What an experience the sleeper bus was. We were in tiny single beds/ chairs along with 33 other passengers in the one bus. We were on the top floor which swayed heaps but was ok. There was extremely loud movies playing and we were thinking we weren't going to get much sleep at all with that blasting all night. Luckily around 11pm they turned the movie off and turned the lights off. We managed to get some decent sleep which was good. We arrived in Nha trang around 6.45am. We were bombarded with Vietnamese men 'selling' us there best prices for hotel rooms or taxi prices at the bus door before we had even stepped off. Not really what we wanted after just waking up. Once we had escaped that we wondered along the beach towards the cheaper hotel end according to our bible the lonely planet and found a nice wee place one block back from the beach for $10usd a night. Perfect location for what we were after. After a hearty western breakfast we spent the day relaxing at the beach. Sunrise here is at 530am. One morning we got up early to catch the sunrise but it was cloudy so wasn't that impressive. What was impressive was the amount of local people doing all kinds if exercise... some we wouldn't call exercise like the older ladies moving in a washing machine motion while stationary but they seemed happy. The amount of people swimming was more than when we are at the beach in the middle of the day. The best time to swim at Nha trang is before 1pm as the winds come up and the waves are really dumping during the afternoon. The sun also becomes less intense around 3pm which is early. Thats beer and chip time for us on the beach. The beach here is beautiful although we have to be really careful with valuables. It's best to take nothing valuable to the beach so we can swim together and not worry the whole day about things getting pinched. Like Phuket there are lots of ladies selling all kinds of fruit, drinks and lots of other crap, god knows who would want half of what they sell. It's best to play dead when there are lots hanging about.
We have enjoyed just cruising around and catching up on sleep after a full on intrepid trip and time in Ho Chi Minh city. We are enjoying finding cheap restaurants or street stalls for dinner where all the locals eat. So every night we try and find another place which is full of all locals. We are usually the only 'white people' at the places we have eaten. One night we couldn't even read the menu. It was all in Vietnamese so we just guessed what we were ordering and held up our fingers according to how many dishes we wanted of what kind. Quite fun though. We bargained a phrase book from a lady selling on the street to help us read what we are eating and try order some meals in Vietnamese. Ca phe Sua da means iced coffee with condensed milk. These are very strong but delicious. Bu chance when we have been walking around we found two markets. One during the day where all the locals by fruit veges fish and other essentials for their restaurants. We got really cheap fruit and bread there. 10 x baguettes for $1 nzd and 8 mangoes for $2nzd and a whole water melon for $1.50 nzd. We are pretty much the only white people there apart from the odd Russian. They are heaps here like we found in Phuket. We found a night market off the Main Street where the beach is which has several restaurants and stalls selling all sorts of Vietnam souvenirs. We have tried a couple out. They have amazing seafood. The prawns and squid are delicious. Tomorrow (Wednesday) we are catching another sleeper bus up to Hoi An as the sleeper trains were full for that day. We were too late at booking so will be more organised from now on. More updates from hoi an. :).