Oct. 14, 2018 Nha Trang, Vietnam

We were up at 6:30a.m. To get ready for our excursion into Nha Trang, Vietnam. Annie got ready early enough to go for the buffet breakfast while i ordered room service. I got my muesli even though it wasn’t on the menu, peach yogurt and pastries which were delivered moments after our wake up call.
When it was time we went to the Stardust theatre to get our tender numbers and when our number 10 was called we were lead down into the belly of the ship to travel on The 401 Highway to midship. I hadn’t known about this “highway” until yesterday. It’s a straight hallway that goes the length the ship with no breaks in it anywhere. It’s usually only opened for and used by the crew. I found it to be very interesting when i learned it’s the route to expedite travel for the crew and for provisions. Along the way i spotted all the luggage racks used to get everyone’s luggage on and off the ship. It’s very handy for the crew as on all the rest of the decks there’s some zigzag hallways around things and/or passengers leisurely strolling. For example if you wanted to leave the Garden Cafe buffet on deck 12 which takes up possibly 1/5 of that deck and then had stairs and rooms etc in the way to get to the showroom or spa or whatever. It can be very windy if you stay on the same deck because you’ll find the only route you can pass through on takes you outside (partially undercover) and you’ll walk by the pools. There’s also a grilled food stand there by the pool. It can be extremely windy on that route but nice on a sunshine day. So some take the elevator from the buffet on deck 12 down to another deck to be able to walk through to the other end. I prefer going to deck 6 or 7 as then you’ll pass by entertainment, maybe a small band playing in one area, maybe trivia or some other game or lecture or demo etc.as well as padded benches to rest on as it’s quite a long walk for some and besides it seems like a shorter route than using the hallways on either side of the decks with the cabins because they are straight very longgggg narrow hallways.

So we got on the tender at 8 a.m. and it was about a 20 min. ride to the dock in Nha Trang where the tour buses were waiting. We found ours and climbed aboard. We had a local guide and his English was good sometimes. So off we went through this very busy city to a temple dedicated to the God believed to bestow good luck on the villagers. The alter was decorated with candles and incense that symbolize the universe. As we drove through the countryside we saw rice fields, mountains, water buffalo and ladies weaving floor mats out of jute or banana leaves.

We stopped for a 30 min visit to the Morning Market which was full to the brim of sellers with fruits, fresh meats and fish, clothing, jewelry and souvenirs, seamstresses etc. It was very untidy, dirty and smelly with flies everywhere. Our guide proudly said “it’s not frozen meat; it’s fresh!”
We stopped at a local farmers house to view how they live, raise domestic animals, cook, plant fruit and worship their ancestors. I think it was one of the better homes with a Sony Tv and a motorcycle in the living room. The kitchen was very dark and the stove was gas or maybe propane. As well, along the way there were times when you could see right inside some homes from the bus windows and a lot didn’t seem to have any or at least not much furniture. Most had clothes hanging on wooden racks outside or on clothesline’s that i thought were probably their closets until the rainy season. Houses were very close to each other and they had a tiny piece of yard, some very irregular like a tiny triangular bit of space. Most of their indoor space was used for their scooter or bike or motorcycle and that left very little space for anything else.

Everywhere we went we observed paper and junk that littered the cities and towns and even out in the countryside. As well, the roads we walked through were very hard to walk on because there was garbage, various sizes of gravel, uneven pavement, chunks of cement and strange flat blocks of concrete with thick wire or steel or maybe iron pieces jutting out all nilly willy all along the way. You really had to watch every step because of how rough and irregular the road was. Also, motorcycles were zipping by as well..... some with up to 4 people on them and on one narrow road i had to walk to get back to the bus a truck going quite fast was coming at me and so of course i got off to side as much as i possibly could and the mirror on the passenger side of the truck just missed me by about 1/4”
We then went to watch workers making rice paper. I had erroneously thought it was going to be paper like for writing on or for creating art. It was edible paper, the kind used to make Vietnamese salad rolls which i love and make them at home a few times a year. The rice papers i buy are white and come either in rounds or squares and are crisp until you soften them up by dropping them into boiling water before adding the filling of cooked rice noodles, prawns and green onion. They’re fun to make and you have to be careful to only let the rice paper touch itself where you want it to as you roll it up because it sort of glues itself together and you don’t get a second chance to roll it so it’s tricky to make nice tight rolls. The rolls are dipped in a peanut butter/soy sauce with a touch of sugar to make it loosen up and turn into a liquid. But these are papers that are made by hand in a very hot “factory” with a large heated iron base that the cook spreads the slurry onto and swirls it consistently and evenly into a neat circle. Seconds later she lifts it off the grill and it’s sort of thrown onto a bamboo drying rack. For this particular recipe the slurry was brownish with black seeds in it. It might have been black sesame seeds. These racks when covered with the paper are taken outside to cool off and dry. They attracted flies which nobody paid any attention to. A mysterious thing i noticed in this factory was that although it was extremely hot in there the workers wore sweaters or jackets and long pants.

We drove on past the rice fields and water buffalos, banana trees and passed a home with graves on their property. Its normal in this region to bury your family on your own property as there’s nowhere else you can and cremation is very expensive. Along the road were many homes and small businesses like a barber shop where I spotted a man getting a haircut. There were ladies hair salons as well in tiny little one room shacks and even a manicure salon large enough for one manicurist and one customer.