From Hoi An I took another overnight sleeper bus (when will I learn) down the coast to Nha Trang. Nha Trang is the largest beach resort town and supposedly the best dive site in Vietnam, so this was a place I had on my itinerary early on. But from the start of my travels in Vietnam, whenever I asked someone their impression of Nha Trang they always responded with just one word…Russians.
Nha Trang along the eastern coast of Vietnam has a nice beach running the length of the city. The street parallel the beach is filled with nice hotels and resorts. The second street in is filled with hostels and bars. I stayed on the second street.
Regardless of where you stay, the one consistency is there will be Russians. Like New Yorkers flock to Florida, Russians go to Nha Trang. They’re everywhere. So much so that some businesses and restaurants have signs in Russian rather than Vietnamese (or English for all the other tourists). Generally the Russians were not very nice to their Vietnamese hosts nor towards other tourists, and they all wore speedos and bikinis when they definitely should not have been.
Because of the weather, conditions weren’t very good for diving so my time in Nha Trang was spent getting sunburnt on the beach, and once again schooling the international youth of this world in beer pong (having previously won a t-shirt playing in Cambodia a few years back and recently dominating a frat party in Boulder). Right next to the hostel where I stayed was a bar dedicated solely to beer pong. Luckily, a couple nights started at that bar so I was able to show my skills. If The Who combined the comments from my new found friends, they could update the lyrics of “The Pinball Wizard” to …that old American guy, sure plays a mean beer pong….
I left Nha Trang after five days and headed further down the coast to Mui Ne, another beach resort town except this one didn’t have much of a beach. The only thing Mui Ne really had in common with Nha Trang was Russians. Mui Ne was just a long road with hotels along the water and shacks across the road catering to tourists dining needs. It did have a lot of sand at two sand dunes (red and white) outside of town though, so I rented a motorbike and played Laurence of Asia for a day.
There wasn’t much else to do in and around the town so I headed earlier than expected to my final destination in Vietnam, Saigon. And then said “what the hell, let’s go to Cambodia”.