Na Trang, Vietnam

Na Trang is said to be one of if not the top tourist spot in all of Vietnam. It was supposed to feel like South Padre beach. I have never been to South Padre, but I felt that there was a fair amount of tourists there. Why not? The beaches were gorgeous!

We arrived to Na Trang again early in the day. Unfortunately we did not book a hotel in advance so we spent part of the morning looking at rooms in various hotels. I have to say that I was no impressed with the rooms in any of the hotels. I guess the hotels thought that eventually people had to pick a place to stay because all of the really nice hotels were either booked or way out of our "young backpacker's" budget. We ended up getting a great deal at an empty hotel that was right on the beach. Pure luck!

We spent our time in Na Trang on the beach and taking lots of scooter rides. There are lots of small islands that you can do daily tours of, but they left too early in the morning for our group of late nighters. We were quite happy with our scooter excursions. One day we drove through the mountains and into a small fishing village. On our ride, we ran into some cows just hanging out on the paved roads. It was sort of dangerous! When we got to the fishing village, we saw how impoverished the country really is. The interesting part was that all the people were smiling and so happy. The children were running dirty and skinny throughout the streets, just happy to be alive. Seeing things like that really put your life into prospective and you learn to be very thankful for all that you have.

The last full day that we had in Na Trang, we spent in the mud baths. This was an amazing experience. The mud baths were in this small mountain. It was very difficult to find but well worth the trip. We soaked in mud and had mineral baths. There was also a huge heated swimming pool that had minerals in it, waterfalls, steam rooms, the works. All of us decided to get traditional Vietnamese massages. It last 45 minutes, and I thought it was the best massage I had ever had. The woman are so small that they actually do a "dance" on your back. There are poles that run along the ceiling that they hold onto while they jump on your back! I don't have any pictures from this part of the trip because it wasn't a place that I trusted having a camera because I knew it would get wet and muddy. Bad idea.

The night life was pretty good in Na Trang. We found out that the city was known for these drinks called "buckets". Everywhere served them and they were always the special for the happy hours. It basically was like a mason jar filled with lots of liquor and maybe Red Bull and a juice. We decided that the best bucket had: Vodka, Whiskey, Rum, Pineapple Juice and Red Bull. After one bucket, you were pretty set for the night. Although we were there for a few nights so every night we could drink a little more of the buckets. It was GREAT!! I fell in love with the buckets and think that more bars in the US should serve these. They were cheap too. I think it worked out to be $3/bucket!

One of the downfalls with Na Trang was that the theft was really high. Us girls had to wear our mini pack on the front of us. While it might not have been the most fashionable thing to do, it was the safest. One night Anna and Dave were harassed by a group of Vietnamese people and Anna ended up having everything in her wallet stolen. After that we all locked our passports and traveler's checks into the hotel 's safe.

Overall I loved Na Trang. I thought as a group that we had more fun in Na Trang than anywhere else at that point in our trip.