Nha Trang (China Beach where American troops came for some R&R during 'Nam baby….)

We'd heard what it would be like after talking to other travellers and it was just that - built up and over commercialised - but we had to stop here as part of our open-bus tour from north to south.

We visited the Cham Towers yesterday, which were set in a stunning location with beautiful views across the bay and up the river. Luckily the weather played along and provided for some good photo opportunities.

It finally happened….. After more than 2 weeks of eating nothing but Vietnamese food, we folded and decided to treat ourselves to some western food again. We ended up visiting Da Fernando - a great little Italian restaurant - and had the most amazing pizza and pasta (if you're going to cheat - do it properly). The Italian proprietor has lived in Vietnam for the last 15 years and imports almost all of his ingredients from Italy. His establishment is obviously popular with the expats, as it was filled with them by the time we left.

Today we went on a snorkelling trip to some of the islands near Nha Trang. So, overcoming my fear of sharks yet again, I jumped into the South China Sea and started exploring. There is a lot of coral (the reef completely surrounds these islands), but unfortunately large sections of it have been destroyed/damaged by local people, as they break off bits of it and thus destroy so much of the marine life by selling it to unknowing tourists. There is also quite a bit of pollution floating about in some of the smaller bays and inlets, which makes me glad that we didn't fork out $60+ to scuba dive, as we would have been very disappointed. But it was good to do a bit of snorkelling again for the first time in more than a one and a half years.

There are still quite a few fish to be seen and we spotted some flute fish, parrot fish, box fish and angel fish, but there is a marked difference between Nha Trang and the other places in the world where we've dived/snorkelled, where there are at least sea anemones, seaweed, clams & other lush life for the fish to hide amongst. The Vietnamese government is supposedly warning the local fishermen/tour boats against this practice of stripping the reefs of shells, coral & clams, but the laws are not strictly enforced in any way.

Our guide on the boat mentioned that many species of fish and marine life that used to be abundant here are no longer around, including rays, groupers, and reef sharks.

We sincerely hope that the people responsible for destroying their own marine life will stop what they're doing, otherwise there won't be anything but rocks left for people to look at when they dive/snorkel in the future.

Tomorrow we are off to Mui Ne.