Winding Down

I am utterly exhausted.  Forgot how tiring scuba diving is, but this was the time to do it….the day before my last full day in Vietnam.

Let me rewind a bit.  Yesterday I took a last walking tour of Ho Chi Minh (Saigon)–read as walked to the post office and also saw the Notre Dame Cathedral.  Said my goodbyes to the others in the tour group and got on a plane for Nha Trang, coastal resort town.

Nha Trang is a resort town.  That pretty much sums it up.  Tourists from Australia, France and other European destinations as sell as other Vietnamese descend upon this once quaint fishing village every summer.  Now, I am one of them.  (Picture is the view from the rooftop bar at my hotel–Ha Van Hotel). I must say though, that the people here speak fairly decent English and the prices really haven’t skyrocketed due to the tourist trade.  As a matter of fact, the spas here are ridiculously cheap.  I was handed three brochures walking down the street today after the dive.  One was for the place next to the dive shop–10% off.  Sample treatments:  45 minute facial $8, 60 minute hot stone massage (4 hands) = $15…the most expensive massage they have.  So, you may wonder, why am I writing this blog and not in one of those spas getting my body lathered with oil and rubbed in all directions.  Answer:  Part of me feels that it’s too good to be true.  Also, I scraped my knuckles up pretty good today on some coral and want them to heal.  But, tomorrow you can expect a spa report from Vietnam for sure.

So, the dive today was long.  Picked up at 7:15 and arrived back to my hotel room at 3.  The boat was very full and slow–one having nothing to do with the other–45 minutes out to a very scenic spot.  The first dive was a bit uneventful although I did see a moray eel and a really neat black spiked sea urchin.  I don’t remember much else because my mask kept filling with water and if there’s one thing I don’t like it’s clearing my mask every 5 yards.

After quite a spread of food (read as wait time) and a trip to a new spot, the second dive was much better.  I didn’t know what  nudibranch was, still dont’ really) but evidently they are plentiful in the Southeast Asia seas and Australia. Pretty cool and colorful looking tings growing on rocks too.  I saw several although I didn’t know what I was seeing until we got back to the dive shop and looked them up in a book. My dive master was Vietnamese so didn’t talk much about what we’d be seeing except the normal pipe fish, scorpion fish, lion fish, of which we saw many.    Anyway, it wasn’t the Caribbean, but I’m glad I made the effort to dive in Vietnam if for no other reason than to say I’ve done something that you haven’t.

I also had my first decent glass of wine at a French bistro and then collapsed into a deep sleep for two hours.  There, you are caught up.

Tomorrow I am probably going to sleep in (read as not set the alarm clock) and then head to the mud baths and/or beach and/or spa.  It’s my last full day so I’m apathetically undecided.  That might not make sense for a one week vacation, but for those of you who have gone anywhere for three weeks or more, I suspect you understand.

Any last souvenir requests better come pretty darn soon. 🙂