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I woke to a sudden, sharp snore from the Vietnamese chap laying beside me, who was literally cocooned in his blanket. He had been snoring at variable decibels throughout the night and it had now become somewhat of an annoyance. The bus was following now the coast road and as the sun came up over the still waters you could make up the silhouettes of various boats that had come back from the nights catch. Laura was also awake at this point and from the look on her face you could immediately tell she had not slept well. This was not surprising considering how we has been thrown about as the bus hit the various potholes lining the various roads. We were at the very back and on the top tier which was pretty much the worst seats, unfortunately we booked so last minute we had little choice.
As the bus slowly cornered around one of the many outcrops along the coast, Nha Trang came into view. The sun was fully up at this stage and the bay surrounding the sea side town shimmered. From a distance, the numerous high rises gave it an appearance similar to Benidorm, not quite as built up however. The bus meandered south through the town and we spotted hundreds of locals taking a dip, doing stretches and participating in activities which looked like Tai Chi. The bus eventually pulled up outside the companies office which was actually right in the centre of town! Makes a change from being dropped out of town at the bus station miles out. As we disembarked the usual mob of taxi drivers looking for hotel commissions were hounding us as we tried to grab our bags. We escaped and darted into a hotel nearby, the room was nice with a price tag of 12 dollars, which I was more than happy with but Laura made the sensible decision to look around and compare prices first.
As we left that hotel we were grabbed by a chap on a motorbike (obviously after hotel commission) who advised us on a cheap hotel around the corner. Our aim was to find a cafe with WiFi to check out the recommended places Laura had researched but we followed this guy knowing we would likely not like what we found. He insisted there as a cafe near the hotel but on arriving down a small alley it was obviously there was just the hotel restaurant, we were not born yesterday mate! On arriving at the hotel we asked for a coffee and wifi... we were then met by an over friendly and zealous English speaking hotel owner who offered to show us a room for 10 dollars (210,000 dong), While waiting for the coffee. The guy was cringeworthy in his attempts to sell the room even commenting in the elevator how beautiful Laura's eyes were (she thanked him politely knowing she looked sleep deprived and greasy... Her words not mine). The room seemed good value with a slight sea view but again we explained we wanted to check online as we had a hotel in mind and ordered a coffee from them. The owner then came over with the key and asked for our passports (Our passports had to be used as deposits, I know it sounds stupid but it is governmental policy here for foreign nationals), to which Laura replied again we haven't agreed on the room as we are wanting to check our emails.
After a bit of research and the lack of desire to hunt down another hotel as the prices were all similar (and this hotel was rated well) we agreed to stay one night, we never agree to more incase it turns out to not be as good as first appears. The owner seemed pleased.. as did the moto driver, after sealing the deal he was almost immediately thrusting brochures in front of me trying to sell everything from night squid fishing to a theme park. Our room wasn't going to be ready till twelve (it was now about seven thirty) so we stored our bags in their luggage room and asked for directions to the supermarket as we needed a good stock up. As I was at the at the counter getting directions I spotted a poster displaying what was obviously room rates (after translation) and the price we had been quoted for our room was double of that stated. On enquiring about this to the owner and his female colleague, they looked a little sheepish and said that it wasn't in fact the prices but were the amount of government tax for the different room types. You did not need to be Derren Brown to know they were obviously lying. This is the classic double tiering prices for tourists that riles us to the point of anger at times.
At this point Laura wandered over and asked what was going on and when I showed her the price list she again said that was obviously the price of the room so why are you trying to charge us double. The women again said its not the room rates (the owner sat fiddling with his phone not making eye contact), to which Laura replied very politely "well I don't believe you, you are obviously lying to us", The women looked so taken aback at this that you would have thought she had slapped her and simply said "well I don't know what else I can do". Laura then explained that we weren't stupid, we have been in Vietnam long enough to know about this blatant double tiering and that its incredibly discriminating and racist... Just because we are white and western, that by no means means we are rich. The owners didn't really respond much to this and we knew they wouldn't budge on the price. We were both mad... Especially Laura who had gone to collect her handbag and was saying that they knew we can't be sure because we don't speak bloody Vietnamese but its bad karma to treat tourists this way. We picked up our bags and headed out towards the supermarket.
As we were walking down the road I could see Laura was fuming and I was too but its like I said to her there is little we can do now as they have our passports and will charge us regardless if we try and leave. To this she suddenly stopped and turned around and stormed back to the hotel, where she told the receptionist and manager that she wanted our passports back right away as she refused to stay in a hotel where its policy was to lie to and rip off customers... And the moto man wouldn't get his commission now either Ha. They made no attempt to quibble and handed them over, we then grabbed our bags and left... To be fair I would have just stayed there but I have to respect the girl... She has principles... Although now the dreaded hotel search was once again starting, although at least we were a bit wiser now.
The next couple of hotels we tried gave us more obvious lies of "it is the price per person not per room" or " we add high season tax onto the price". Our heads went down at this point because we were just fed up with the deception, lies and double tiering which is so rife here. We then walked past a small alley and Laura spotted a sign direction us to a hotel called "Bilies". We wandered down hoping a small unknown establishment may be a bit more honest, here we were greeted by a nice, young girl and on walking in we immediately spotted the government stamped poster with room rates. We looked at them and discussed the prices appearing as if we were experts and knew what we were doing. Guess what? Low and behold it worked and we got the prices for the room that was on the poster. I guess it turns out like other countries, by law, who must display room rates in the hotel. Obviously these tourist places manipulate the truth or hide the poster and charge you what they want as its all in Vietnamese. In the end our patience, principles (and to some extent tightness) paid off as we got a room with all the usual comforts for 7 dollar! An absolute bargain! In fact the room was one of the nicest with huge windows on two of the walls, spotlessly clean with TV, fridge, air con and fan as well as a big lockable cupboard... The en suite even provided shampoo and such.
After dumping off our things we went for our usual orientation of the area, the sky had now become overcast and there was actually spots of rain in the air... Not exactly the beach weather we had hoped so far! Our first aim was to head to the big supermarket in town which was a good 15 minute walk. We decided to stock up on smellies and things as they would likely be a lot more expensive in Australia. Laura even treated herself to hair dye as she was so fed up with her exposed roots and sun lightened hair. The route there was littered with cheap food stalls and it was immediately apparent the food choices here would be a abundant and competitively priced. After our shopping we headed back grabbing a sandwich for ten thousand dong to share before walking to the beach front, which to be honest was a little underwhelming. It wasn't quite the white sand we had expected and we both thought Da Nang beach was nicer on first impressions... As we walked along the front, it was annoying as there were hardly any bars to note. Everything seemed to be off the front and on the town which were separated by a rather large road. It reminded us a bit of Great Yarmouth, how the golden mile separates the beach area from the actual town... Although the beach didn't compare. After no luck we headed back into the narrow streets of the town.
Before finding a drink we stumbled across a rather busy food stall which had meat cooking on a BBQ and smelled amazing. We sat on the small plastic stool and were given a plate of rice with a large loin of BBQ pork accompanied with pickles. We poured on some sweet chilli sauce and savoured every mouthful... A huge piece of meat and only twenty five thousand dong. We then headed off looking for a cheap beer, here there was no apparent fresh beer so we were back to the more expensive cans and bottles with most places selling for twenty to thirty thousand dong. We eventually found a small eatery that should largish bottles (450ml) of Saigon or Laure beer for ten thousand dong so we sat down and ordered one. A guy then came over asking if we wanted food to which we said we had eaten and it was just the beers... Well you would think I robbed his grandmother the way he looked at us and from that moment on there was no chat or banter. Not that we cared as we were happy enough chatting with each other, whilst intermittently saying no to every seller who wandered in trying to sell us books, cigarettes or bracelets.
After our beers we headed back and had an afternoon nap as we were both pooped from the lack of sleep last night, we awoke at seven ish and then felt sluggish as we had slept so long. We got up and headed out for some dinner where we literally walked out the door and to the place next door where they sold 'bò né' (beef and eggs).. We walked in and a friendly guy welcomed us and told us to take a seat, he said it was thirty thousand for the bò né, a baguette and some salad. It looked delicious so we took a pew... Not long after the meal arrived and wow, we were served our dinner on a hot iron spitting skillet (like you sometimes get fajitas served on) and it was full of tender beef, a fried egg, onion and a sauce. It was delicious with the warm crusty baguette and picked vegetables and for one of the rare times in Vietnam we were actually satisfied after and not craving more food. We enjoyed an ice coffee post meal before paying and heading off to explore a little at night.
The place does seem to come alive here at night like a lot of places in Asia, as now there were food stalls everywhere and plastic tables full of locals drinking beer. We had a good wander and found some potential eateries for the next few days before being dragged into a bar for a free shot... Well it was a shot of a blue lagoon cocktail so went down very well. Soon enough a Russian family turned up (very popular Russian destination, with most menus and signs in Russian rather than English) and we snuck out while the bar guys were distracted. We then found ourselves at a market and had a good look around before heading down the seafront for a walk. By now we were feeling pretty tired so opted for an early ish night so we would be fresh tomorrow... We wandered back and chilled out watching a movie before falling into a very restful sleep.
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