Nha Trang - Pics!

Hey Everyone! As Chris mentioned, we made a friend, Tram, in Nha Trang. She was a waitress at one of our favorite restaurants down the street from the hotel in Nha Trang. I'm not really sure what the name of the restaurant was, but we just called it Tram's restaurant. On the day we finished our SCUBA lessons, we went to Tram's restaurant to celebrate and got to talking with her. Basically, we found out that there was a lot more to do in Nha Trang than just sit on the beach and SCUBA. We made arrangements to meet up with her a few days later.

That Saturday, we met up with Tram and her friend Trung at our hotel. Chris and I rented a motorbike and followed the two around the city for a good four hours. We saw some great locales and had a wonderful make your own spring roll lunch afterwards. One of the most interesting places we stopped was a very large Buddha that had busts of various monks surrounding the pedestal of the Buddha. The monks all had flames surrounding their faces to symbolize that they killed themselves by setting themselves of fire in the 1960s during the Viet Nam war. There were at least eight monks surrounding the statue. Besides the various places we saw, I really enjoyed riding on the motoscooter with Chris. Walking down the street in Viet Nam is challenging, much less driving a motoscooter. The traffic laws are very "flexible" and people really just go wherever they want whenever they want! I'm so glad Chris rides motorcycles in the States. He was totally a pro, plus it gave me an excuse to hang onto him tight while weaving through traffic!

Here are some pictures from our time in Nha Trang and the food at Tram's restaurant. In the picture where Chris and I are wearing lab coats, we are actually inside a temple from hundreds of years ago. We had to wear the coats because we didn't have on appropriate attire. Ooops, I wish they provided those coats everywhere (see Angkor Wat post coming soon for a story on that one). Also, look closely in the "hot pot" and you can see a fish head. Chris ate that fish head, including the eyeballs! Although he said it was really good, I think it was the reason he became sick in Saigon. Either way, the food was great and so fresh! Thanks to Tram and Trung for being great hosts and helping us see more of Nha Trang than we would have otherwise.



Besides hanging with Tram and Trung and eating good food, we also enjoyed the Tet (New Year's) holiday in Nha Trang. They had a huge fireworks display that thousands of people were at, tons of lights and tigers decorating the town, and dragons accompanied by drummers scouring the town for lucky money at various shops and restaurants. Here are some pictures from the three day Tet holiday in Nha Trang. I think the one of the lady singing on stage may possibly be the singer from 4 Non Blondes. Anyone know what she's up to these days? This woman sang "What's going on" and sounded just like her!