Evil Jellyfish.

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Originally uploaded by theslaad.

After our day of exploring on the scooter we had 2 more days of relaxing by our pool. We thought that it would be a good idea to have a dip in the sea since we were so close. Bad idea!
As we went in Chris spotted a jellyfish! 'Oh no, quick, get out' we thought, but they were everywhere! A new experience to add to our list then - being stung by a jellyfish. Not too bad, hurts like anything for a few hours and then mostly felt ok. We checked with an Aussie guy who we thought might know a bit more about it than us and he didn't seem worried, so neither were we! Hurt our feet though!
We went back down onto the beach to watch the sun set and noticed loads of them along the sand where the tide had gone out - evil meanies!

Had another nice mornning by the pool beofre getting our afternoon bus to Nha Trang.

We haven't had much luck with getting trains as yet which had been our plan whilst in Vietnam - haven't quite been going to the correct places. So we got on another stinky bus to take us to Nha Trang. (Vietnamese people are similar to the Chinese in their lack of respect for other peoples personal space! They put their seats back as far as they go, suck on rambutans and smoke, also if you're lucky, they phlegm a lot!)
In our guide books it describes Nha Trang as a bit of a party place which is why we decided to go to Mui Ne instead, but it's on the way to where we're headed so we thought we'd have a look. It's also got a train station - yay!

We arrived in the early evening and experinced Nha Trang in full swing. There were people leafleting us constantly to get us to their bar. Happy Hours all evening and many many bars serving cocktails & shooters. Hmm not too sure about Nha Trang.
However, we discovered almost as many dive tour operators as bars, all offering snorkling trips which is what we thought we'd do here. They also offer very cheap diving. We can take our Open Water course for $225 each. We think this is about half the price of doing it in Thailand or Oz. So we're quite tempted and think that we'll go snorkling tomorrow & then start our 4 day course the next day.

Today we looked at the Nha Trang sites. In the blazing sun we walked to a local photographer's studio. He has amazing black & white photos of Vietnam. Then we strolled to the Long Son Pagoda. They have a 24 metre high white buddha which was built in 1963 to commemorate the monks who killed themselves in protest at the start of the war - I think this is what got the Americans involved (?). It was weird to see the swastica symbol everywhere too, but in reverse we think.

We are staying in our cheapest hotel yet here - $9 a night. Nice place though - big room with a balcony!