I was hot, I was sticky, I was hungry, I was tired, I was wet from the rain, and truth be told, I was a little bit seasick, but you know what??? BRING IT ON, VIETNAM!!!! WOOHOO!!! WELCOME TO NHA TRANG!!
I spent two days in Vietnam. The first day was spent in the beautiful resort town of Nha Trang, my new favorite place in Asia. I didn’t even go the resorts! The local people live by fishing and their homes are literally on the water. To get to Nha Trang, we had to ride a tender from the ship, which is basically a boat. Once we got there, we took another boat to an island called Mieu Island, which is where the Trí Nguyên Aquarium is located. The aquarium had the largest fish I had ever seen! We even got to feed the giant turtles!
We left the island by boat again to go to lunch on Con Se Tre Island, a resort island which was actually pretty deserted (in a good way). On the way there we got to see the local people living their daily lives on the water and it was amazing. Soon, it started raining and the wind pushed the water towards us. It was a funny moment with everyone scrambling to open up their umbrellas and seek cover. The rain didn’t last long though.
Once we landed on the island we had a delicious lunch at Nhà Hàng Restaurant where we were the only people! Besides the locals of course. I was not a fan of Vietnamese food until I tried REAL Vietnamese food. Yummy!
After lunch we went back to the city and there is a street filled with resorts called Tran Phu Street. From there, we headed to Long Son Pagoda and saw a beautiful (and HUGE) reclining Buddha made of marble. Being at Long Son Pagoda, the locals continually tried to speak to me in Vietnamese. I had a flashback of College Karate class during my freshman year when my middle-aged Indian classmate asked me if I came from Vietnam. I had to kindly tell them that I was not Vietnamese.
The locals who try to sell you touristy items are very determined to make a sale. In fact, they’re so determined that once they see you leave, they will ride their motorcycles and follow you to your next stop. No joke. They also sell the exact same type of knock-off polo shirt. I mean, there’s like 10 million people selling this exact shirt and there are TONS of shirts. It was hilarious.
The only down side to this trip was that I didn’t get to go to Po Nagar (aka one of the Cham Towers). I’m woman enough to admit that I cried over this and was entirely pissed at my father for two days. It was his idea to skip one of the most beautiful temples in religious history (as well as being one of the remaining sites of an almost forgotten nation) in favor of going shopping at a crappy little street market despite knowing that I really, really, really wanted to go. The only option my father gave me was to let the bus driver “drive by” it. Yeah, like that’s supposed to be good enough.
From an art historian perspective (thank you, Chari – my Asian art history teacher), Po Nagar is an incredible artistic example of Hindu roots in southeast asia. For those unaware, southern Vietnam (where Nha Trang is located) used to be the kingdom of Champa, a Hindu country. They were finally defeated and taken over by the Vietnamese in the nineteenth century. There are still some sites that have survived over the years, but the Champa population has dwindled down. However, their art and architecture is, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful in all of Asian art history.
And as you can tell, I’m totally coming back some day. 
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