All at sea
We left Mui Ne with screaming hangovers. Exactly what you want for a 5 hour bus journey up bumpy coastal roads. We headed to Nha Trang which is much bigger than Mui Ne but is still essentially just a resort for tourists. Only here they hail mostly from Australia. And in place of noodles and soup stalls ther
e are pizzas and steakhouses. Everywhere. It's all a little bit fake and unreal, even down to the Alice In Wonderland-style topiary that lines the seafront.
We braved an excursion out to the islands. I say braved because we were on a knackered old boat staffed by over-enthusiastic tour guides who wanted us to have a 'crazy time, yeah!' and tried to whip everyone up into a frenzy of faux fun. First stop on our wild and wacky boat trip was an
aquarium. Party time! Next we went to a sort of floating pontoon from which you could hire a jetski, go parasailing or try snorkelling. I don't think the Vietnamese have a word for health and safety. One Japanese couple shot off on a jetski, spent the next two minutes emitting one long scream and then capsized. Meanwhile, another girl was being dragged off the pontoon straight into the sea with her parachute trailing behind her like she was trawling for fish. And as for snorkelling, well the water was so murky that once I got in I couldn't even make out my own knees.
Next stop on our crazy, wacky, fun boat was a fish farm. Whoop whoop! Here we were able t
o choose something
from their nets (we chose a blue crab), watch its life being extinguished in a pot of boiling water and then eat it. Then the tour guides produced a couple of guitars and a set of drums from somewhere and started playing Beatles songs while trying to get a reluctant crowd to sing along. After some enforced dancing and a half-hearted conga, it was time for the 'floating bar'. This consisted of a tour guide sat in a rubber ring dispensing little cups of red wine with a pineapple chunk in each. We bobbed around him in homemade life rings, made from polystyrene and parcel ta
pe, wondering if the fun would ever end. At the next stop it did. This time we act
ually set foot on an actual island - but we had to pay an entrance fee to do so. This gave us access to some knackered old bamboo loungers and a depressing restaurant which had a scrawny, featherless chicken running around it. Then it began to rain. 'Is everybody having a good time?!' shouted one of the reps over the boat's PA system. We chugged back to shore in damp silence.
We hired our second scooter of the trip this week. This time
we got skateboard helmets. We whizzed around town, seeing the sights and ended up at the seemingly dull Oceanagraphic Museum. However, once inside, it was brilliant. When we went to the 'aquarium' on the boat trip they'd had a couple of fishtanks with little fish in. Here they had massive turtles and even a couple of seals. They had the strangest loo
king and most 
colourful things I have ever seen swimming around. Then, because it was a museum, they also had whale skeletons, stuffed manatees and Damien Hirst-like sharks in formaldehyde. But best of all was the massive hall of jars - shelf upon shelf of thousands of pickled specimens dating back to the 1930s. There were
crabs, 
fish, eels, seahorses, even a whole sea cow (that was a big jar) all anaemic white and floating in suspended animation like little alien creatures. You could have spent a week in there and not seen everything. If you do one thing in Nha Trang, do that!
SCOOTERS OF THE WEEK
e are pizzas and steakhouses. Everywhere. It's all a little bit fake and unreal, even down to the Alice In Wonderland-style topiary that lines the seafront. We braved an excursion out to the islands. I say braved because we were on a knackered old boat staffed by over-enthusiastic tour guides who wanted us to have a 'crazy time, yeah!' and tried to whip everyone up into a frenzy of faux fun. First stop on our wild and wacky boat trip was an
aquarium. Party time! Next we went to a sort of floating pontoon from which you could hire a jetski, go parasailing or try snorkelling. I don't think the Vietnamese have a word for health and safety. One Japanese couple shot off on a jetski, spent the next two minutes emitting one long scream and then capsized. Meanwhile, another girl was being dragged off the pontoon straight into the sea with her parachute trailing behind her like she was trawling for fish. And as for snorkelling, well the water was so murky that once I got in I couldn't even make out my own knees.Next stop on our crazy, wacky, fun boat was a fish farm. Whoop whoop! Here we were able t
o choose something
from their nets (we chose a blue crab), watch its life being extinguished in a pot of boiling water and then eat it. Then the tour guides produced a couple of guitars and a set of drums from somewhere and started playing Beatles songs while trying to get a reluctant crowd to sing along. After some enforced dancing and a half-hearted conga, it was time for the 'floating bar'. This consisted of a tour guide sat in a rubber ring dispensing little cups of red wine with a pineapple chunk in each. We bobbed around him in homemade life rings, made from polystyrene and parcel ta
pe, wondering if the fun would ever end. At the next stop it did. This time we act
ually set foot on an actual island - but we had to pay an entrance fee to do so. This gave us access to some knackered old bamboo loungers and a depressing restaurant which had a scrawny, featherless chicken running around it. Then it began to rain. 'Is everybody having a good time?!' shouted one of the reps over the boat's PA system. We chugged back to shore in damp silence. We hired our second scooter of the trip this week. This time
we got skateboard helmets. We whizzed around town, seeing the sights and ended up at the seemingly dull Oceanagraphic Museum. However, once inside, it was brilliant. When we went to the 'aquarium' on the boat trip they'd had a couple of fishtanks with little fish in. Here they had massive turtles and even a couple of seals. They had the strangest loo
king and most 
colourful things I have ever seen swimming around. Then, because it was a museum, they also had whale skeletons, stuffed manatees and Damien Hirst-like sharks in formaldehyde. But best of all was the massive hall of jars - shelf upon shelf of thousands of pickled specimens dating back to the 1930s. There were
crabs, 
fish, eels, seahorses, even a whole sea cow (that was a big jar) all anaemic white and floating in suspended animation like little alien creatures. You could have spent a week in there and not seen everything. If you do one thing in Nha Trang, do that!SCOOTERS OF THE WEEK
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