FOOD:

Before we left I feared a bit that all we would eat in Vietnam was going to be rice with fish or fish sauce. We were very pleasantly surprised by the variety of food. Yes, there is either rice or noodles with pretty much every dish but they come with all variations of meat, seafood, veggies and fruit in spicy, sweet and sour, soy ... sauces (a bit comparable to Chinese food). The meat, especially the beef is very tender and you can taste that the cows are grass fed (at least that’s how Nathan explained it to me). And even the smallest restaurant has menus “as thick as phone books”.
We did not see a single menu with dog on it, however some of the restaurants offered frogs, snails etc.
The food often was served in pretty original ways. Once we got our own little barbecue, then there was the “Hot pot”, where you get a pot with broth/sauce on fire (almost comparable to Fondue) and raw meat, fish and lots of vegetables to cook as you like. Another time we had meat cooked and served in a very nice clay pot and once wrapped and steamed in banana leaves.
Though the Vietnamese have noodle soup for breakfast there is a wide choice of breakfast alternatives for the international traveler. Once we found out that almost every little restaurant served pancakes (more like the French crepes than American pancakes) we had pancakes with chocolate/banana/pineapple/honey and lemon or a mixture of those for almost 3 weeks every morning. What a healthy way to start the day!
The fruit was the best. Some of them we have never seen before. Fruit was sold on every corner, juices and shakes of all kinds of fruit are on pretty much every menu.
The Vietnamese seem to take all their meals on the street. Then the sidewalks are blocked with little plastic tables and chairs.

The fruit selection is absolutely amazing. In addition to our tropical fruits you find so many others, that we have never seen before. Fruit is so cheap and on every corner they cut if for you in mouth-size pieces.

Slaughtering a dragon Fruit. Later we learned that you can just break them open. Anyway, dragon fruit...

...our new favorite fruit. Tastes like Kiwi, maybe a bit sweeter. Very filling if you eat a whole one.

People eating in the street. Especially around dinner time, approximately 6pm, the sidewalks fill up with tons of tables and kiddie size chairs, and people start cooking on open stoves and barbeques. Here they also prepare the food, like skinning chicken feet, and do the dishes afterwards.

NHA TRANG:

We took the overnight train from Saigon to Nha Trang. Our 4-bed AC cabin was quite comfy but I could not really sleep as the trains are rather old models and make noises reminding you of the Titanic hitting the iceberg (according to Nathan).
The beach is beautiful and Nha Trang is a very cute city surrounded by hills. The touristy part of the city attracts quite the party crowd but you can avoid them pretty easily. Being directly on the coast the variety and quality of seafood dishes is great.
One of the best memories of our trip was the day tour we took of the Nha Trang backcountry: for very little money we hired two motor bike guys who took us around on the back of their bikes for 9 hours!
The only thing that maybe clouded the whole trip was that we, especially I, got so sunburned the first day, that I had to wear full-body cover as I did not want to expose my poor sunburned skin to even more sun. Well, I guess I matched the Vietnamese women, who are (during the day) usually completely covered with gloves, hats, often face protection as white skin still is the beauty ideal.
The next day the two motor bike guys organized a boat and a driver for us and we spent all day cruising around the small islands off the coast and snorkeling. We had a few very fun days on the coast!

Nha Trang is a great city. With beaches like this, tourists won't be hard to find. It was a tourist hot spot but not very crowded at all. Very laid back. There were many Vietnamese tourists as well as westerners. We took a night train to get here and being a little sleepy, I slept on the beach. Bad idea!! Unfortunately, we both burned so this was the only day we spent at the beach.

View from our hotel room. Christina's favorite tree - palm tree.

The beach in the evening.

After getting sunburned the 1st day, we took a one hour motorbike tour to see a bit of Nha Trang and see how effective motorbikes were for seeing things. We found it was very effective. We saw more in that one hour than we would have in a day of walking around.

Giant Buddha

Buddha

The sleeping Buddha. Notice the swastikas on his feet.

Last stop on the one hour tour was the main Catholic church in town.

Posing by the old city wall of Nha Trang on our way to the country side for a day long motorbike tour. In the end, it was a 9 hour tour. We saw rice fields, local minorities, waterfalls, the Cham Towers and so much more along the way. We even stopped to have a local beer with our guides at the end of the day.

We made a short stop at a Catholic church on our way out of Nha Trang.

The rice fields were so green!

The weather in Nha Trang had a very southern California feel. Hot and dry but because of our sunburn from the beach, we covered up. Christina looked like a local since they hide from the sun as well.

Christina got a lesson on rice.

These were some of the 1st water buffalo we saw. Nice helmet huh?

We visited a few minority villages on the way to the waterfalls. This is a traditional stilt house. Most of them live in cement houses that the government provided recently. They were very poor people who grew sugar cane, corn, and tobacco.

Our guides brought candy for our visit to the local minority villages on the way to the waterfalls. We didn't feel too guilty about giving them candy since, as you can see from the girl on the left, they were chewing on sugar cane. The girl infront of us was very cute and curious. I thought Christina was going to take her home. They were happy to see themselves on the digital camera.

Happy to have candy!!

Born to be wild!!

Mean machines

Having our own local guides was great because we got to visit place like this waterfall that were really off the beaten path.

We went for a little hike above the waterfalls.

The country side was nice because there was very little traffic.

A bridge near Nha Trang. Nice engineering. This rickety thing is a toll bridge for motorbikes.

Posing on the bridge. Great scenery!

Our next stop was a place where they made staw mats. Christina found yet one more job she doesn't want to do. A big mat like this takes about 8 hours to make and sells for $2. This was a short but nice stop because we all went inside for tea and it was neat to just rest for a bit while the locals did their thing. It felt like a slice of real Vietnamese life.

Off the beaten track. To get to the Cham Towers, we took several dirt paths and eventually a train bridge.

One of the pillboxes guarding the rail into Nha Trang. Our guides said it was from the Americans but I later read in our guide book that it the pillboxes in the area are from the French. One thing that is for sure from looking at all of those bullet holes, whoever was in there had a bad day.

This is the main Cham Tower. It was built in the 8th century.They were absolutely beautiful but after spending all day off the beaten path, we didn't stay long at this tourist hot spot.

One last pic from the Cham Towers. We were tired after taking in so much new stuff. This was quite possibly one of our best days on the trip.

On our last day in Nha Trang we took a boat trip to 3 islands. It was one of our best decisions. The other option was to do a group trip that puts many people on one boat. This was great. We got to see what we wanted to see and go back when we were ready to go back.

If it were not for the courage of the fearless crew, the Minnow would be lost. Not sure who Gilligan is but the 2 on the right are the motorbike guides from the day before. They arranged the boat trip. With all 3 of them and the boat, it was still dirt cheap.

Clear water with coral made for great snorkeling....

.....or swimming.

I was suprised by how clear the water was.

We even saw a sea turtle.....

.....at the local aquarium on an island near Nha Trang.

We had to say bye to our boat. It was a great day.