Ninh Chu

Ok so we didn't get the 7am bus to Dalat, that day we were both blessed with really dodgy tummies (this may have had something to trying the Mexican restaurant next door). So we cancelled the tickets and booked them for the following day. After much of the afternoon was spend trying to book accommodation in Dalat and then Nha Trang, we realised that this was a near on impossible task. It just so happened that the 30th April is Reunification Day and the 1st May is Labour Day, which are both massive holidays in Vietnam. This meant that every Vietnamese family was heading for the coast, or Dalat, there was literally no hotels rooms anywhere. So after much searching we found a tiny beach called Ninh Chu about 100km south on Nha Trang near the city (sort of city!) of Phan Rang. Ninh Chu is meant to be an paradise beach off the travellers trail, which sounds like a really good place to avoid the manicness of the holiday. So we booked a hotel room and changed our ticket from Dalat to Phan Rang and the bus was due to leave at 1pm the following day.

The following day the bus turned up at 2.30pm, which wasn't the best start. Although it was a sleeper bus which was nice, but it was totally packed. At about 5.30pm we got dropped on the side of Highway 1, and told that this was Phan Rang. This by the way is a ongoing problem that we have no way of knowing if we are where we are supposed to be, and this can be a little unnerving especially when its starting to get dark. Anyway as if by magic as the bus was pulling up two motorbike taxis pulled up, so after a ciggy and a little bit of bartering we were off, whizzing through Phan Rang.

Now when we booked the hotel, some reviews had said that it was a little odd, but not really a lot more than that. When we pulled up it was pretty dark and all looked nice, the restaurant was packed and there was not a westerner in sight. We went for a little wander on the beach, where there must have been upwards of 200 Vietnamese people having picnics and just enjoying the beach. We headed back to the restaurant at our hotel and the fun commenced. Now I have never been anywhere where no-one speaks English, and I mean no-one. When we walked into the restaurant we felt about 50 pairs of eyes swing round to watch us, quite a few people said hello, and we headed for a table in the corner. At this point in really found out what it is like to be a celebrity (horrible, if anyone is wondering!), everyone carried on with their meals whilst staring at us. A few children came up to the table and said hello and then ran away laughing, it was pretty amusing. Most of these people genuinely looked like they had never seen a westerner before, which i find very hard to believe. Anyway whilst this was going on, i think in the kitchen there was a short straw pulling contest to see who would come to serve us, eventually the loser headed over. Her english vocabulary stretched as far as "Hello Madam", after that we started to have a few issues. So thank god for the Vietnamese vocabulary app on the phone!!!! This app actually shows you the word and says it for you (now this may sound lazy, but i have been learning that so much of South East Asian languages is about the inflection, no matter how heard we try it is very difficult to get right). So with the help of our app we ordered prawns with rice and two pepsi's, we also highly amused about 54 Vietnamese people with the use of our app! Well I am not proud and this resulted in us actually getting what we ordered and it was very nice to. After that very taxing dining experience we hit the sack (which was not so much of a sack as a slab of concrete, but what can you do........)

The next day at about 4.30am/5am there was a total racket going on downstairs, and we wondered but didn't go to investigate. When we got up at about 9am we headed downstairs, there was literally not a soul in sight! Now we could see the hotel in the light we could see the oddness of it. Well it wasn't so much odd as like something from the 80's, its hard to describe but it was 3 or 4 massive buildings none that would have looked out of place on Yarmouth sea front 20 years ago. There was a little pond, with a gazebo, a pool and 4 cages with monkeys in, and as i mentioned not a person around. This was all a little unnerving, so we headed down to the beach. The beach as well was deserted, and very pretty it was too.

Now that we could see Ninh Chu in the light we could see that there was pretty much nothing there. Also i had checked the trusty Lonely Planet (which for the record is not actually that great, it is not accurate, and just generally not very helpful at all), and apparently to get out of Ninh Chu you have to book a bus ticket in advance. So next on the agenda was a trip to the supermarket and the bus station to book a ticket out for after the holiday.

The supermarket was first and it was a completely hellish experience. The actual getting of the food was easy, all the aisles were labelled in Vietnamese and English. It was quite good fun, looking at all the random things that the Vietnamese people eat, for the record they are obsessed with fish sauce, squid and seaweed! The issue came when at the check-out, they just don't get the concept of a queue. So basically its just a physical scrum to get to the checkout with people pushing in left front and centre. The favoured trick seems to be pushing your child to the front to get sweets and then following them, but others are more blatant and just push in front of you and wave their purchases right under the nose of the cashier. This sounds amusing but was actually quite stressful, i am not a pushy person (ok, no laughing, i mean in the physical sense!), and somehow we seemed to be getting further away from the till rather than closer. Eventually Craig came close to loosing his rag and by the end we were pushing and shoving like born and bred Vietnamese. We came out with some lovely bits and pieces, but it was way more stressful than even M&S on Christmas Eve, just imagine that times it by 100, and add in some physical assault and your halfway there. This is the supermarket, it looks like quite a civilised place, oh how looks can be deceiving!

Anyway despite a few a bruises it was a successful shop and here is the lovely picnic dinner we had that evening.

Despite just wanting to go back to the hotel and hide, we soldiered onto the bus station. After much sign language and yes the app came out again we gathered that this was not the right bus station. We then made it to the right bus station, and there i found probably the only man in Phan Rang that spoke English. The security guard, was a complete star, and i managed to establish that i could not buy a ticket in advance but that there was a bus at 6am on the 1st May. Two serious tasks for the day completed, it was back to the beach.

We got to the beach about 12noon and it was beautifully deserted just like the day before, then something odd started to happen. As the shadows from the trees lining the beach started to stretch over the beach, at about 3pm, out they came, in their tens. So then followed one of the oddest things that has happened on this trip. By about 4.30pm there were loads of people on the beach and we were very much a subject of much conversation and observation. There was a group of teenagers that looked like a volleyball team practising on the beach, and after much giggling, shoving and general foot shuffling, a group of three came over. They were very shy and giggly but eventually the nominated spokesperson said "I am sorry, can I ask question". "Off course", I said, to which she said "where are you from?". I said England and they all giggled again, said "Thank-you" and then ran off. About ten minutes later one of the group came up again bearing ice-creams and said "sorry for interrupting, here is ice-cream, thank-you for answering our question". Awwww, how sweet, yes well the thought may have been sweet, but the ice-cream definitely was not. It was green, pink and orange and looked like sorbet, well guess what, it was fish sauce flavour. I have never tasted anything like it, it was totally horrendous and probably even more so because it was so unexpected. Who wants fish sauce ice-cream disguised as sorbet, very odd, and little traumatising to be honest! And yes we were incredibly subtle as we let it melt into the sand!

When we got back to our hotel we got a better look at the caged monkeys, it seemed that the ones outside the cage were babies, and i assume would not run off without their mothers who were in the cage. The whole thing was horrible, but it did make me realise that it is not just aimed at western tourists, the Vietnamese people were fascinated by them. And the children especially spent quite a long time winding them up, which was not nice to see.

The following day we decided to hire a taxi to take us to Vinh Hy Bay, which is supposed to be one of the most beautiful bays in Vietnam, with lots of places to swim and snorkel. The drive to the bay was lovely and it took about an hour, on our arrival this is what we saw.

And yes the bay was lovely but not really suitable for swimming, although our taxi driver seemed quite determined that we do, there was a few too many big boats around for my liking. So we took a few pictures and headed back, for a lovely afternoon spent on the beach again.

On the way back from the hotel we decided to explore the only other resort around which was a bit odd. The whole place was totally random, it looked like it could do with a good lick of paint, but it was pretty trippy.

So tomorrow morning we take the 6am bus to Nha Trang, hopefully, till then..............