The boat cruise was pretty full, about 40 people. There was me and Alex, Canadian dude Shannon, English chick Izi, a group of 10 Japs, and the rest were locals. Handsome Tommy and Hai were our tour guides. Both were hard cases man. Handsome Tommy began the formalities by introducing himself and asking people where they were from. Once you said where you were from, he'd start singing a song from your country. I thought we had him stumped, but then he busted out Po Kari Kari Ana! Awesome. The first island we stopped in was the aquarium island. Just an aquirium with some fish, sharks, turtles. Nothing amazing, the holding tanks were ridiculously small for the number of fish in them. The sweetest thing thre was probably the shark that was riding round on a turtle.
On the second island, we were able to get off and snorkel round some coral, where there were some tropical fish. The masks and snorkels the boat provided were shit. Most of the masks leaked. We ended up with these old school as masks - you know the whole round viewing glass with no separate nose piece. They were actually the best, but equalising was a bit tough. Handsome Tommy kept saying that the water wasn't that warm, but man, it was sweet as. Visibility was alright, but the actual coral reef wasn't that amazing. Still worth a look tho.
After snorkelling, it was time for lunch. We had this on the boat. Was a pretty epic feed, but they said it was so that we could replenish the energy we lost after snorkelling. After lunch, they set up a band on our boat, and another boat tied onto our. The band were pretty sweet, just a guitarist and a drummer. The gear was pretty wrecked by the salt water, but still sweet. It seems that all vietnamese can sing. All the crew were pretty good singers. After the band packed up, they threw a floating bar in the water, with Hai floating on it with bottles of red wines. This was when our boat cruise turned into a booze cruise. We were allowed to jump off the top of the boat, and if you jumped into the water and swam to the floating bar, Hai would pour you a free drink. Epic times. The cranked the pop music and we were downing quite a bit of free booze. I felt sorry for the vietnamese on the boat, as none of them probably signed up for the madness. Especially sorry for the family of four... oh well. Don't come on booze cruise if you ain't gonna party! haha. At first, I thought it was just gonna be me, alex, shannon and izi, but the japs got in on it and it pretty much made the trip. We got back on board and they'd cleared all the lunch stuff away, so there was this massive table top to dance on. This was when shit got weird. Hai (after a few too many wines) came out from the back wearing a towel round his head, topless with cups on his nipples and started dancing on the table. Then everyone seemed to get in on it... well everyone being us and the japs.We then went to a killer resort island, that had pools, beach, water slide, etc. We were there for about an hour and a half. I think there was a golf driving range and tennis courts that we cud hav used, but we stuck to the pools and water slide. Was good times. Two of the japs were real good value - Hiro and Rejima. Their crew were all from the same class at uni and had just finished - so the were on their graduation trip. Hai disappeared for most of the time on the island, i think he went to sleep off whatever he was on.
At round 4:30pm, we boarded again and headed back for the main land. Was a sweet trip in the end, but if it wasn't for the booze cruise, it would've been a bit lame. the comment sheet had "Excellent" ticked by a most, but there were a number of "Average" boxes (i assume were from the locals). When we got back to land, we arranged with Shannon and Izi to meet up later for some beers and a feed, but this turned out to be a slight blow out, as all of us overslept, so by the time we headed out it was near closing time (around 10:30pm).
Day 2 in Nha Trang, Me and Alex decided to hit up the water park we'd heard about that was on at Vinpearl island resort. Vinpearl was an epic cable car ride across the bay away. We got up and headed there round 10:30am, but the cable car didn't operate til 2. blow out. luckily there was a ferry that could take us across and then we could get the cable back later. Nha Trang turned on a stunner for the second day, so by the time we crossed the harbour, we were definitely ready to get in some water. The water park was awesome man. there were a number of slides going. We made it a mission to get on each slide we could. Started with the Multislide. This was the classic slide that had bumps on the way down. Followed up with the two three bodyslides. These are the classic tube types, with turns etc, and then spit you out. got pretty disoriented after these. We then hit up the wave pool for a bit, before the tsunami slide. This one rocked you back and forth. Me and Alex doubled on this, pretty sure we pushed it to it's limits. we were hitting all sides, whereas most would stop before the top.
Next were the two kamakazi slides. These were the highest and pretty much just straight drops. You get some serious pace up on these. I was humming by the bottom of one of them, almost shot out the side at the bottom, got a sweet burn to show for it. ha. The family slide was this wide berth slide that whole familys could slide down in this massive round floatie - similar to some rescue boats on some planes. Cos there was only 2 of us, we cudn't get one, so we got the double floatie. Man, we pushed it to the extreme. We were almost shooting out the sides of the ramp and nearly flipping over. madness, but good fun. After the four rafting slides, where u sat in a single floatie and boosted down these slides, we hit the space hole. This one was mad, you go through a hydroslide and at the end it spits you out into this wide funnel and you spin round and round and eventually fall thru the hole at the bottom. we were pretty knackered at thi stage. 4 hours on hydroslides takes it outta ya. man. the water park was only one part of this island. there was still the adventure park and indoor gaming area. so we boosted to these; jumped on the rollercoaster, punched some punching bags, rode these mechanical horses, wacthed a show of some blatant animal cruely, and then jumped on the cable car back to Nha Trang. What an epic day. If you ever hit Nha Trang, then Vinpearl Resort is definitely worth the $20 USD is costs. Definitely.
By the time we got back, we had about 2 hours til our bus to Mui Ne. We headed to the Louisiana Brewery where they brew their own beers. We enjoyed a couple pints. The Louisana Dark Lager is epically good. very tasty. No time to enjoy more than 2 tho, had to fit a feed in before jumping on the bus to Mui Ne.The bus arrived in Mui Ne round 1am. We were still half asleep when it arrived and basically checked into the first place we could find. When we got up today, it was hot. real hot. we were a little burnt after the water park the day before, so had to cover up today. Alex heard some good things about the sanddunes here, where you can slide down the dunes, so we went hunting for this in the morning. We got a jeep to take us out to the dunes - a four hour tour, that included the white dunes, red dunes, fishing village and a canyon. Was overrated man. We went round lunch time, so the dunes were pumping with heat. The sand boarding was terrible. You pay for these mats, that just sink into the sand. Also, they charge you to use a motorbike to get up the dunes. Ridiculous prices as well. We blew all our money at the first stop, so the rest of it was pretty quickly done. The red dunes were on the side of the road - these little kids ran up trying to get us to buy sand mats again, but we had no coin left. The took photos for us then tried to get us to give them money for the service. We could've given them something if we had anything, but unfortunately, we were a lost cause for them. The fishing village was just a view of the huge number of fishing boats moored up. not that awesome. They canyon was kinda cool, but we were told there was a waterfall, but after walking up it for about 20mins, we found nothing, so turned back. Average trip really. The saving factor for Mui Ne is the beach. that's pretty epic. You can learn to kite surf, kite board, wind surf, anythign really. Alex rented a sailing boat and went for a cruise. I wasn't so keen, so just chilled on the beach and swam. The water here is warm man. I'm talking round 28-30 degrees at a guess. it's cooler out of the water... which doesn't say much, cos it's hot out. Anyways, chilling at the hotel now. gonna go out later and try meet up with these Canadian girls we met on the overnight bus to Nha Trang.
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