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Nha Trang is a large resort town. It has many new high class hotels and a 10K beach. Go back from the beach just one block and it all changes. It becomes a bustling town with everything for sale.
Thousands of people going every which way on mopeds. footpaths offer no protection from mopeds, even the indoor market has a constant flow of traffic. The markets themselves have brilliant offerings of fruit and veg, but that is nothing to the dried fish displays. The smells emanating from the numerous fish stalls was literally breathtaking.
There is every sort of faux product you can imagine for sale here. Rolex watches Ralph Lauren shirts any handbag you can imagine and all for less that 200,000 dongs! (about £10). The people are friendly enough not quite as welcoming as the Balinese but still fine. Lots of massage places around promising all sorts for around US$15. Met some old boy who had a wet shave, hair cut ears cleaned out and hair removed his nose cleaned out and hair removal as well as a massage for US$20 by two teenage girls - he was made up ....... Won't be long before the infections set in.
I thought I would look forward to eating from the street venders, not that we are ever hungry but just to try things out. Well having seen their hygiene standards I can't brave it. It's a shame but when you see meat cut up on a wooden log with a hatchet in the blazing sun no sign of refrigeration anywhere, I just can't bring myself to eat native. However it is cheap enough to go to the local smart hotels and eat like a lord but then the food is not the real deal, it's western.
The beach is beautiful to look at but the sea is littered with rubbish. I was paddling and inviting Pam in for a splash around, she just got her toes wet when a large dead rat washed up next to us. That put the paddling on hold as you might imagine. The locals looked on and smiled.
There appears to only be a strip of about 2 -3 miles before the landscape rises up to some fairly serious mountains, these look very green and tropical but we did not get up into the hills.
No signs of any ladyboys or anyone promising to 'love me long time' but neither was I pestered too much by the locals. Overall a very busy town overrun with motorbikes, to be honest pretty dirty looking a few disabled beggars and everyone else looking to the foreigners to sell them anything at all. Sights sounds and particularly smells I will not forget in a hurry.
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