Nha Trang: Day 2

Wednesday morning began at 7:30 am when I checked my email, threw on my bathing suit and a shirt and headed for breakfast. I ate bread, eggs, and an iced coffee with milk with Jill and Bryan at the same place we had dinner the previous night. I then returned to my hotel room, packed a small bag for the day, and met the rest of the group on the bus at 9:00 am. I was so excited I was shaking because we were taking out a boat and going snorkeling.

We took a ten minute bus ride to the dock, boarded our boat, and I read for the hour trip until we anchored in this cove. I immediately grabbed by snorkel stuff and dove into the clear water. Snorkeling was amazing and I got the hang of it so quickly. I saw parrot fish, trumpter fish, eels swam around me, and the coral was beautiful. At some point I donned my sandals and swam ashore with Jill and Graham. I found cool shells and coral and climbed on some rocks. Apparently a tour guide from a nearby boat screamed to me “Hey funky monkey! Get off those rocks!” How does he know me so well?

I then swam back to the boat and we had an awesome lunch of fish, rice, bread, beef and snow peas, shrimp, my xao, Cokes, and some pineapple for dessert. I then lay down on the front of the boat and alternately read and napped in the sun. At 2:45 I was woken up and told we were visiting a fish farm. This ended up being some nets and docks in the middle of this port and our boat departed after about 15 minutes. It was only a 15 minute boat ride back to the dock and I read and then got onto our bus for ten minutes. This put me back at the hotel at 3:15 and I checked my email and wrote a journal entry.

At 4:00 pm I met Jackie and Jill in hotel lobby and we took a taxi to this hot spring/mud bath place. I just wanted to sit in mud and throw it at people. We met Sarah and Brittany there, changed into bathing suits, and locked up the rest of our stuff. We got into the mud bath, communal shower, mineral water pool, and then finished in a warm swimming pool where we met Tica, Cathy, and Monica. We then dried off, changed, a got taxis back to the hotel. We got back at 6:15 am and I was completely relaxed. Jill and I walked around to find some flowers for Tuyet and then went back to the room to change.

At 6:45 Jill and I took xe oms to Tuyet’s tailor shop and talked to her and her 14 year-old daughter, Lyly, until 7:30. Tuyet and her sister were so nice and gave us xe may rides to The Sailing Club and Jill and I did some shopping down the street before finding our group at this Italian restaurant. I inhaled some amazing penne vodka with bacon and a Coke before paying and leaving in a taxi with some girls from our group. We got back to the hotel at 9:00 and Sarah and Brittany and I watched episodes of “Friends” on my bed. I fell asleep for the last two episodes and then woke up as they watched their last one. We talked for a bit and then they went out, but I was too exhausted and relaxed to move anywhere. I washed up and read in bed before falling asleep at 11:00.

I was woken up early in the morning by Jill’s cell phone and some hubbub about purses being stolen. It turns out that poor, sweet Monica had her little bag stolen ripped off of her body by a guy on a xe may as she was walking down the street. She immediately called her parents to cancel her credit cards and was thankful that she had hardly any money in the bag. I was just thankful she wasn’t injured, as the bag was around her shoulder and hung securely by her side. I went back to bed until DiDi, in rare form, came back drunk and starting rambling about how I hated her because I didn’t want to cuddle with her. I had a hard time moving her arm off my pillow but finally succeeded in doing so and went back to bed until the morning.