Nah Trang, Vietnam
Arieh here. Up early today to see what's up on this beach at 6AM. Not only was it cool and pleasant, the beach, walkway and green areas were well used by the local inhabitants. Badminton games, soccer games, walking, people doing calisthenics, and swimming. The participants were of all ages--young teenagers before going off to school, middle-aged people before going off to work and older people before....going off to work. Some said hello to me, some engaged me in longer conversations and some ignored me. Relatively few Westerners up at 6AM. BTW, some of the people I saw were finished their exercises at 6AM. I walked for about an hour and by 7AM it was pretty well empty and finished. One memorable fellow was doing some traditional Vietnames/Cambodian/Thai massage on himself. He was standing with his back to the sun and moving his hands as if massaging his neck and head. However, he was NOT actually touching himself; his hands were about 5 cm away from contact and the force field energy was doing the work for him.
Nah Trang is on the East Coast of Vietnam, north of Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) and south of our next stop, Hoi An. It is a largish city with a beautiful beach and well maintained for both foreign visitors and Vietnamese visitors. I have seen pictures of the beaches in "warmer" weather chock full of people and they don't look like me. There is a very nice walkway for about 8 KM along the beach, the sand is machine-raked periodically and there are very few hawkers during the day. Yesterday, Val and I treated ourselves to a "day on the beach". Our hotel does not have a pool. Instead we found a place close by that rents very comfortable lounge chairs on the beach for $1.25, comes with security guards standing around, use of a swimming pool behind us and, of course, access to food and drink. Very nice day. We both finished books during the course of the day and the number of sales approaches was less than 10. Here I am Para-sailing!!
The bus-drive up from HCMC was interesting, if somewhat long. Very urbanized for quite a while from HCMC and then actual countryside. Part of the trip reminded me of the Jordan Valley. Tall rocky mountains on one side of the road and very little rainfall in the area. As the sun was going down behind the mountains on the West, the light was very similar to the Jordan Valley at the same time of day. For that matter, it also looked like the Okanagon Valley in B.C. at times. In short, it did NOT look like any pictures I have seen or imagined about Vietnam--rice fields, jungles, busy cities.
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