Once we got to Nha Trang, we had to hightail it out of there so Jesi and dad would make it to their dive group in time. We got to the dive shop five minutes after the group had left (oh noes!) but, luckily, the owner was able to drive them down before the boat left.
While they went diving, I took all our bags to the hotel. I was super tired at this point and all I wanted to do was crash in an air conditioned room because although it was only 8am, it was already in the mid-80's. Much to my chagrin, the woman at the counter said that I couldn't check in until 3pm.
I'm afraid I wasn't very nice at this point.
It was about 8am, I was tired, hot, sweaty, and I was being told that I would have to wait for seven hours until I could get into the room. I gave her a good old American "WHAT THE HELL??!" look and repeated, "3pm?"
She apologised and asked what I wanted to do (what kind of question is that?) so I was honest. "I want to take a shower and go to sleep!" She kindly suggested that I could rest by the pool or in the cafe (which wasn't opened) but I said no, I'll just wait here in the lobby where there is air conditioning. She said she would keep tabs on the room to see when the current occupants checked out and get it cleaned right away. I could check with her at 11:30 to see if it was ready yet.
On top of being tired, I felt really stupid about how irritated I had been with the nice lady and I seriously felt like I was going to cry which was, again, aggravated by the feelings of stupidity. So I decided to walk around the area for a while to cool down (my brain, obviously, since it was FREAKING HOT!!). I picked a direction and walked, hoping to maybe find a little super market or convenience store for when we decided we wanted snacks.
Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
So I went down another street.
Again, nothing.
By this time I was getting all sweaty and really thirsty so I decided to go on the opposite side of the hotel. A few blocks later I found a mall! With a food court, cinema, and four levels of blessed air conditioning.
It didn't open until 11am and it was only 9:30. Poop. So I went back to the hotel to sit and read in the lobby. I took off my flip flops and curled up on a couch to read. Made myself really comfy.
At 11:30 on the dot I went and checked with the lady and the room was ready! Thank you!! I was very happy. I took a shower and got in bed with all intentions of watching Torchwood on the BBC channel only to wake up when the front desk called to tell me Dad and Jesi were here and I needed to come down to bring them up (this was about 2:30pm).
Comfy Jen is comfy. Dad likes the air conditioning in the room to be really cold so Jesi and I usually wrapped up in the fluffy down comforters they had.
The view from the room was really nice. We had to balconies. You could see mountains...
And the beautiful beach. Sooo pretty.
While Jesi took a shower, Dad showed me all the cool pictures from their dive. Lotsa fishies.
Jesi, too.
After they were all clean (and Jesi realized she had burned pretty good... ouchies), we went to a market a bit like the Ben Tanh market in Ho Chi Minh. We pretty much just wandered. In our wanderings, we went through an entire section that sold only DRIED FISH. It smelled a bit funky.
This lady was selling baskets of dried fishies. Mmmm... tasty.
There were even dried sea horses! Apparently they are used for medicinal purposes. Interesting.
Once in the market we saw most of the usual things as well a few interesting ones. This guy had a turtle on his wall. Cool. Also, I'm not sure which way is up in this picture... I think I might have it upside down.
That night we went to dinner at a place that Dad had been to before. He was really excited to get his cheap lobster dinner. However, it was not to be. They brought out Jesi's dinner. Then, when she was almost finished, they brought out my dinner. Then, five minutes after I had finished, they brought out Dad's salad, quickly followed by his lobster.
Dad doesn't get mad often so when he does it's kind of intense. He refused the food and asked for the check. The ladies were really confused and kind of just stood there holding the food looking like deer caught in the headlights of a car. We sat for a while waiting for them to bring the check. Dad finally got fed up with waiting, grabbed the menu, added up what we had eaten, threw the money on the table and we left.
Gelato and oreos for dinner calmed made him happy again.
We had more fun the next day. We went to a pagoda on a hill! At the bottom of the hill was a Buddhist temple that we got to go in and see.
Inside was a shrine. On either side were these giant candles. They were going to light the candles the next day in honor of a man who had self burned in protest of the U.S. presence in Vietnam during the war. The candles would burn for 15 days in his honor. Wow.
Then we hiked some stairs. Lots and lots of stairs.
Part way up the hill was a reclining Buddha. We stood and marveled at the statue a while before heading up (you guessed it!) MORE STAIRS! YES!!
We finally made it to the top. It was hot. HOT HOT HOT. We were all sweaty and gross by this point. Woof! But what a view!
Here's a view of the steps we climbed up. You can't see all of them because of the trees. I swear there were a lot of stairs.
This is what we climbed to see. It looked really cool up close. Very pretty.
Also, we saw a chicken. Day. Made.
After the pagoda, we decided to walk around town a bit. Dad had the taxi drop us off in front of the Novatel so we could walk the streets back to our own hotel. It was hot (have I mentioned it was hot? Cuz it really was) so we stopped in for some gelato. Mmmm... tasty.
And Jesi looks cute.
On our walk, we saw a monkey. That's right, folks. A monkey. Jesi had been talking all week about how cool it would be to see a monkey and here it was, leashed to a motorcycle and eating a lychee or something. Isn't it cute?
We also saw another chicken. Mom, this will never get old.
It finally came time to leave Nha Trang and head back to Ho Chi Minh so that we could eventually had back to Korea. The airlines bumped us up to business class. AWESOME! We got to sit in the little lounge with free snacks and stuff before the flight. This was one of the drinks offered in the business class lounge. Interesting.
The seats were awesome. Lots of leg and butt room. Really made me wish I was willing to lay down the extra $1,000 for business class on my way back to the States. That would be really cool... *sigh* I'm too cheap.
Here's Jesi and me enjoying our awesome seats.
At my request, we had Hard Rock Cafe for dinner once we were back in Ho Chi Minh. I wanted a REAL burger and fries. It was delicious. Though, perhaps not worth the stomachache (among other things) I had for the next day and a half. That'll teach me to eat a giant spicy hamburger after several months of little to no beef. Ugh.
Still, it was REALLY tasty.
Next up: "Jesi in Korea!" or "Why monsoon season is not the best time to visit your sister in Korea."
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