Nha Trang… And Diving!

We are finally in a place where we can do some diving! We caught the sleeper bus last night for the 12 hour journey from Hoi An and it was surprisingly not as bad as I expected. I have come to expect the worst from bus travel but this was ok. We were told there were toilets on board but of course there were not. There were also some pretty loud locals on the bus who pushed everyone out of the way so they could get on first to grab the bottom bunks. But other than that it was a pretty pain free way of getting here and was under half the price of us getting the train! We bought the tickets for $14 each from one of the “tourist information” shops in Hoi An.

After rock climbing (Pippa will do an update about that later) we got back at half 3, had food then waited till 6 for the bus. A bus didn’t come, instead 2 guys on motorbikes turned up and said we had to get on and they would take us to the bus station which according to forums and google searching didn’t exist. We thought about it for a second then decided if this was how we had to get there then that was that.

We got to the bus station and realised why it wasn’t called a bus station. It was a patch of ground with a guy selling Pringles, Oreos and assorted drinks. After a polite backpacker conversation (where have you been so far, what did you think of that, have you been here, etc) with a german guy sat next to us, the bus arrived and we set off.

Its really strange sleeping so close to complete strangers. Luckily nobody snored and there was sort of enough room. It was not a good nights sleep though as the bus regularly stopped so the drivers could smoke and when they stopped they switched all of the lights on. Still, I must have had a pretty good amount of sleep as I don’t remember much of it.

Note to self, if we do it again then try to get a bottom bunk. The air conditioning vents had condensation on them and dripped all night. I guess the locals knew this.

We arrived at 6am this morning to the beautiful Nha Trang town. We are in the tourist area which seems quite separated but is infested with hostels so prices are cheap. Food here is also not too bad, a little more than in Hoi An but that could be because we have not found the right place yet.

We went to Rainbow Divers after checking in to a hostel and booked our Deep Speciality course to take us up to the depth limit of recreational diving (40m). We asked about snorkelling within walking distance but he said this area of the coast is just sand and you have to get out to the islands to see any wildlife. This is a bit disappointing but oh well. Tomorrow we start at 7am and do two dives then 2 more the next day.

We also intend to find a charity that’s based around here where you can spend the day teaching English and computer skills to some
local children but we havn’t been able to find it yet! Maybe tomorrow.