Nha Trang Boat trip
Trip Start
Nov 21, 2007
1
12
Trip End
Ongoing
Nha Trang, Vietnam
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
So we went on the mini bus to the pier then hopped on a boat with about 35 other people. The boat was pretty standard. White and blue with an unseated rooftop area you could lay out on. Downstairs was open and had long benches for people to sit on. The majority of people on board were Vietnamese and Korean. We met Dana, an American girl and two girls from Israel called Danielle and Maya. There were some Austrian lads but they weren't very friendly so we left them alone. The guide didn't speak much Eeeenglish so we patiently listened through a Vietnamese lecture about the trip. Then he asked where the Austrian boys were from and made some joke in Vietnamese about them. I missed that bit as I was in the toilet dry heaving on a Malarone (anti-Malaria) that I didn't drink enough water with. Nice. Even nicer was the flushing facility. The toilet on the boat was located next to the kitchen area. The bucket used to pull up seawater lay resting next to the rice that we were to eat for lunch. I went ahead and flushed, noticing that some of the water splashed out onto the deck (through no fault of my own - it's just that the toilet is a hole in the floor) and the walls around the toilet were not what I would call waterproof. So I reckon that a lot of bad stuff ends up on the deck. But that's just my take on it. And as we all know, I'm the most paranoid person on the planet. So when I went back out I took the opportunity to scour the kitchen looking at each preperation area in detail and wondering about food storage. This is what I saw: the dirtiest chopping board (originally white) that I had ever seen. The "chef" with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth chopping chillis with a rusty cleaver (yes I'm sure) on what can only be described as a painted blue wooden box. Mmm nice blue bits of paint with rust are great with noodle soup. The other chef was taking baskets one by one from above him and rinsing out vegetables and leaving them (yes you guessed it) outside the toilet! I would have been highly amused by it all if it were not for the fact that we were expected to eat lunch in about 10 minutes. Noodles were pulled out of plastic bags, rice was on the floor in a basket, more noodles were soaking in a yellow like substance near the kitchen entrance (also on the floor). My eyes couldn't take in the sheer volume of bad stuff I was seeing. Yet I breezed through smiling at everyone and went off to listen to our guide for the remainder of the lecture.
The boat stopped at an area with other boats and we were told that if we wanted to swim/snorkle here it would cost 5000VND as this is the only Island with coral. Funny they didn't tell us this when I asked about extras the night before. On principle I would usually tell them to stuff their swimming but as I have slowly started to realise that this is how they do business in Vietnam, I've accepted it. Sort of. I didn't bother going swimming as there was nowhere to rinse the salt water off afterwards and I didn't fancy turning into a pillar of salt for the entire day. But I had fun watching the Vietnamese, Koreans and Austrians. It's a funny mix in any environment I can tell you. The Austrians stuck together diving deep to see the best coral. The Vietnamese went crazy and it reminded me of one of those US college house parties with a pool, where everyone keeps dunking everyone and acting wacky. The Koreans were trying to take pictures from the boat of their friends. The friends just posed a lot and also tried to look wacky as if to show the cameraman just what unbelieveable amounts of fun they were having.
We've taken very well to the Koreans as in Halong Bay they attacked us and we ended up in about 4 different group pictures from different tours. They just love our hair. Or maybe they just think we're daft. Either way they are very interested in touching our hair and talking to us and Crys and I are happy with that.
Dana had smuggled some rum and Coke onto the boat as she had been advised that they charge you for all the booze except for the wine. I'm reliably informed that the wine tastes like petrol. That's why it comes free on all of the tours in Vietnam. It's called Dalat. That's all I ever want to know about it. Anyhow we had good fun sharing Dana's rum and vowed to do the same for any future tours. I shared my snickers in return and everybody was very happy. Or merry. Or both.
Lunch arrived after the snorkelling at Mun Island. I swallowed my pride and was determined to swallow a few morsels and not offend so when I saw the feast that began to arrive in front of us I was gobsmacked for a few minutes. Plates of fish, squid and salad, noodle and veg, cabbage soup, fried chilli tofu and rice were amoung some of the 20 odd plates that arrived before us from that hellish installation out back. I ate some and it was delicious. But I didn't eat lots as I'd seen too much. The more I eat in places like this the more I am compelled to set up my own eatery at home. Nothing fancy. Just clean.
We were asked for 10,000VND to enter Mot Island so we didn't bother. We were happy out on the boat rooftop chatting to our new American friend. Plus the island didn't look like much. Turns out it wasn't. Next stop was the Aquarium on Tam Island. This was 50,000VND. So our base price of $6 didn't go far. We had also been warned that this wasn't great either so we skipped it. There was a floating bar at one point, which meant that one lad from the boat went into the water wearing a plastic floating ring and everyone else was expected to jump in after him wearing their own small floating rings and swim up for their "free bar". Free bar meant that there was a bucket of "cocktail" and the "barman" scooped out plastic cups of this liquid to anyone who would drink it. There was nothing else to drink so we stayed on the roof chatting and having fun. I got burned but not too badly.
We got back to the hotel at about 5 and then rested and showered and went into town for an Indian. It was lovely. I got annoyed as one guy tried to sell me books (photocopied knockoffs) and I nearly got 3 for 100k. But he would come down in price. I also worried that there would be pages missing. In the end I had to leave it. We got some rum, coke and bananas on the street and went back to the hotel and chilled for the night.
