Remainder of Vietnam Trip

...It wasn't meant to be BECAUSE the next day it was raining cats and dogs.  I woke up in a room across the hall from my first room and this room had a tall narrow window through which I could watch the downpour.  It would pour for a while then stop and drizzle then pour some more.  It made for a nice lazy morning in bed with my book but I was worried about checking out and riding up to Doc Let without getting sopping wet.  I asked Mrs. Rose (the woman who ran the hostel, who was very nice) if she knew anywhere I could purchase a rain poncho and she offered to loan me one of hers.  So that was all set.  I had lost my sunscreen, which was just about empty anyway, during the bumpy portion of the bad road shortcut the day before when it must have slipped out of the bungee cord holding it on the gas tank of the motorcycle so, during one of the lulls in the downpour, I took a little walk to look for more, figuring it wasn't going to rain forever and eventually I'd need some again.

But my trip to find sunscreen got cut short when the rain started back up again and I ducked into a coffee house with free wifi (unlike Korea, Vietnam offered free wifi everywhere) for a cup.  I figured it was a good time to call Khoa and cancel our planned trip for the day due to rain.  I told him I was just going to make a straight shot of it at some point, hopefully during a lull in the rain.

Back to the hostel again, looking out my window at the rain, strategizing about how to make it 45 km up the coast.  Mrs. Rose had already offered me a late checkout, but I wanted to be ready to go if the weather broke.

While I was packing up Khoa called to say he was down in the lobby!  He had come to see if I needed directions or any help strapping my bag on the back of the motorcycle I was renting from him.  (It was the same bike I'd been riding for the previous 3 days, so that was nice that I was comfortable with it.  The only downside, I later realized, to having a proper motorcycle instead of a scooter is that I always had to wear sneakers rather than flip-flops in order to operate the shift lever with my left foot, pulling up to down-shift.  I did notice Khoa riding in flip-flops, though, so I guess I could have done it if I'd been tougher.  I also noticed the shift lever was really a rocker arm so to down-shift you could also push down the back of the arm with your heel, but I was too scrunched up on the bike - especially with my bag strapped on just behind me - to be able to do that comfortably).  So I bought Khoa a cup of coffee at Little Home while we talked maps and routes.

While Khoa and I were talking the rain stopped and people flooded back into the streets so I decided to get going while the going was good.  This was my first picture stop on my way up the coast.

I overshot my turn-off and went about 10 km or so further north than I intended but figured it out and went back and eventually found my way to the Doc Let beach and took these shots there before setting off to find my new hotel, "Some Days of Silence".

I made it!

My room (on the left) at Some Days...

Very comfortable!

At check-in they gave me some lime-ade (glass on desk) and had left coffee and tea (brown and gray thermoses) and water (unfortunately - what appears to be wine bottles) and grapes, which were delicious.

I set off to find the beach and took some pictures of the grounds on the way.

Found it!

Aways up the beach to the left is where I'd first come to this bay and taken those original shots.

Some tourists from the resort next door ("Paradise") were in the water.  Lots of Russians here.

The hotel pool, which I never used, nor did anyone else that I saw, because why would you?

There wasn't a problem with rain here so I set off on the motorcycle to explore the town, which I had sort of missed, having come in the back way after missing my original turn.  But first I had to get to the town, which was a little ways off from the resort.

At this point I've actually been through town and am heading out along the coast to the south.  I happened to be pulled over for some reason so wanted to document the livestock hazard on the roads.

I stopped for lunch.  My place was actually next door to this place but I took a picture of this sign because it showed the common dishes on offer which included ostrich and alligator.  Note also the Russian language.  As I said, lots of Russians around here, which Khoa had commented on as well.

All this time I had seen signs for "Tiger" beer, which is about twice as expensive as Saigon which is what I always drank with Khoa.  So I decided to finally do a taste comparison.  I certainly didn't have a preference and the Saigon was bigger and half the price.  Also, I had found some sunscreen.  Also, Kho had handed me a pack of cigarettes just before I rode off so I got a lighter as I passed through town.  I wasn't quite done smoking yet.

I had the grilled mackerel and some stir-fried spinach with garlic.  Delish!

Back on the road again I am following the coast to the south and eventually west around the point of the peninsula.  You can kind of see a derrick rising above the land near the middle of the frame?  That's some giant Hyundai plant (I think it was Hyundai) and I had already passed by it earlier.  The lunch stop, and the Doc Let town, and further to the north beyond that, is all around that point past the Hyundai plant.

A little further along.

At the right side of this picture you can see the little fishing village where this road ended.  And off in the distance on the right you can see the mainland.  But I'm on a peninsula separated from the mainland, obviously, by water, and there's no way back (by road) but the way I've come.  In fact, I've come so far back south at this point that I'm only a short distance now from Nha Trang again across the water but you can't see it because it's out of the image to the right and hidden by the hills of the peninsula anyway.

I made it to the little fishing village at the end of the road just in time to enjoy a beautiful light from the sun which was getting low in the sky.

Sun's going down and I have to get back to the hotel so I better get moving while there's still some light.

Similar views on the way back.

At this point I'm around the corner past the Hyundai plant, to which the ships in the background belong, so I'm feeling better about making it back to town before dark.

And I guess that's it for that day!  It was just getting to be real dark when I returned to Some Days... and I declined to eat dinner in the restaurant there, but instead walked just north to the smaller collection of homes and businesses I think I'm going to call a village to distinguish it from the larger town to the south.  I found a little place where I thought I ordered pho and Saigon but I finished the first Saigon before the pho came so I had another and the pho never actually came so I just went back to my room.  But it had been interesting sitting in the street of this little village watching the nightlife which was mostly kids and some older folks walking or riding bikes past me, with the occasional scooter going by.  I decided to walk back on the beach instead of the road, and that was interesting because, again, I overshot my place.  Luckily I had my new app, "Maps.Me", which I had only downloaded shortly before and was proving to be invaluable, and I realized I had to go back.  I was surprised I had gone past my resort, but it was dark and I did have a couple Saigons under my belt and then I realized why I'd missed it: it was all closed up for the night.  All the umbrellas and lounge chairs were stashed away somewhere and the door in the wall leading to the resort property was closed and locked.  D'oh!  I decided to have a quick skinny-dip while I decided what to do.  Back out of the water I checked the neighboring property, "Paradise", and found that while they too had removed their stuff from the beach and closed their gates the gates weren't locked.  So I went up onto their property, which was all quiet, and through toward the front (or back as you see fit to call it) gate leading to the road, and guess what?  That one was locked.  So then I had to go back to the main area and try to find someone to unlock the front gate for me.  I was softly calling "sinchow" (which is what Vietnamese for "hello" sounded like to me) when a woman came out and shushed me.  I think it was only about 10:00 or so but I guess they like their quiet time out there in resort land.  I pantomimed getting the front gate unlocked so I could go out to the road and she walked out with me and, just as had happened in Nha Trang the day I stumbled into someone's backyard and found myself trapped on their property by a locked front gate, while there was a chain around the gate the padlock on it wasn't locked so I could have gotten out on my own after all.  Finally back to my room to bed.

After breakfast the next morning I headed down to the beach again.

It was a great day for the beach.

After a swim I walked to the north along the beach.

 

Some coracles used by the locals to get out to their fishing boats.  I'm headed for the point you can see in the distance: the low one between me and the distant mountain which is separated from here by another stretch of water.

Approaching the point the shore gets more rocky.

I veered off the road trying to stay on the shore, it being a hot and humid day, and I hoping for another chance to cool off in the water.  At this point I'm on a system of dikes running on the edge of what I believe are shrimp or fish farms.

As I approached a building at the point some barking dogs caused me to retreat and head back inland a bit, where I found this cemetery.  We had seen many cemeteries on the sides of the hills during our motorcycle trip but I hadn't been able to get a picture of one so I was glad to have stumbled upon this one and to be able to document it when I wasn't trying to ride a motorcycle.

This was about as far to the north as I could go, because I couldn't see how to get further to the left past where the rocky cliffs come right down to the water there.

It was tempting to take a swim here but I could see a bunch of rocks in the water and didn't want to bang myself up on them.

Unlike the sandy beach behind me at the resort the beach here was coarser, comprising what appeared to be chunks of broken coral, as you can see at the end of the video below.

So I started bushwacking back to the south, more inland this time, not liking to retrace my steps when it's possible to go back another route, and also preferring to avoid the barking dogs.  I was rewarded with more cemetery views.

Eventually I was forced back to the coastal road I'd left earlier, and was stuck in a traffic jam behind some more cows.

But then I made it to the little "town", not town really, like the one I'd been in the day before, which is the main town, but "town" in the sense of a little village, I guess, where the streets were too small for cars.  This is the village just north of the resort, just to the north, and is where I'd first arrived on the beach.  It was a pretty hot sunny day and I was ready for lunch.

This woman saw me eyeing the food and invited me to sit down and she started making food for me.  This is "Bangh Mi" (or something like that, which is basically a sandwich.  Jacob and Emma had been talking about them, saying they're very common in Australia.  But I hadn't had one yet.  This was my first.  It was quite yummy.

Then she made me a spring roll.  Also yummy.  Meanwhile the woman who ran the smoothie stand next to her made me a mango smoothie.  Yum!

Back to the beach again for the rest of the return trip to my room.

Back at my room I rested a bit in the early afternoon then decided to head out to find an ATM, maybe get a massage (which never happened) and get some dinner in town.

When I first went by the bank with the ATM it was out of order and when I went inside to get help they told me to come back later, like around 5:00.  So I killed some time at another, local, beach, just sitting there watching the people and the waves.  Then I went back to the bank and lo, the ATM was working again.  So I got enough cash, I figured, to last me through the remainder of my trip, which was only another 36 hours at this point, then went looking for some place for dinner.  I could have eaten at the resort but I preferred to find something more authenticly local.  I found this place on the main road through town and ordered the "seafood hot pot".  It was excellent!

After eating and paying, I asked to use the restroom before I headed back by motorcycle to the resort.  They told me it was out back so I went back through the kitchen and across the patio area where someone was hosing something down and found it and relieved my bladder and was heading back across the patio area again when I stepped down off the slab of concrete onto the cover of this pit you can see (you can see the pit but not the cover because I broke through the cover and fell into the pit, scraping up my right shin pretty well).  I made a loud enough crash to summon the cook from the kitchen and she proceeded to bandage up my shin while I documented the scene with a selfie.  It could have been much worse as the pit (which is some sort of drain where the runoff from all the concrete goes) was up to about my mid-thigh, if I remember correctly while I was scrambling out of it.

Some of Saturday, my checkout day from Some Days..., and my final full day in Vietnam's, breakfast.

More of Saturday's breakfast.

Back to the beach again before I pack up and check out.

The bandaging of my shin which the cook had done the night before.

I've checked out of Some Days... and am almost all the way back to Little Home in Nha Trang now, just on the northern outskirts of the city.  In fact, I'd walked this far on my first day and this restaurant is just next to the place where I sat on the sidewalk and drank some water with the family eating lunch.  I was hoping to get some lunch (pho!  Why can't I find any more pho?) here but this turned out to be a seafood-only joint and a pretty upscale one at that so I moved on, but not before taking this picture.

Checked in again at Little Home, this time the VIP room, with the balcony facing the front of the building.

I still haven't had lunch so now I'm off for lunch and a final swim in the ocean before meeting Khoa at 6:00.  Khoa has generously invited me to dinner at his home for my final evening.

I still haven't finished my very own pack of cigarettes but I'm working on it.

Lunch.

At this point Khoa has shown up at Little Home and I am riding on the back of the motorcycle while he drives me to his place.  But on the way we stop here and he leaves me with the bike while he runs off into the market to find some onions, which he'd forgotten to get.

On the way to Khoa's house.  The video below is also taken from this point.

The view from Khoa's place.  It was elevated a bit and had a nice view to the north of that river I mentioned which runs through the middle of Nha Trang.  Most of it was open to the elements and there was a nice breeze blowing.

Just behind me as I took the last picture.  There was no wall separating this space from the outdoors.  The girl on the couch is Khoa's daughter, whom I'd met a week earlier when I took her and her brother and Khoa out to dinner the night before we left on the motorcycle trip.

Khoa in the kitchen

Another view from the porch, which was the majority of the living space.

Khoa barbequeing.

Several of Khoa's friends and relatives joined us.  I felt it was quite and honor and I was very grateful to have been invited to share this meal with them in their home.  My butt sure got sore from sitting on the hard concrete though!  I kept squirming around trying to find different ways to cross my legs.

This little guy was quite the character, constantly teasing and tussling with his older brother.

The older brother's favorite trick was to grab both of the little guy's feet, put his own foot between the little guy's legs, then pull him up onto his foot.  I found this rather disturbing but no one else seemed to be paying attention.

The meal is well under way.  When we finally finished Khoa rode me back to Little Home and I went to bed, having already arranged for a 4:00 private car ride back to the Cam Ranh airport for a 6:00 a.m. flight out Sunday morning. 

Having had an uneventful flight from Cam Ranh to Hanoi I'm awaiting my final flight back to Incheon Int'l. and trying to figure out how to spend my last remaining VND so I got a coffee and a coconut!

Finally back at my local subway station in Cheongna again, ready to walk back to school and go back to work the following day.  Oh joy.

Th-th-th-that's all, folks.  Next I've got to get busy documenting some of the fun and interesting stuff I've been doing since I've been back!