Nha Trang - December 9th

Today was a rest day so there were no bikes.  Instead the organised trip was a boat trip around Nha Trang bay.  However due to the stormy conditions which had not abated overnight (actually it was worse and I got woken by the storm) most of the group decided not to go on this trip.  So instead we all did our own thing.

For us this involved going down to the beach and seeing how stormy it really was, followed by us walking to the local Buddhist temple, via the local Catholic Cathedral.  The temple was nice, with a couple of giant Buddha statues.  However it was miserable and overcast, and in fact it began to rain so we headed off to some local hot springs.  A mix up with our taxi driver got us deposited first at a Cham Temple, a temple that is about 1000 years old.  They were interesting, and the mix up might have been worthwhile if it wasn’t lashing.

Eventually we got to the mud baths where through some persuasion Dorota persuaded me to join her for the full treatment, 30 minutes in a mud bath, 45 minutes in a hot spring (the mud wasn’t that hot), an hour for a massage, and 10 minutes in a steam room.  And we even had time for a bowl of soup in the middle.  I can take or leave the massage, but the other three treatments were quite good.  The mud bath especially was fun with the two of us sitting in the gloop with a great view.

We actually spent 4 hours in the spa and then got a taxi back to our hotel.  Our chances of relaxing were blown by the stereo shop across the road displaying its wares, it was very noisy.  In the evening we declined a group dinner to go ourselves for a dinner in a restaurant which Dorota found on TripAdvisor.  As well as being quite highly rated it also donates all its profits to charity so as well as a good feed we are helping a good cause.