A tourist spot by location rather then design Nah Trang has a fair few interesting sights, although short on time we managed to cram it all into one action packed day.

Our tour guide for the day was a slightly crazy permanently drunk Danish guy – luckily he wasn’t also our driver!

Our first stop of the day was a beautiful beach side house belonging to an Austrian guy who just happened to be a friend of our Danish tour guide! Here we were able to sail a cop; a traditional round Vietnamese boat. Sailing the cop wasn’t as easy as the Vietnamese made it look but not as hard as we expected – perhaps this was due to the help of the young Vietnamese guys sailing with us.

We all managed to clamber in without tipping it over and perch precariously one the side, we were pushed out into the bay and were off. I took my turn at rowing accompanied by one of the Vietnamese guys, but I soon tired handing my ore to Kat. Emily was handed the other ore and they proceeded to bicker about who was rowing what way as we moved around the bay in circles. Eventually they found some semblance of rhythm and rowed us back into shore.

Our next stop of the day was the Ba Ha waterfall supposed to have waters containing therapeutic properties. We were dropped off at the bottom of a track leading to the falls and agreed a time to meet back at the car. I’d changed into my trainers as the guidebook recommended sturdy shoes but listening to the guide, who said it was an easy walk, Kat and Emily decided to wear flip flops.

The well kempt easy path through the forest ran out after about 10 minutes and was replaced with boulders that required some effort to clamber over. Emily and I were in our element but Kat wasn’t so impressed with the guide’s “easy walk”. It wasn’t long before both Kat and Emily had realised flip flops were not ideal footwear for the terrain, the guide had clearly never walked this far, and were clambering over the rocks in bare feet.

It took us about 10 minutes, jumping from boulder to boulder over high drops and slithering through thin nooks and crannies whilst trying to ascend shear boulders with metal foot holders driven into the rock, to reach the third fall. Once there we had the place to ourselves and swam for a while taking take pictures of ourselves in the water

Back at the car we drove back into Nah Trang to the Cham towers. These towers were built by the Hindu Cham people between the seventh and twelfth centuries. Now many of  the baked red bricks of the towers are crumbling due to age but are being carefully restored.

Only four towers remain. Visitors enter the site via a swirling staircase but back in the day worshippers would have entered the Mandapa or meditation and offering hall whose stone pillars are still visible. From there they would have climbed a very steep set of steps up the hillside to the main tower – which still stands.

The main tower is framed by smaller towers on each side, each tower looking impressive despite the effects of weathering. Inside the main tower worshipers swarmed in great number placing brightly coloured offerings on the alter and lighting so much incense the smoke clouded the view and it was almost difficult to breath.

The towers were impressive but after visiting the Angkor temples in Cambodia any ancient architecture is a bit of an anti-climax – nothing is ever quite as impressive as what I’ve seen before.

The guide took us next to a fishing villages whose flotilla of blue and red fishing boats could be seen from the steps leading up to the towers. We drove across the Ha Ra Bridge and stopped on the road side walking from there past rows and rows of drying fish into the village. The guide assured us the villagers liked him bringing tourists round to see the way they lived. The village turned out to be little more than a community who lived under the bridge and the whole thing felt a bit intrusive.

The guide approached some women collecting in the dried fish and chatted to them; they chatted back but didn’t seem all that pleased to see him. Then we crossed to the other side of the bridge where the men, who fished at night, were sat playing cards. Once again they didn’t seem enamored with our presence and as quickly as we could we made our excuses and left.

In one way it had been good to see the sofa and mat used as a front room set up against the side of the bridge, the make shift kitchen and work surfaces built by balancing wood on old crates and the sleeping quarters consisting of little more than some hammocks and blankets on the sand, but it wasn’t nice for the villagers to be paraded like that.

Our final stop of the day was Long Son Pagoda where a massive White Buddha stood on top a hill. The Pagoda was founded in the late 19th century and has been rebuilt many times over the years but was much like any other Pagoda I’ve seen. I was more interested in climbing the 154 steps leading to the White Buddha.

Half way up the step the guide lead us off to see a massive 18 meter long statue of the sleeping Buddha, then onto the temple bell where we found him sat inside the bell as a monk struck it. He got out saying it was good inside so Katrina climbed in for a go. After about four strikes she got out saying it wasn’t as loud as anticipated. To save time Emily and I climbed in together. Inside pieces of paper were stuck all over the bell, I’m sure they were prayers or something equally meaningful but in the scrawled Vietnamese handwriting on old scraps of paper they could have been an old shopping list! As the monk stuck the bell the sound reverberated around the inside, the monk chanted whilst the sound contained to hum around the bell. I sat there looking around wondering what the meaning of it all was and laughing at Emily who had her fingers in her ears. I’m sure I should have been thinking about something more meaningful but it was hard to concentrate with the constant humming interrupted every 30 seconds of so with a loud bang as the bell was struck again.

With the sound of the bell still ringing in my ears we made our way up the remainder of the 154 steps to the White Buddha. The White Buddha sits atop a lotus leaf and stretchers an impressive 13 meters into the sky. It was an imposing structure to be standing underneath, built in 1965 it is dedicated to the monks who died protesting against the US supported Diem regime.

After a long day of sightseeing it was time to head back to our hotel for a well earned rest before dinner and finally bed. Tomorrow we had a relaxing day at the spar then a long bus journey to Hoi An.

* Posted by j150vsc on 09/09/2007.