Our first thought upon arriving in Nha Trang was that it oddly felt like the Miami of Vietnam… except with a lot more Russian people (it’s apparently a bit tourist destination for Russians). Like many towns and cities in Vietnam, there was a constant buzz of energy; people everywhere, restaurant signs flashing, and the smells of food from all directions.

Our first day, we headed to the beach, which was surprisingly cleaner than we expected. There was certainly a fair amount of cigarette butts on the ground and pieces of trash in the water, but it was an upgrade compared to some beaches we have been to. Just as we were about to go swimming, a gnarly thunder storm came in, so we ran to shelter at a beach bar and were forced to play cribbage and drink beer instead (you know us, just making the best of a situation).

The calm before the storm:

Tristan also ordered a coffee with “cream on the side” and this is what they brought out… actual whipped cream in a small dish:

For dinner, Tristan found a restaurant that was basically like stepping foot into Swiss Family Robinson. It was a three-story, open air building absolutely covered in greenery. Each table was in its own little treehouse alcove area (even though the tables were super short, per usual). At one point, we saw a waitress on the third floor pulling a rope with a small bucket up from the bottom floor; once it got to the top, we realized that inside was the bill for one of her tables. How cool is that?! Also, there was an optional slide to get down to the ground floor. We opted out and used the stairs instead because the slide was wooden and the fear of splinters up our butts was real (plus Taylor may still be scarred from Roby Park, a childhood playground made entirely of wood).

A view of the inside of the restaurant:

Our little dinner nook:

The slide that we most certainly did not slide down:Later that night, we were itching to get to a rooftop bar so we could get a view of the city. We looked on google and found quite a few options along the water, so we picked one at random and we were very pleased with our decision. We paid $10 (total) to get access to the Skylight rooftop bar (and this included a complimentary drink too). The view from the top was spectacular. There was a full dance floor/DJ booth set up along with a swimming pool (which ironically said no swimming?). But the coolest part was the glass bottom skywalk where you could see the city under your feet from about 40 stories up.

Don’t let the smiles fool you, it was terrifying:It took some liquid courage, but we actually walked on it (and made sure to wait until we were the only ones on it… just to be cautious any any weight limit and the fact that we were both terrified). It was great to hang out at the bar, people watch, and see the sun slowly set over the city. We only stayed at the bar for a few drinks since they were expensive by Vietnam standards (a whopping $4 for a beer hahaha).

The pool that you definitely cannot swim in apparently:

Oh and there were people dressed up like minions for some reason…a perfect opportunity for Taylor to pose awkwardly:

The next day, we decided to have a redemption beach day since we got rained out the first time. So we headed over around noon and spent a few hours lounging and reading our books. We noticed a giant, inflatable obstacle course to our left and just couldn’t resist. Some of you may recall, back in 2014 when we were in Spain, we went to one of these obstacle courses and it was one of our favorite parts of the trip. Needless to say, we had to do it. For just $3 per person, we got access to it for the entire day. Being the little kid grown ups that we are… we spent over two hours playing on this thing. We had some seriously funny wipe-outs, and came out with some battle wounds (for some reason, Taylor had way more? though this is not an accurate depiction of her athletic ability).

It may look tiny from a distance but those tall floats were about 15 feet in height:

After we were sufficiently exhausted, we went to get some Vietnamese food for dinner and call it an early night because we had a 4:45am train to catch the next day. As most of our destinations, it was a short stay but fun!

Now off to Hue!

XOXO -T&T