No sun today. Well, maybe a little, and not for very long. And it’s a pity, because the tour activities were centred around the sea. We toured a fishing village on Mieu Island, just off the coast of Nha Trang. It was raining bucketloads, and I wore my poncho (see last post!) to stave off the rain. We waded through water a couple of inches deep, dodging debris and Lord knows what else (one of the other passengers saw a boy peeing in the water we were walking in). Oh well, it’s all part of the experience. But it was a bit odd and disconcerting, because we were basically peering inside people’s homes.
We took basket boats from the island back to our boat. It was quite sad; my basket boat was paddled by a woman who would have been in her 60s (I’m guessing) and she kept asking for money. I told her “Guides pay”, but she was quite persistent. Even when we disembarked, she still had her hand out for money. I mentioned this to our tour guide and (in her usual way!) she said: they get paid well for what they do. If we give them more, they expect more, so it’s best not to.
When we boarded our boat, we set off for our snorkelling destination – one of the islands 10 or so kilometres off Nha Trang, in the Eastern Sea (formerly the South China Sea). I didn’t snorkel, but I did have a pedicure, a manicure and had my legs and eyebrows “threaded” (a form of waxing), all for $420,000 Dong or $21 Australian dollars. That’s the most I’ve paid for anything since I’ve been here. It was a mostly pleasurable way to spend the day.
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