it’s gone coco loco
So we’re in HCMC, but first I have a tale to tell…about Nha Trang.
First off, Nha Trang is brilliant. It’s somewhat bigger, busier than Hoi An but not as crazy as Hanoi. And there is a sweet beach. We arrived at 6am, got to our guesthouse about half past and our room wasn’t ready, so the staff kindly put us in a quiet dorm room for a kip before we could properly check in. The bunk beds were super comfy, air con was working, and there was only one other person in there sleeping away. We passed out pretty quick, and it was wonderful. We awoke to banging on the door, the proprietor of the guesthouse and sleeping beauty from our room. He’d managed to lock himself out. D got up and tried the door. No dice. Lots of banging, rattling ensued as a number of different people tried the door. Nothing. At first I wasn’t too concerned, but after 45 minutes I started to need to pee. More and more people appeared but no one could get the door open. Eventually someone showed up with a big chisel and hammer and knocked the handle right out of the door. We were free! Grabbed our things and checked into our own room, closing the door behing us with much trepidation.
Eventually we went for breakfast, a bacon and egg sandwich, unexpectedly the best bacon we’ve had since leaving the UK. Over the following days D endeavoured to consume at least one per day. We hit the beach, swam in the warm blue sea, and met up with some friends, P and K. Over the next couple of days we hung out with P and K, we went to some mud baths and mineral spas, watched the Liverpool game, hung out in their daddio villa, went drinking and ate cake for K’s birthday and had a ball, but the best was yet to come.
On our last day we decided to go on a boat tour, to the 4 islands close by. 2 other friends from Hoi An had arrived the previous night, T and L and had managed to get on the tour last minute. We were picked up at 8m and it was burning hot already. Our tour guide Tom had already given us a taster, proved his caliber as such, by wandering into our hotel and sang to us “hello…is it me you’re looking for?”. On the short bus ride to the dock K and I had purchased comedy hats and we had all witnessed the beauty of a model couple. She was blonde, pretite and gorgeous. He was big, buff and loved himself. We all boarded the boat, and the beautiful people showed their manners by sticking their fingers in their ears while Tom was talking on his mic. Yes, it was loud and annoying but I managed fine and I was hungover. They even turned their backs and blatantly ignored him when he was going around the boat aking people where they were from.
We got to the first island to do some snorkelling. Now I’d never been before, a true snorkelling novice. Oh my! It was amazing, like a whole new world. It felt like “Blue Planet”…we saw clown fish, and angel fish, and these odd long flat fish, and I saw a snake. I’ve not had so much fun, and never been such a keener about anything, but it really was the best morning and the best hangover cure EVER. Begrudgingly we got back on the boat and set off for the 2nd island. During this, we were served lunch, wich as usual was delicious, if not a little small. After lunch, when we got to the island we were treated to a “music show”. There was a 3 piece band (4 if you count the dude with the maracas), drums gee-tar and bass and those guys were belting out the hits. They were truelly a wonder, singing dancing, everything. We all loved it, lapped it right up! A couple of keeners managed to steal the mic off the singer and treated(tortured) us with their drunken dulcet tones. And then, AND THEN, as if that wasn’t enough, (we were only being warmed up!) we were also treated to the “floating bar”. Now we all expected a bar like a floating village, all civilised and quaint. No. One of the boat crew got into his Speedos, tossed a giant float into the water, hopped aboard and cranked up the soundsystem blaring Leftfield and other Eurodance, and started gyrating, pouring wine into little plastic cups like a manic Ibiza go-go dancer. Everyone, young or old, launched themselves into the water whether they could swim or not and paddled to the free booze. Dude was gyrating his heart out, I swear I’ve never seen anything funnier in my life! The beautiful people were stone-faced, unimpressed throughout and had stropped off to the top deck to ignore everything and everyone. The wine was ok, though strangely got hotter and more awful the more we drank of it. But what fun! Eventually they managed to get us back aboard the boat and we set sail for island 3. Our little gang were quite tipsy at this point, and we scored ourselves a bottle of whiskey and got drunk, playing on a slide at island 3. The swimming was great, as was the conversation…
Our last stop, island 4, was an aquarium, which none of us had any inclination to visit, so we spent and hour jumping off the top of the boat. L was great and jumped with me a couple of times until I found a pair and manned up. I did, however, jump and just catch my foot on a bunch of sea urchins the little pricks (ba-dum-tsch). Vietnamese Heath Ledger looked at my foot and gave me the a-ok, and I was off again. We had such a ball that day, probabaly my favourite day so far. We were all sad at hometime, got on the bus, but were all extremely amused as we realised the bus drove straight past the models. They’d been to busy getting off the boat quick they missed their ride home.The bus pretty much erupted in laughter. It must be a hard life being that beautiful, having to be so up-yourself and concerned about your looks that you can’t allow yourself to smile and actually enjoy life.
