Monday 31st October 2022
I took a photo from our hotel room before we checked out, it’s a shame we don’t have longer here. The DTX Hotel Nha Trang is by far the must luxurious hotel we’ve stayed in since we arrived in South East Asia (also the most expensive, but still only £22 a night)
Today we decided to explore Nha Trang by foot. Most of the main sights seem to be beaches and temples.
We don’t get very far when Pete spots an ice cream fridge – yay, it has a new variety of banana ice cream! (All our holidays involve hunting for banana ice cream, so this is a cause for excitement). I went for some interesting looking choc ice things.
It was only a couple of minutes walk to Nha Trang beach, and it was beautiful. But also almost completely deserted. I’m sure if this is just because we’re out of season or because it was a bit of a hazy day, however it was nice weather to walk along the shore.
The beach also seemed to have a LOT of prohibitions. The sign listing them all amused me slightly. Swimming was also banned, as the tide is very strong – we saw some pretty big waves.
A little further along the promenade is the Trung tâm Hội nghị tỉnh Khánh Hòa convention centre, a very grand looking building. During the evening, they had some live music outside when we walked past on our way home.
Just opposite the convention centres is the Agarwood Tower, listed as a tourist attraction. It seemed to be falling into disrepair and was inaccessible when we were there, I couldn’t tell if it’s being renovated or demolished though.
The park behind the The Agarwood Tower was still in tact, and was beautiful to walk through.
At the end of the beach is the Bãi Rêu Nha Trang, marked as an attraction on google maps. I think it’s kind of a viewing point, and apparently at certain times of the year the ricks protruding from the sea are covered in moss and look beautiful. There was no moss today, so it wasn’t the most exciting view point.
After the beach ends, there’s a little memorial park with a monument to Alexandre Yersin. He was Swiss-French physician and bacteriologist, involved in identifying the bacteria responsible for the bubonic plague. He lived in Vietnam for many years, dying in his home in Nha Trang. If you’re interested in learning more, there’s also an Alexandre Yersin museum in Nha Trang, although we didn’t bother visiting it.
We’d now reached the end of the peninsula, so we crossed the Trần Phú Bridge. Looking out to sea, there seemed to be a beached boat, stuck in the shallow bay area.
On the other side was another park overlooking the sea. There seem to be a lot of parks adjoining the various beaches and bays in Nha Trang, which makes it a very pleasant place to walk.
There’s also a little shrine at the end of this park, called Nha Truyen Thong Yen Sao Khanh Hoa.
Our next stop was Ponagar Nagar Cham Tower, one of the top sights in Nha Trang. It’s an extremely unique artistic and architectural work of the ancient Cham people, that is well worth experiencing. Like a lot of temples in Southeast Asia, you can’t wear short clothing. We were fine, but if you have shorts or a short skirt on, they’ve got gowns you can borrow to go inside.
By this time it was early afternoon so we went in search of lunch. On the way we passed two dogs hitching a ride on a scooter (although they didn’t have their paws up on the handlebars, as some dogs do when they travel!)
We ate at Cơm nhà Yến Yến, but it was unfortunately very disappointing. It was 4.9 rated on google, but when we are there all the dishes came out quickly but were cold (so clearly not freshly cooked), the fish was dry, and the chicken was mainly bone and gristle. Definitely the worst meal we’ve had so far here.
The restaurant was just by Hon Chong beach. The bay here is much more sheltered, so it’s suitable for swimming. It was still very quiet though, with very few people around.
We walked up the coastal path at the end of the beach, where there’s a cute little park and a nice viewpoint over the bay.
At the top is Hội Quán Vịnh Nha Trang, a small museum where you can learn about traditional Vietnamese musical instruments and hear them play. It gets mixed reviews, so I’m not sure if we’d have bothered or not, but we didn’t get the choice as it seemed to be closed when we walked past.
Past the headland is a little island with a Buddhist temple, Chùa Từ Tôn, and apparently you can get a fishing boat there. I really wanted to go but we couldn’t work out how to get a ferry across, there were no obvious boats to catch a ride on. I’m not sure if that’s because we were out of season or due to the time of day (mid afternoon seems to be nap time over here)
We set off back over the Trần Phú Bridge, in the direction of your final stop, the Long Son Pagoda. It’s about a 50 minute walk so we stopped off along the way for a cold beer at a restaurant/bar with an upstairs terrace. The beers were only 16,000 VND (about 50p!) so we ended up having three. Probably a mistake in hindsight, as at 5.30pm we suddenly realised the sun had almost set. We weren’t expecting it to get dark quite so early.
I was a little disappointed we wouldn’t get to see the Long Son Pagoda in daylight, but it was actually very atmospheric in the dark. The impressive dragon mosaics at the front of the temple were lit up, so you could still see them very clearly, and we were also able to go inside the temple.
At the back of the pagoda is a big hill, with a huge Buddha statue at the top. We traipsed up in the dark, and were pleased to find it completely lit up with floodlights. There was also a smaller temple with a big bell inside on our way down, which was lit up in red and framed by a lovely view over the city.
By this point we were feeling a bit peckish so went in search of our favourite Vietnamese snack – Bahn mi. We caught a Grab car to Bánh mì Phan, the top rated place for Bahn mi in Nha Trang. It was very good, but not quite up to the best we’d had in Ho Chi Minh City.
We then walked the short distance to Nha Trang night market and had a wander around. It was ok, but nothing to write home about, and more goods for sale than yummy looking street food.
We continued to walk in the direction of our hotel, and stopped off at BAO ngon, where we bought a couple of bao buns to share – fried fish, and grilled bbq pork with fried egg. Both were delicious!
We then headed back to our hotel. One of the reasons we spent a bit more money and picked this one, was because it’s got a rooftop bar that’s open to 11pm. So we thought that would come in handy whilst waiting for our midnight train. It was therefore very disappointing to find out this bar is actually closed. Instead we bought a couple of cans of beer from the fridge downstairs in reception (which they seemed slightly to reluctant to sell us) and took them to the outdoor pool area, also on the 20th floor.
It wasn’t quite the sophisticated end to the day I’d envisaged, but was relaxing enough, and before we knew it, it was time to order a Grab car to take us to the station to catch our midnight sleeper train from Nha Trang to Da Nang
Emma and Pete’s Asian Adventure 