Carry on up the Coast

Having had our fill of adventure and sore feet in Da Lat we decided that a shot of beach action was needed to facilitate our recovery. The drive from Da Lat to Nha Trang, on the Eastern Coast of Vietnam, was punctuated with breathtaking scenery as we cut through jungle swathed mountains and swept round corners with perilous, watery views far below. It rained the whole way, and while this added to the drama of the drive, by the time we arrived 5 hours later and were dragging our bags through the drizzly, dark streets it was (predictably) fairly annoying.

Nha Trang is brash, gaudy, brightly lit and absolutely crammed to the hilt with Vietnamese and Western tourists. The beach is long, white and crunchy and we noted with interest that Vietnamese holidaymakers don’t bring any of the seaside gear which the average Brit wouldn’t bother leaving home without: no windbreakers, rugs, scatch, towels, cool boxes...it was disconcerting to say the least.



We spent most of our time in Nha Trang plotting our escape to the much quieter Quy Nhon, about 5 hours further up the coast. No tourist buses go there so we went for the local bus option, gleefully praising ourselves for saving a few dong.

The glee did not last long: local buses are awful. We turned up to find a battered old Ford Transit manned by a weedy driver and a short, gruff man whose job seemed to consist of hanging out of the window for the duration of the trip, dragging people off the side of the road into the van and pushing people out. The first stop we made was 10 minutes after we set off, so the two officials could get out and have a relaxing breakfast while we sweated small puddles onto our tiny, beige, faux leather seats. The smell of burning coming from somewhere inside the engine was offset by our fellow passengers who chain smoked for most of the way and in a further abuse of our senses, the driver insisted on pressing his insanely loud, souped-up horn once every 3 seconds for no apparent reason. We made one comfort break, where Joe observed that one of the rear tyres had a hunk of rubber flapping off it. He attempted to point out that at any second the tyre could blow, causing the van to flip – most likely into the path of a truck – but the driver seemed optimistic we’d make it in one piece.

Luckily, he was right – we did. Quy Nhon is Nah Trang’s poor country cousin: much quieter, a lot less neon (less electricity in general actually – the 2 halves of the town take it turns to have a day of electricity during the hot months) and basically a much nicer place to be. Joe took slightly more convincing, commenting that it made him think of Bournemouth. Joe has never been to Bournemouth, but he decided it’s probably a lot like Quy Nhon nonetheless.



The town snakes alongside the beach, which is about 3 miles long. On the whole, we had the entire beach to ourselves until about 4, when packs of boys appeared from nowhere to play vigorous games of football and locals did a bit of DIY on their nets. Squid boats line the coast and from the look of the bits and pieces left on the beach (as well as restaurant menus) it looked like every kind of crab, prawn and whelk going is fished there. Apart from some ancient towers we forgot to go and look at, Quy Nhon’s main attraction is the leper hospital. We hired bikes to go and look for it, but failed miserably - mainly because of my refusal to cycle uphill. I pushed for a bit while Joe sailed up, but he couldn’t find it so we retreated to the flat promenade of the beach and had a picnic instead.