Good Morning Vietnam! A Nha Trang Morning in Vietnam

Menu said "Chicken Wings" and that's all that came

Pork with rice, very good rice.

$500,000 Dong ($22 US)

Fresh chicken anyone? At the local market

Tuk Tuk

View at dock-World's longest cable car 2.5 klicks

It's just a short and sweet stay at our first port of Vietnam as we arrive at 8:00 am and depart at 2:00 pm but also need to bus 30 minutes each way and the first bus departs and eight and the last return bus departs at one pm. As you may have noticed in the news over the past year China is trying to assert control over all of the South China sea. All the other countries are fighting back. Vietnam would not allow ANY map to come off the ship today that had the words "South China Sea" on it! Bused to a downtown hotel and then we were walking to the Dam market (that is it's official name) when we were waylaid by three Tuk Tuk's and agreed to go by bike taxi for $1.00 US. Well they took us for a ride for sure going all around town through the scary traffic and went to a different more local market. We tried to pay them but the said pay later, we wait. At the end they dropped us about two blocks from the hotel then wanted US $20 each. We had a showdown and they mostly won by getting US $10 each. Went to the beach that is very nice and had a swim in the 82 degree waters. They say that this beach will get crowded soon with Russians as there are now about 10,000 Russians a month who come here and they are very busy building new high rise hotels. After our swim we stopped at a very nice looking open air cafe and ordered some Saigon beers. We go Tiger beer instead but have had it before (it's from Singapore) and it's good. Warm though so we got glasses of ice to go with it. We ordered chicken wings, pork with rice and french fries. The rice was the best, the chicken wings were just one piece of chicken. Had a second round of Tiger beer and got the bill. The bill was $360,000.00 Dong, a whopping $15.68 US for all of it, and at a fancy place no less.

The local market was interesting, Dawn ventured in and we walked the perimeter and what a place with every kind of fruit, fish, animal, etc for sale and the smells were free! Didn't end up buying anything and will give it another try tomorrow in Ho Chi Mihn.

We have a very busy time coming up so may be a while on the blog, who's to say. Tomorrow we arrive at the mouth of the river to Saigon (Ho Chi) at 3:30 am and travel up the river 45 klicks (kilometers) for docking downtown at 8:00 am. We have been up this river before in a smaller cruise ship and that one had a hard time navigating the river so this one could get interesting. We will try to be above Captain to here his comments. We have one day in Saigon then off the next to Cambodia to see Ankor Watt for two nights then fly from Cambodia to Bangkok, Thailand where we stay overnight. In

A Little Tiger in the tank?