After a tasty braised noodle late lunch in Nha Trang I hit the beach, which was much like the Australian Gold Coast had been in being too rough to go in (there were signs) and having yellower, courser sand than Thailand. I lay there for a bit before deciding to go for a run along the beach, which was enjoyable as I saw all the Vietnamese tourists playing around on the beach.
Back at the hostel my Norwegian roommate Elle invited me to join her and someone she had met on the same Ha Long bay cruise I’m about to do, so we joined him and his university friend (who was randomly in the same hostel dorm room!) for drinks at the Red Apple Bar attached to our hostel. We then went to a restaurant – possibly Yen’s? – that is apparently #1 on Tripadvisor and I had an amazingly delicious chicken hot pot.
After that we went to Why Not Bar – which is apparently where everyone goes – and ran into more people people had met travelling. I also knew someone who had just been in Ho CHi Minh City. We hung out there and at Sailors Club – a club on the beach reminiscent of the places at Ko Phi Phi but a bit more sophisticated seeming – until about 2:30am when it closed.
The next day I had to get up at 7am (!) to get on the Nha Trang Party Boat trip, which was an absolutely amazing day. Many others staying in my hostel were also on it, and we had a great group. The day involved cruising around, visiting a couple of beaches (the snorkelling at the first place was useless and we had the wrong number of people for me to go banana boating at the second place, but apparently it wasn’t that great), eating delicious buffet lunch and drinks, a hilarious ‘boy band’ performance after lunch, me being dragged up to sing karaoke to ‘Land Down Under’, a floating bar where we floated in tubes and had a random cocktail poured into plastic cups for us, and just dancing around and having a great time.
We then all met up at 7pm at the hostel bar before going to Texas BBQ where we had organised a table for 20 (!) to all have delicious BBQ sandwiches (did I mention I’m gaining weight!?) before heading to Why Not Bar and the Sailors Club again. After the Sailors Club closed we went back to Why Not Bar, which was even more lively late at night!
I got up the next morning and went to the airport for my supposed midday flight. I had, however, not read my email the day before saying it had been changed to 10:45am, so when I got there Vietnam Airlines kindly agreed to put me on the 5.25pm for free, and transfer me back to and from the town for free! When I got back to the hostel to store my bags people from the day before were all hanging around about to go for lunch, so I joined them and on a walk to a market before my 3:30 (second) transfer to the airport.