Day 22 - Return of the sunshine
Okay, so the last I wrote we were experiencing the end of thunder storm that gave us boring weather and little to do in Nha Trang. The following day we'd just about had enough and booked ourselves on a day tour to see some islands, hoping for some sun and figuring we'd see something even if it wasn't that great (is was slowly improving throughout the previous day). We were expecting a civilised affair touring some islands with some beach time. What we got was pretty different. And the night before we'd (well, master barterer Peter) bought a bottle of Jonnie Walker which we polished off in our hotel room in an attempt to relieve the boredom onset by the weather.
Turns out these day tours are more kind of 18-30's style booze boats that try to deliver a non-stop party atmosphere. And to be fair, they delivered! We were picked up fairly early (heads still full of whisky), and driven to the dock where we boarded the boat - a really mixed bag of tourists from all over the world were on-board with us. On goes the mic, and the chap who picked us up introduces himself as the 'funky monkey'. Seems the hull is full of booze, and most of the people joining us on the day were young travellers too. We were pretty excited having been sat on our asses for a few days, either wet or damp. By this point the skies had cleared, and the hot hot sun was beating down - the glorious weather had returned, and just in the nick of time! They took us to an island a few miles off the coast, and we all just jumped into the ocean with masks & snorkels. By this point we'd had a few beers already. Not much to see down there, but it was clean, clear, and bright blue.
An island we stopped off at to swim.
The day went on like this, stopping from place to place. More beer, more islands, more beaches. They even turned the bench seats into a large table and gave us all a slap-up meal. Then it really started to get surreal. They whipped out some knackered old instruments (electric guitar, and a drum-kit made from kitchen pots-amazing how good it sounded!), and played some classic rock songs,mixed with some more traditional Vietnamese songs. It was hilarious, and we finished with some karaoke, singing 'Frere Jacques' in the language of every nationality on the boat. I did the British version. No idea what the words are.
Crazy band on the boat – funky monkey & his crew.
After all this excitement, they opened the floating-bar (a kind of large floating ring), with our drummer as the barman, dishing out free cocktails, pouring jugs of the stuff down the neck of anyone who dared go close. It really was just what we needed (the day, not the cocktails), and we met some nice people, including some chaps from Austria and Denmark, who had a following of two lovely German girls, three sisters from Oz, and blond bird from Croydon (who'd of thought). We also met a nice group of Vietnamese girls, a lady from China, and and interesting French-Japanese couple. All in all it was a good day, and helped make up for the previous days of shitty weather.
Getting tanked up at the floating bar.
After our day of fun we'd decided we had to start moving again, and continue our journey north. So after a lie-in to sleep of the amount of booze consumed, we were back on the road, this time with good weather overhead. Heading north along the coast started off a bit dangerous - there was a lot of traffic and the wind was nearly knocking us on our asses, caused mostly by the geography of open coast and high mountains. Our destination was 240km away, so we'd conceded that we weren't likely to make it all the way and would stop somewhere en-route. After a few hours, the roads started to clear up, and we could start to enjoy the scenery. And boy what scenery. These roads really are a bikers paradise; massive mountain ranges covered in rain-forest, snaking roads around prominent rock formations, steep hills into sloping valleys, rivers, coast. It was magical, and if the place we'd stopped halfway was half decent and cheap, we'd of had time to document it all, but it wasn't, and we decided to press on to Quy Nho'n, meaning we had to make it there before nightfall. We arrive and found a nice little hotel on the coast (one of the nicest rooms so far).
Updated visual-journey progress - the scenic mountain route we drove.
Bizarrely, it turns out the owner speaks fluent Czech! The guy had studied and lived in Prague for 5 years, and had not spoken the language in some years, and reveals in chatting with Peter and Lukas. Apparently he's very good. Even more bizarre – there's a Czech restaurant here that serves Budvar, and Goulash. The boys were most amused :)
Proud as punch! A touch of home for the boys from Prague, here in Vietnam.
Quy Nho'n is strange city. It's quite large, but not in any of our (three different) guide books. It's a very Vietnamese city, that is quite dominated by the university here. There not used to seeing many tourist, especially Europeans, and the town certainly isn't 'designed' for us. The place we ate lunch today was another finger pointing exercise, and we're pretty sure we all accidentally ordered and ate dog meat :S We didn't recognise the word, but it had tiny photos (of the final dish, not a pouty-eyed pup), and it looked good, so we all went for variants of the same thing (having really struggled with the first few choices they didn't seem to have). It tasted a bit like pork, but definitely wasn't (had loads of skin still on the meat – packed with dark hair follicles). It was okay I guess – a little tough, and the meat wasn't very plentiful – every piece was still attached to skin (sorry vegi's out there). They did look at us a little weird when we ordered it, but we were having a mare ordering so just went with it... Now we know the word to avoid.
Sine being here we're been touring around, venturing into tiny farming towns, and sleeping fishing villages, where we always seem to be like celebrities. But the people are always friendly, and the scenery to die for. The beaches are nice here too; the sea is a little rough, but a refreshing plunge to cool down in the midday heat is a regular occurrence. A couple of beers in hammocks later, and one ancient temple, we're back off to the Czech restaurant for dinner, in an attempt not too consume more canine.
The ancient (and sadly unprotected, so pretty wrecked) temple we visited today.
Tomorrow we're likely to hit the road again, this time heading in-land again to take the Ho Chi Minh trail that will continue to take us north, as the section of coast ahead apparently has little to offer.
TTFN.
More pictures by Lukas
Turns out these day tours are more kind of 18-30's style booze boats that try to deliver a non-stop party atmosphere. And to be fair, they delivered! We were picked up fairly early (heads still full of whisky), and driven to the dock where we boarded the boat - a really mixed bag of tourists from all over the world were on-board with us. On goes the mic, and the chap who picked us up introduces himself as the 'funky monkey'. Seems the hull is full of booze, and most of the people joining us on the day were young travellers too. We were pretty excited having been sat on our asses for a few days, either wet or damp. By this point the skies had cleared, and the hot hot sun was beating down - the glorious weather had returned, and just in the nick of time! They took us to an island a few miles off the coast, and we all just jumped into the ocean with masks & snorkels. By this point we'd had a few beers already. Not much to see down there, but it was clean, clear, and bright blue.
An island we stopped off at to swim.
The day went on like this, stopping from place to place. More beer, more islands, more beaches. They even turned the bench seats into a large table and gave us all a slap-up meal. Then it really started to get surreal. They whipped out some knackered old instruments (electric guitar, and a drum-kit made from kitchen pots-amazing how good it sounded!), and played some classic rock songs,mixed with some more traditional Vietnamese songs. It was hilarious, and we finished with some karaoke, singing 'Frere Jacques' in the language of every nationality on the boat. I did the British version. No idea what the words are.
Crazy band on the boat – funky monkey & his crew.
After all this excitement, they opened the floating-bar (a kind of large floating ring), with our drummer as the barman, dishing out free cocktails, pouring jugs of the stuff down the neck of anyone who dared go close. It really was just what we needed (the day, not the cocktails), and we met some nice people, including some chaps from Austria and Denmark, who had a following of two lovely German girls, three sisters from Oz, and blond bird from Croydon (who'd of thought). We also met a nice group of Vietnamese girls, a lady from China, and and interesting French-Japanese couple. All in all it was a good day, and helped make up for the previous days of shitty weather.
Getting tanked up at the floating bar.
After our day of fun we'd decided we had to start moving again, and continue our journey north. So after a lie-in to sleep of the amount of booze consumed, we were back on the road, this time with good weather overhead. Heading north along the coast started off a bit dangerous - there was a lot of traffic and the wind was nearly knocking us on our asses, caused mostly by the geography of open coast and high mountains. Our destination was 240km away, so we'd conceded that we weren't likely to make it all the way and would stop somewhere en-route. After a few hours, the roads started to clear up, and we could start to enjoy the scenery. And boy what scenery. These roads really are a bikers paradise; massive mountain ranges covered in rain-forest, snaking roads around prominent rock formations, steep hills into sloping valleys, rivers, coast. It was magical, and if the place we'd stopped halfway was half decent and cheap, we'd of had time to document it all, but it wasn't, and we decided to press on to Quy Nho'n, meaning we had to make it there before nightfall. We arrive and found a nice little hotel on the coast (one of the nicest rooms so far).
Updated visual-journey progress - the scenic mountain route we drove.
Bizarrely, it turns out the owner speaks fluent Czech! The guy had studied and lived in Prague for 5 years, and had not spoken the language in some years, and reveals in chatting with Peter and Lukas. Apparently he's very good. Even more bizarre – there's a Czech restaurant here that serves Budvar, and Goulash. The boys were most amused :)
Proud as punch! A touch of home for the boys from Prague, here in Vietnam.
Quy Nho'n is strange city. It's quite large, but not in any of our (three different) guide books. It's a very Vietnamese city, that is quite dominated by the university here. There not used to seeing many tourist, especially Europeans, and the town certainly isn't 'designed' for us. The place we ate lunch today was another finger pointing exercise, and we're pretty sure we all accidentally ordered and ate dog meat :S We didn't recognise the word, but it had tiny photos (of the final dish, not a pouty-eyed pup), and it looked good, so we all went for variants of the same thing (having really struggled with the first few choices they didn't seem to have). It tasted a bit like pork, but definitely wasn't (had loads of skin still on the meat – packed with dark hair follicles). It was okay I guess – a little tough, and the meat wasn't very plentiful – every piece was still attached to skin (sorry vegi's out there). They did look at us a little weird when we ordered it, but we were having a mare ordering so just went with it... Now we know the word to avoid.
Sine being here we're been touring around, venturing into tiny farming towns, and sleeping fishing villages, where we always seem to be like celebrities. But the people are always friendly, and the scenery to die for. The beaches are nice here too; the sea is a little rough, but a refreshing plunge to cool down in the midday heat is a regular occurrence. A couple of beers in hammocks later, and one ancient temple, we're back off to the Czech restaurant for dinner, in an attempt not too consume more canine.
The ancient (and sadly unprotected, so pretty wrecked) temple we visited today.
Tomorrow we're likely to hit the road again, this time heading in-land again to take the Ho Chi Minh trail that will continue to take us north, as the section of coast ahead apparently has little to offer.
TTFN.
More pictures by Lukas
posted by Darkejon @ 11:53
3 Comments:
I can't believe you ate rin tin tin :-)
The pictures are fantastic, I bet you're having an absoutely marvellous holiday!
Pere
Loving the Vietnamese Pirate band :)
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