed them our tickets, they'd just tell us to wait and that it's not time for us to go in yet. Our 9.45pm train got delayed, so we took turns to go out and walk around before coming back in to form a queue where the green gate is. Naturally, the rest of the people in the queue were lost tourists like ourselves who were puzzled by the lack of English signages.
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| One of the homeless men we passed while walking outside the station. Besides that, we also passed a club with young Vietnamese guys calling out to us. We ignored them. haha. |
Finally got to enter......
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| Arrival of our train |
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| Squeezing our way to the right door. Credits: Ivan |
We were pretty excited upon entering our cabin! Ame and I took the upper decks. This is like, the kind of thing I'd see in movies and dramas but never actually got to try staying in. We had some fun, eating our mini bananas, drinking water, goofing around with the camera in selfie mode and remote mode.
Then all four of us went to the upper deck.
And there you have it - final photos before turning off the lights and sleeping. Brice and I took one of my travel sickness tablets because we were literally being rocked back and forth; it was quite nauseating. The pills also helped knock us out for the night.
It wasn't long before I heard Ivan's voice. I thought he was speaking in my dreams. He seemed to be having a short exchange with one of the staff.
*Door opens. Commotion outside*
Ivan: Reached already?
Staff: Yes, yes!
Ivan: Huh? This is Saigon?
Staff: Yes!
Ivan then woke us all up. It was 5.30am in the morning when we scurried to pack up and vacate the train. We were the last ones to leave.
[To be continued]
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