Gettin Muddy

(9.28.08 9:33am Room 305 Noble House, Cat Ba Island, Vietnam)
(9.19.08) At 7am I was picked up by a small bus headed to Nha Trang. I thought I would catch up on some sleep but bumpy windy roads ensured that it would be impossible. I had again grabbed the back row on the bus so I could lie completely down across the 6 seats. Most people don’t like sitting in the back of the bus because it’s too bumpy. On this leg of my journey I wish I had followed the crowd. Twice I bounced completely out of my seat and hit my head on the ceiling of the bus!!! As we neared Nha Trang the landscaped changed from mountains to beaches and shore lines. I called Lisanne my CS host when I got off the bus and she had her room mate, Gabe, meet me at the dive shop they worked at show me back to the their house. Lisanne is originally from Holland but had been traveling for about 6 mix months in Vietnam. She came to Nha Trang with Gab, who she met in Hanoi and they both ended up taking jobs at the Scuba Zone in trade from getting their Dive Master Certifications. They both had Vietnamese boyfriend/girlfriends that also worked at the dive shop. Lisanne had only been in Nha Trang for about a month and had hosted couch surfers for almost the whole time as she was the only host in Nha Trang. She gave me a tour of her house and showed me the hand drawn map of Nha Trang that she had made for CS’ers. It had her favorite restaurants, bars, internet cafes and her house on it. She was an amazing host!!! We made plans to have dinner and I left to explore the town. Not finding much more than restaurants and bars, I made my way to the internet café to play on the internet. I stopped and had photos made for postcards and filled them out at home. I was surprised to find that stamps for international post cards were 10,000VND which is about .75 USD which isn’t really expensive for western standards but with the cost of printing the pics made the postcards more expensive than my breakfast!
I joined Lisanne and her boyfriend Sea for noodles and then went to the Scuba Zone to talk to Gabe about diving in the morning. They offered two dives, lunch and boat ride for $40 but after looking through Gabes pictures I decided I would save my money and dive back at Maui for free!! Nha Trang is the best spot for diving in Vietnam but that doesn’t mean that Vietnam is a diving hot spot. There are a lot of fish and small creatures but no sharks, big fish, rays, ect.
I asked Sea if he wanted to join me for some kayaking the next morning and he agreed. We decided not to set a time but just figure it out when we woke up. In the morning (9.20.08) I didn’t see him so went for breakfast and scouted out the kayak rentals. The only place I found was at a beach front upscale resort and charged 6$ an hour!! I explained that I wanted it for the day and he said it was still $6/hr. That is REALLY expensive for Vietnam so I declined. I stopped and bought some paintings for gifts on the way home. They are black water color on white silk. Finding nothing to do in Nha Trang I told Lisanne I would be leaving later that night. She let me know that Travis was on his way and would arrive at 1pm. My bus was at 7pm so Travis and I decided to rent a moto bike and go to the mud baths/hot springs. The price was 80,000 for public baths or 150,000 VND for a “private bath” we were confused that they even asked us if we wanted a private bath so we laughed and told them the public would be just fine. The experience started with a hot spring water shower. Then the attendant led us to our mud bath and opened the pipe to let the “Mud” flow. I expected thick mud, but it ended up being thin water like silt. Either way we spent about 15 soaking it up. The attendant turned our pipe off when the tub was only 1/8 of the way filled so we turned it back on and filled our tub half way. Next you were suppose to sun bath and let the mud dry on your skin, but the overcast weather made that impossible so we headed back to the shower. From the shower we were directed to the High presser hot spring water; two walls with about 50 small holes spraying stinging streams of hot spring water. The next phase was a hot spring water bath. They gave Travis and I a heart shaped tub, it was special. After 15 in the tub and many strange looks, we had been getting the whole time; we headed for the pool which was again full of spring water. It was getting late so we took off back to Lisannes. I packed and we went for dinner, I was cutting it really close so Travis agreed to let me use the moto bike to ride to bus stop. I arrived right after the bus left so they directed me to the second stop. I called Travis and let him know I got the bus and that the moto bike was at the second bus station. As I rode away on the bus I realized I left my board shorts hanging on the moto and I left my Hawaii drivers license at the moto bike shop as a deposit. I called Travis again and asked him to grab them for me. I was sure we’d see each other again on the way.