Na Trang

Next we headed up the coast to find Na Trang, this is a town about 300 km from Saigon. We went there by bus, it took us ten hours I think, maybe eleven. On the way we saw lots of severely run down towns, pretty sad actually, but Na Trang itself was a pleasant surprise.
Its tacky, but in the most lovable way, its like the blackpool (or Bundoran) of Vietnam.
We picked a hotel from the lonely planet because it had a roof top garden. It was a strange place, sort of quirky, with a really wierd manager. He was extremely camp and he flirted a lot with Paddy. We spent the first day wandering around Na Trang, going to little book shops and cafes. In some ways its quite quaint, in Vietnam its possible for the quaint and the brash to stay side by side. Na Trang has got really impressive beaches which are picturesque and quite uncrowded.
We took a day trip to a nearby spa with mineral and mud baths. the mud baths are awesome, we wasted the peace and tranqulity having mud fights, but that was a lot of fun. At times like that Paddy seems like a little boy. The mineral baths were also relaxing and very good for the skin too. There were also hydro-thingees that you run through. We went swimming for a little while in the pool, I got a massage (which was really painful), we were both quite relaxed at the end of our day. We missed one of the buses and got a lift back with some scary biker guys (We spent a lot of time on Motor bikes in Asia, they are such an adreniline rush) to Na Trang. They wanted to take us on a motor bike tour across central vietnam, which is supposed to be an awesome trip, but we didn't have enough time left on our trip.
It was quiet and peacful in Na Trang and we weren't scammed by any one (see cyclos above) and it was very cheap, restaurants give you free welcome shots (leading to later drunkeness). We did the Irish thing and jumped on the waves at the beach, it was a really turbulant sea, but we saw no surfers which is kind of strange.
We were actually pretty quiet on the night out scene, I think, at this stage, backpacking had exhausted us, we were sleeping and lazing about most of the time.