Nha Trang... a nice little beach city that's developing rapidly... and in a good way! In 10-20 years, it should be a lot like Hawaii! We spent 4-days here, 2 of them lying on a couple loungers by the beach reading, sipping cocktails, and swimming... not a bad time! We hope to do much more of this throughout the trip!!!
This is also where we did our first scuba diving excursions of the trip! While not as beautiful as what I saw on my first-ever dive at Ko Phi Phi in Thailand, it was fairly good! The visibility was not the best as a storm had passed through the night before and churned up the sea floor a bit, but it was still 6-10 metres. It was better than the last day we were in Nha Trang, as a further storm had turned the clear greenish blue waters at the beach to murky brown! We swam around Hon Mun Island at dive sites with names like Madonna Rock, Sea Horse 2, Moray Beach, and Mammahanh. All we're nice, and we got to see things like Moray Eels, Pipefish, Trumpetfish, Scorpion Fish, schools of shrimp, small crabs, playful Clownfish and their anemones and Pufferfish!!! We even saw a Mantis Shrimp that looked like a clawless yummy lobster! We haven't been eating much seafood here... maybe that should change soon!
We're now in Hue, the former Imperial capital of Vietnam during the Nguyen era. It's a nice little town, with the Perfume River running through it and out to the South China Sea. Here you can walk around the Old Imperial City inside the Citadel. This was the former place of government under Vietnam's former emperors. We took a scooter out to the countryside yesterday to check-out some of the mausoleums of these former emperors. It's funny, but the grandest ones, with the exception of Minh Mang, are those of some of Vietnam's weakest emperors. The first we saw was that of Emperor Khai Dinh, who was more of a puppet of the French regime in the early 20th Century... he was chosen by the French to be Emperor as his previous two were too nationalistic and opposed the French. He died 9-years after being in power, said to be a drug addict and in bad health. The last one we visited was that of Emperor Tu Duc, who was known more for his poetry and time spent at his palace writing, rather than as a leader... and he was in power for 35-years. The only capable Emperor who had a mausoleum worth visiting was Minh Mang, who was said to be capable, but ruled in an authoritarian manner... though this isn't always a bad thing, as some countries these days sure could use government like that!
Today, we've spent most of the day in a little restaurant called La Carambole... writing these latest blog postings, reading news on our iPhones, and planning our trip to New Zealand in January! YAY for New Zealand! We can't wait! After this we'll probably hop on a cyclo for the sake of riding a cyclo around town! Tomorrow we're backtracking a bit and going to Hoi An for their Full Moon Eve festival.
Will be posting pics soon, probably later today... stay tuned!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment