Dollar Beers and Ancient Bricks

12122016

Asia, Cruise, Vietnam

Another tour day in Vietnam, Nha Trang (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nha_Trang), it was a little rainy, and the rain got worse over the course of the day.

First stop on the tour was at a temple, the Long San Pagoda (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_S%C6%A1n_Pagoda) they did not allow us inside because we were all wet. I did sneak some pictures though.

then we walked up the hill to see the big sitting buddha

This was big, easily the largest Buddha I have ever seen.

Then on the way back down we saw the reclining buddha, and this one is symbolic of buddha after having ascended to Nirvana.

the tour then took us to a tourist trap embroidery place. they had very expensive works, and upstairs you could watch all the ladies making them.

Laura used the toilet here, and we hurried through to use the WiFi on the bus.

It is a little upsetting that we paid a not-insignificant-sum to be on the tour, and they still force us into a place that is really just a place for me to buy overpriced crap.

anyways we then went to a large market, again enclosed, claustrophobic walkways full of shit tourists buy.

This was interesting as it was full of the same clothes that we found in Hong Kong, but these were probably authentic. China had a bunch of knockoffs, that's why they were so cheap, but here in Vietnam they are cheap because the factory is across the street. The Nike shirts are sold at cost plus like 1000 dong (its 22,000 VHD to USD).

It was also interesting because this town is full of Russian tourists. The business ladies are very savvy, obviously they speak their native language, and seemingly French, and English and Russian they understand enough to try to sell you shit.

Our last stop of the day was at a Cham temple, the Po Nagar towers, which were built by this king Po Nagar (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Po_Nagar). The Cham or Champa have their own flavor of Hinduism and ruled Vietnam a while ago (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chams).

This is the major temple for the Cham in Vietnam, and as such is the site of some pretty neat festivals. Including their new year festival, which requires a series of virgins to climb some very steep steps (as pictured above) with various fruits and flowers and such on their head.

We then took the bus back to the dock, and found a vendor selling beer out of her cooler for 20,000 VHD to 1USD. We spent all of our Dong, and then dollars here.

We just drank beers and wandered around the docks.

We stumbled into Chris, one of the Australians we have run into at Trivia events on the ship. We had a good chat, and he gave us some hints on how to be better at cruise ships; namely how to ensure the right people get your tips, and how to save money.

We then got back up on the ship, ate some tasty grilled food on the pool deck. The ship had some kind of event, I dont remember what the event was, just that there was various grilled meats, and delicious pork steam buns.

We got in on some trivia, hit the happy hour, and then went to bed.