nha trang + observations

i flew into nha trang yesterday, a beach city on the coast of vietnam. it's beautiful; i went on a dive this morning and it was sooo good. the first dive had some ok coral and fish, but the second dive was amazing. it was through a bunch of caves, huge rock formations and i even saw an OCTOPUS.

now that i've been to two cities in vietnam, i would like to share my preliminary takeaways:

1. much like the people of thailand, they are not good at figuring out what you want to say through hand motions, pointing, or any other type of “signaling.” obviously no one has ever played charades here.

2. there is little patience for slow drivers. I really like how aggressive drivers here are; if the car in front of you is driving too slow you can just bully it out of the way by honking and driving really close to it. then it moves over and you pass; this holds true even in the high winding roads of nha trang going around a curve with nothing but the ocean below.

3. either the country is very conservative or swimwear is hard to find. i literally saw a chain of six young girls holding hands walk into the beach yesterday looking like they just got out of school. meaning they had on full outfits that doubled as their bathing suits. it’s so weird; everyone just swims in their clothes. there was even a guy in jeans and a s/s button up.

4. the bathrooms are always really clean.

5. food service is very speedy. order a steak and it’s out in 2 minutes.