Nha Trang

Street Seller - "Mr Mop"

The briefest stop on the cruise, we had just one morning in Nha Trang before setting sail for Da Nang. We did not book any of the ship's tours, on the basis that Nha Trang appeared to be a fairly compact place and easy to walk around. This was certainly true, although as the ship did not issue any maps we had no idea how to find the main attractions (namely Long Son Pagoda and Po Nagar Champa Towers). After the hectic street life of Saigon, Nha Trang was much more laid back. Not surprising when you consider the population (500,000 in contrast two Saigon's eight million). Wandering the back streets we passed a shoe repair shop, Singer sewing machine threaded up and ready for action on the porch. Elsewhere we found an ear candling stall and a workshop with two men slaving over a complete engine strip-down. And all of this before you got to Dam Market, which was awash with the usual displays of fruit and vegetables and hair-raisingly unkempt butcher's stalls with meat being hacked up on sheets of cardboard.

Dried fish anyone?

The bay at Nha Trang is quite spectacular if not for the piles of washed up plastic bottles and debris. Out in the bay, fishermen cast nets from coracles, round wicker tub-shaped fishing boats. At the north edge of the town we stumbled across some sort of shanty town which was a morass of corrugated iron, rubble, crushed up polystyrene boxes and yet more plastic bottles. A string strung across an old JCB provided a makeshift washing line and a few scrawny chickens tethered in cages presumably provided the occasional meat feast. (I couldn’t imagine any of the hens up to laying an egg). This was obviously the part of town the tourist office would prefer you not to see.

Fishing Coracle

Generally the hassle factor was much lower in Nha Trang, and for the most part people paid little attention to us as we peered into their stalls and houses and even watched the fishermen repair their coracles. The one exception was a lone postcard terrorist who cornered us as we waited for our bus back to the port. The woman was clearly a professional and had brought her baby along to up the guilt factor. “Baby is hungry” she wailed, turning on the puppy dog eyes as the seemingly well fed child looked on unawares. My patience with the postcard terrorists had worn a bit thin at this point, so baby or no baby I thought I’d do her a favour. “Look, we don’t need any postcards” I said “If you want to sell something, try maps”. Well with that, she dumped the baby (and her coolie hat full of postcards) on the pavement and ran off down the street. She never did find a map (it was Sunday, which can’t have helped), but I think I planted the seed of an idea. So next time you visit Nha Trang, look out for the map terrorists at the market.