Traveling Nha Trang, Vietnam

Nha Trang, Vietnam

200K pop beach town, 300km NE of HCMC

by Amanda Nourse and Glenn Weinreb

Home : Travel : Traveling Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia : Vietnam : Nha-Trang

Overview

Nha Trang is one of the most popular beach towns in Vietnam. Located 12 hours by bus from HCMC, this city of 200K people has beautiful beaches, terrific hotels, and a wide variety of restaurants. Transportation within town is dominated by cyclo-taxis (tricycle w/ bench for passengers, includes peddler), motorcycle-taxis (you hang onto driver), and $5/day 125cc motorcycles (you drive).

Where We Stayed

My Hoa Hotel - This $10/day hotel provides a nice room with hot water and AC. The staff is helpful and provides good advice on where to go and what to see. 07 Hang Ca St, myHoaHotel@dng.vnn.nv, Tel 84-58-810111.

Where We Ate

The Nha Trang Sailing Club is a swanky joint along the ocean with terrific $10/dinner food. They specialize in fish, Italian, and Japanese food. The steamed grouper with vegetables is quite good. 72 D Tran Phu Rd.
The Coffee Shop 1 block from My Hoa Hotel, along Duong Dinh Phung Rd, has a beautiful courtyard and serves nothing but coffee. No food, no cookies. Just coffee. This is a nice spot for an afternoon or evening break. Coffee break.
Hoan Hai on Duong Le Loi Rd. is an upscale joint for Vietnamese that features nice dinners for $3.
The Banana Split 60 on Duong Ly Thanh Ton Rd. has terrific food at $1.50/dinner prices. They have peanut butter!!!! (this is the banana split cafe on the LET hand side, as opposed to its next door neighbor, the Banana Split 58!)
Lac Canh specializes in table-side barbeque and is a popular spot for Vietnamese who want tasty beef cooked at their table for $2/dinner. This place is often packed with native Vietnamese.
Dua Xanh on Duong Le Loi Rd. is a popular spot for tourists who want excellent Vietnamese food for $4/head. Their desert pancakes with lemon and sugar are terrific.

What We Did

Monkey Island is a must for those visiting Nha Trang. Located 1 hour by road and boat, this Island features many wild monkeys with which one can interact, in a forest, unsupervised, as pictured below. Tourists feed these characters kernels of corn at close distances. Like out of your hand distances. The fellas don't bite unless one tries to pick them up and give them a big hug. They are not the cuddly type.

Our $5/day motorcycle enabled us to explore Nha Trang and the surrounding area.

There are some very nice temples in the region.

The $300/room Ana Mandara Resort Hotel is a terrific spot to get a drink and take a walk. For details, search "Ana Mandara" at www.asia-hotels.com.

The beaches in Nha Trang are Top Drawer.

Personal Reflections

Amanda: The people in Nha Trang were so friendly - One night in Nha Trang we were walking down the street and there was this kitten - so cute! So we stopped to pat the kitten, and an entire family, presumably the kitten's caretakers, came out of the house, they pull up seats for us, pick up the kitten and put him/her in our arms, shook our hand, offered us beer....

Some people were NOT so nice - I got robbed in Nha Trang!! My small purse was yanked from my neck ~while we were riding the motorbike! Luckily we were not hurt, and the purse had very little cash in it.

Glenn: I very much liked Nha Trang due to the beautiful beaches, the casual ocean/beach atmosphere, the relaxing cool weather, and the many congestion-free roads in which one can walk and ride.

I learned several things in Nha Trang. One is how to ride a motorcycle. The folks at the hotel front desk recommended a 125cc bike at $5/day. I said OK, they provide the bike, Amanda inquired about helmets, they said no one uses those, Amanda persisted, they provided 2 helmets for an additional $2/day, they asked if I knew how to drive a motorcycle, I told them no, they recommend that I not rent it, I asked them how to use it, they provided a 5 minute lesson, I told them I'd take it, they said OK, and away we went. Do these folks care about safety? Not much. Lawsuits are almost non-existent in Vietnam. And without them, sellers delegate responsibility to buyers. High speed 50mph/80kph roads are often packed with motorcycles, without one Helmet in sight.

Another thing I learned in Nha Trang is that I love miniature dessert pancakes with sugar and lemon. Vietnam acquired this specialty from the French when they were colonized pre 1960.

The last thing that I learned at Nha Trang, or more specifically, at Monkey Island, is that alpha-male monkeys are mean as snakes. If one tosses a kernel of corn to a nearby non-alpha, the alpha will rush in and threaten to attack the non-alpha. Baby monkeys are so afraid they hide in trees when food is on the ground. If one tries to toss food too far for the alpha to access, they will snarl at the food provider. These alpha-males are extremely rude. And this propensity toward aggressive and rude behavior is selected for during reproduction. I wonder what affect this has had on humans during the hundred thousand years that we were evolving.

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