Nha Trang – Tai Chi in the sunrise
The minibus was extremely punctual. At 7:30 am when I was finishing editing the blog was right in front of the hotel to pick me up from Dalat and bring me to the main bus office to leave for Nha Trang, a city on the coast of the South China Sea. The road was through mountains and pine forest for a good part near Dalat and it took 4 hours to reach the main highway of Vietnam , Route 1 that crosses between Hanoi and Mekong. Those 4 hours plus another 2 hours made the six hours that takes to get to Nha Trang.
On the way we stopped 3 times, one of the times to visit some Cham towers, Cham being a civilization that flourished here between the 2nd and the 13th century being absorbed latter in the 17th by the Vietnamese. It was influenced by the Hindu civilization, who made South Vietnam in those time a Hindu area, latter being Sinizate. The Champas adopted at the beginning Hindu religion, Sanskrit as language and Shiva as a deity, that you can see on all their towers/temples. It was quick visit but the towers were close by, 5 minutes walk and I went in the close to 100F heat.
We arrived in Nha Trang at 2:00pm and I got a room in a hotel, incredibly spotless with all the amenities and a view to the sea, just 2 minutes walk outside to the beach, for $9/night. I started my quick visit quickly by going to the tour agency to find out about the next day trips for tomorrow. I booked my bus for tomorrow night, a 10 hour experience arriving in Hoian at 6:00am and I jumped in the back of a motorbike with a guy who was waiting in the front of the hotel to visit the several sites in town I was interested in: a temple, the cathedral that is impressive and you think that was built in medieval times, and a set of Cham towers located in town built in the latter Cham centuries. The temples were magnificent and they were full with believers who were burning incense inside making the atmosphere almost impossible to breathe. But the smoke and the fire gave a good background for shooting so I stayed inside breathing when I got a break from shooting. I went to visit all 4 of them , but one of them is the most important and large. There are one near each other in a complex located on a promontory that confer a great view over the sea and the harbor. The motorbike guy dropped me to a far beach after I told him, to his surprise, that I want to walk back to town. They do not think that foreigners can walk! I stayed there till the full moon rose over the sea and chat with a group of guys and girls who came to chat with the “foreigner”, in spite that they did not speak English. But we made jokes and had a great time in spite of limited communication. People are so nice that sometime you are embarrassed that you cannot treat them with the same openness and joie de vivre that they have. You are rushed, between trips and tours, buses and planes, with the time on the limit and sometime you forget that the most important thing is to smile. The globalization works, and a guy, looking like a peasant boy, (not a city slicker, that you are able easily to recognize even here in Vietnam) came to me and said “Hello Motolola” and when I answered to him “Hello Moto” with the accent of the cellphone, he was delirious with laugh. So, here are two guys from two parts of the world communicating through the gadget language of the gizmos. Cellphones are everywhere in Vietnam, practically everybody has one, it’s just unbelievable because people do not make a lot of money but all talk on the cellphones. The greatest joy I had in Vietnam is to hear all the phones ringing and to know that none is mine…. At least this means to be in vacation! Also, I spoke today, in one of the bus stops, with a Vietnamese who left the country when he was 6 and lives in Australia and he told me a lot again about the corruption and about the money the rich guys have in Vietnam. It is inconceivable for the western mind to understand it how the Commies were able to transform the society. People are paid almost nothing but when you see the quality of the hotels, restaurants and many other places you realize that somebody is making tons of money that do not even trickle to the poor masses. Anyway, after the chat with the Vietnamese guy I went for a stroll on the beach back to my hotel and I stopped to eat some fish at one of the Four Season restaurants on the beach. There are no other restaurants on the beach but these four and all are named, extremely creatively, “Four Seasons 1,2,3,4”. This is a pattern because you see hotels named like this everywhere. Not too much imagination!
In front of the restaurant is the Casino named Gold Coast where I was shocked to see that the gambling is done exclusively digitally. The cards are generated digitally and displayed in front of the player both for blackjack and baccarat and in roulette you have both a display of your bets and a exact digital replica of the betting table in front of you, where you put your fingers and touch for your bets that probably are taken directly from an account. A little weird but I think Asian, who are number ONE gamblers in the world know better. In ten years in Vegas I did not see this. For the end of the tour, between telephones and internet, I strolled the city streets and I chat with a great painter. I would like to buy one of his painting but when I think about carrying them home I may give up. But I have his card and can get them on the Internet. Tomorrow I booked a tour to some islands, one of them has monkeys on it, I try to wake up at 5:00 am to see the sunrise, leave in the tour at 8:30 am and come back at 5pm to catch the bus to Hoi An at 7:00pm.
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