Kusafiri = matkustaa

Lisää terveisiä Vietnamista! Olen reissaillut neljä päivää Ho Chi Minh Cityn eteläpuolella – ensin kaksi päivää Mekong Delta alueella ja sitten toiset kaksi päivää Nha Trangin kaupungissa

I Nha Trang hade jag jättekul reskompisar från Sverige – altså stora tackar till Tina och Henrik att du var så vänliga och hjälpsamma med mig. Med Tina vi reste tillsammans till Nha Trang. Där hittade vi en snyg hotell för 6 dollars ett natt. Den hostellen var ju snyg: Nice hostel var namn av denna ;) I Nha Trang vi gick att se den famös tempeln och hittade så många restauranger med utsökta mat…

As coming from a country with two official languages, it is supersad that I cannot speak the other one very well. Meaning swedish! But I wanted to put some effort on this particular blog text so that my new friends from Sweden can also understand my stories J Luckily english is like a mother language to most of the people these days which covers up my shitty swedish in this case.

***

So back to Nha Trang… We arrived to Nha Trang early in the morning by shaky night train. The train took us in 10 hours from HCMC to this coast city. We also had some nice Canadian company on the trip since we had met on the Mekong Delta tour. Cool couples: still backpacking while not in their twenties any more ;)

Our Canadian-Swedish-Finnish crew and the local conductor.
Kanadalais-ruotsalais-suomalainen matkaseurueemme ja
paikallinen konduktööri. Tunnistatko? ;)

The train a Vietnamese style. It was good though with air-con and
everything.  I have seen worse in Eastern Europe ;)

On the first day in Nha Trang we had some luxury time at the beach. Just laying there and enjoy the super strong wind from the sea. Even though the wind was quite bad and there were these warning red flags around the beach some crazyish people were swimming in the sea. Not us. And by the way, it seemed to be many tourists from Russia in Nha Trang (which didn’t come into my mind about craziness :D). Even many signs in restaurants and tourist offices were in Russian, also menus in restaurants. That was kinda peculiar but still probably these people bring good investments for the area. On the other, the thing that kinda amazed me was some russian people walking into an art gallery and only talking Russian. When you travel, you are the visitor in someones home and everyday life. Please, that should be respected.

After relaxing on the beach we headed to have some late lunch with the Canadians. Along the way we saw the streets of Nha Trang: many restaurants, few stores selling some Western fashion, tourist office after another and also quite a few massage spa -places. We went to have lunch into a well-reviewed Vietnamese restaurant which also had a nice roof top lounge. So, after some delicious rice, tofu cooked in soy sauce and fried morning glory at the restaurant we headed to have a couple of cocktails up at the roof top.

After a very good and long night sleep, the next day in Nha Trang we visited this famous temple Po Nagar. It was quite a pretty and peaceful site to see, just 6 km away from the center of Nha Trang. It was lovely to be in such a peaceful place after two fulfilled days in Mekong delta and before that two days surrounded by the crazy traffic in the capital. This in how the temple area seemed like:

Sweet stuff for the Gods. / Jumalille herkkuja.

And then also some nice super delicious Tikka Paneer at a local Indian restaurant. It was really easy to find some well-rated restaurants via TripAdvisor of which Tina was a great user of ;) It´s simply easier and more convenient to find a place that has been recommended by other tourists and is pointed exactly on the map. Rather than wander around for hours wondering where to go. In that way, you may find something great to eat:

So, two days in Nha Trang went pretty fast and were fulfilled with some easy-going walk around, great meals & drinks and a pretty tempel view. As the last moments of our trip we had an honour to jump into a local night bus back to HCMC :P It was actually very convenient there: all the benches were in laid down position and plankets were provided automatically. Then we just jumped in along a small package of bread and water that we got for the trip. In the morning it was Ho Chi Minh City again...at 5.30 am :D 

So as a final reflection (which is usual for us social work students to do as a part of each essay or other school stuff): it's great to travel alone when you get to do exactly the things you like but at the same time you are free to hang around with any cool people you meet. It feels kinda free and eyes-opening to see and experience things alone, but I need to admit also that it feels lonely from time to time. Especially I miss talking to people and sharing the experiences right away. But that's not the story of past few days - these days were full of great company and feelings of being welcome.

See you! Vi ses!