Just as I suspected and hoped, the view is spectacular:
The ocean is still murky brown, but who cares! We are going outside, to have adventures and bask in the sun.
The pool looks pretty good in the sunshine, too:
According to Josh, the pool in nearby Sheraton is even better. Yesterday he went over and asked to see their rooms – for about 50% more you can have modern luxury and amazing facilities, like a proper gym and an infinity pool overlooking the ocean. With all that, there’s no security – so he just waltzed back in later and used the gym. This is the strange benefit of being white here – you are assumed to be a guest in whichever hotel you boldly walk into.
We ventured out on the town and visited the market:
Had to snap a photo of this “security” dog watching over the local mechanic shop:
I was happy not to see any dogs for sale, anywhere. They are everywhere, though – every other shop has a small dog hanging out at the front. In general, dogs here look healthy, well taken care of and even loved. Here are a couple of dogs napping with their owner in the afternoon shade:
We managed to do a few things, like visit a 1,300-year old temple:
Josh was told to wear a robe to enter the temple, and we had to take our shoes off. I think he’d make quite a fetching monk:
The temple is on a hill and offers an amazing view of Nha Trang, somewhat marred by the monstrosity of a hotel/apartment block under construction. Just one look at this, and you’ve got to agree, town planning laws and regulations are a necessary evil:
We climbed another hill, to see this enormous Buddha:
It was hot – at least 30 degrees Celsius, and on the way we saw a quite few people napping in the shadows (sorry, the best pic I could get without feeling like a complete intruder):
In fact, afternoon naps are everywhere – I even saw one guy laying back on his motorbike, fast asleep, yet somehow maintaining a balance. Shop owners sleep on the chairs out the front, and rickshaw drivers sleep in their carts:
We had dinner by the water, in Ana’s Bar – a tranquil place full of lights. I’m not sure if it has anything to do with Christmas, but the Christmas lights are everywhere, in abundance. I was hoping to see some stars, but not with this kind of light extravaganza everywhere:
We decided to walk back, to work off some of the calories. This was apparently completely unacceptable to the local rickshaw drivers, who ganged up on us, to the point where one of them got off and very nearly tried to pull us into his cart:
We literally ran away from the rickshaw drivers and things got better on the other side of the boulevard, where tourists were expected to walk by the local restaurants, most of them displaying live or recently deceased sea life out the front:
We have also come across an amazing workshop, set in a tranquil garden:
It was half-workspace, with girls embroidering right in front of us and half-art gallery. This is just one of the “paintings” on display – I’ve tried to capture the fine quality of fine embroidery – it looks three-dimentional.
It’s not cheap, most items were in thousands of dollars, and this enormous one was about $25,000 USD:
So that was it for yesterday – today the weather has been just as awesome, and I will try to post more photos and a bit of a story later – I had the balls to ask some expats if they live here, and got some ideas for future retirement plans 🙂
Ana Spoke, author 
Nice travelog…makes me feel like I’m missing something! Still a keen afternoon knapper…. my new book’s just been promoted by Amazon, so feeling happy after a monster Christmas shopping expedition http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B019D64AH0
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Travelog? Never heard of the term, you learn something every day! Promoted by Amazon? Did you do a paid ad? Would you say it was worth it?
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Not paid ad…the email that says, “you bought something similar recently so you might like this…” Nice when it’s your own title being recommended! Enjoy your holiday!
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Ah, sorry, Tim – the computer knows what you’ve looked at recently, so it sends you your own choices, essentially. Only works if you’ve looked at it – Shizzle has been recommended this way to my blog followers.
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Fabulous photos and travelogue! Thanks for taking us along on your vacation. Merry Christmas!
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Thank you, and Merry Christmas to you, James!
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Fantastic. And the embroidery was simply gorgeous. Enjoy!
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Thank you, Isabella – enjoy the holidays!
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Thanks for sharing your special memories with us and taking us along for the ride! You are awesome!!
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Thank you!
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I feel like I am there,too. You should include some photos of the food too. Have you been inspired to write?
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I’m such a beginner, my first instinct when I see great food is to tear into it 🙂 No book writing, but I can feel certain scenes twirling around in my head…
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More fun, please have it. 🙂
Don’t worry about us!
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Today is a boat trip and snorkelling, so yeah, more fun!
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Vietnam looks so beautiful in the sun light! That guard dog really made me smile 🙂 I’m glad you’re trip is turning out to be lots of fun and full of adventure! Thanks for taking us along for the ride. Merry Christmas as well 😀
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Thank you, and Merry Christmas!
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You’re welcome!
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Great pics
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Thank you 🙂
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So glad the clouds have left and your having some fun and sun. The embroidery was amazing! Wonder how long it takes to do those pictures. Can you imagine how sore their fingers get? I use to do a little embroidery years back and my fingers were always sore.Great pictures, thanks for sharing them! Wish I were going on the boat with you always wanted to go snorkeling. Let us know how that went. Keep having fun and eating fine food!
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I didn’t ask, sorry! Will ask if we walk by again…snorkelling today was ok, but then we spent a couple of hours on a tiny secluded beach, that was magical 🙂
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Finally some sunshine for you! I’m so glad to see so many dogs in Nha Trang since the people at Saigon seems to eat them! 😦 And yes I remember their afternoon naps culture. They used to just hang hammocks even along the highways in the trees just for naps. I thought it was so bizarre but got used to it after a while 🙂 Have a good holiday!
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I’ve spent a couple of days in Saigon and have not seen any dogs for sale or on the menu…are they still doing it?? I’ve had an afternoon nap in the shade myself today, and can see why the locals love it 🙂
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They still do 😦 and cats too unfortunately. It was very upsetting sometime you can see a truck filled with German Shepherds and you know they’re going to get butchered. They used to hang the roasted meat in front of their shops much like roasted pigs or chickens but the smell would be very strong and weird. But honestly I think they started eating mostly anything because of the war those days and food were scarce. So they just ended up eating anything they can. That’s what I think anyway.
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Oh, no…I’m so glad I didn’t get to see anything like that – seeing severed pig heads with eyes staring at you was enough in one market…
I can understand eating anything possible back during the war, there was a couple of years of artificial famine in Ukraine back in 1933-34, it was created by Stalin to break resistance. There were cases of cannibalism, I’m sure after they ate all the dogs…
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Great to see the weather improved. Great pics and I also love the embroidery. Looking forward to more.
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Thank you, Olga 🙂 Got great ones of the boat voyage today, and the Christmas eve craziness…
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It does look a lot nicer in the sun. I’m glad you got some at last. The photographs in your earlier posts with all that rain were rather sad. I’ve been disappointed by bad weather during vacations a few times, so I sympathized.
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Great to see the pictures of your travel experience…very nice post!
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Thank you 🙂 More coming soon!
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Thank you for sharing your trip. Great pics!
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Thank you, Cadance! I have more, but still on the trip and too lazy/busy to share them yet 🙂
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Reblogged this on sherriemiranda1 and commented:
A fellow blogger is visiting Viet Nam and all I got were these beautiful photos! 😉 ❤
Sherrie
P.S. I must say I was quite surprised by many of these! Pretty soon, it will be as expensive to visit as a tourist attraction here in the US!
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Thank you for sharing, Sherrie!
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