Once I left Phnom Penh on the bus bound for Ho Chi Minh, it caught fire. Twice. I couldn't believe it! I was sitting on the bus, and all of the sudden I could smell smoke. About 5 minutes later the driver pulls the bus over, jumps out and runs to where all the luggage was, opened it and all this smoke comes pouring out. Turns out a towel of some sort had caught fire. The driver pulled the towel out, stood on it to put it out, and then threw it back in. Unfortunately what he failed to realise is the other end of the towel was still alight, and 10 minutes later we were in the same situation again. This time he actually ran towards a dam and dropped the towel in and left it there. Bad for the environment, but good for our bus.....!
I arrived in Ho Chi Minh at about 7pm, and had missed the last night bus for Nha Trang, so I left the following morning.
Nha Trang was quite a nice place. The beach was beautiful and the weather was fantastic. Unfortunately if you weren't really a beach person there isn't a hell of a lot else to do there. Condering I had just spent close to a week in Sihanoukville, I was and still am a little bit "beached out". That didn't stop spending a full day sitting on the beach though....! It was nice to sit there and not be hassled by 15 Cambodian children trying to sell me bracelets every 5 minutes....very peaceful...!
The following day I did what was becoming a bit of ritual for me - I hired a Moto and driver and got them to take me around to see the sights.
We went and saw the big giant budda that is set up on a hill overlooking the town. While I was walking up to it I was approached by two people, a guy and a girl, in uniform saying that they work at the sight and that they grew up there in the orphanage. They were quite nice and walked with me up to one of the buddas where they offered to take my picture..which I let them do. After that was done they started saying "oh please buy postcards for the orphanage to pay for the children" etc etc. So I bought some postcards, and then they insisted on me giving them $10 donation! To which I refused but they kept on and on for about 5 minutes, so eventually I gave them $5. I can almost guarantee that wont go near any children's orphanage...
The view from the very top was amazing, and well worth the hassle and the stairs....!
After that we went to see the Po Nagar Cham Tower which again over looks Nha Trang, and is still a worship ground for lots of buddists in Nha Trang. Again a wonderful view from the top.
From there we headed to the Oceanographic Institute, which had a great collection of different fish, sharks and stingrays to look at.
By then it was 1pm, and I had seen absolutely everything! I spent the rest of the day on the roof of the hotel reading a book and then went and had some dinner.
I was glad I didn't end up staying longer in Nha Trang. Like I said, it was a nice town, reasonably quiet, but after 5 days of the beach I clearly had well and truly had enough.....
The next day I headed to Hoi An...
No comments:
Post a Comment