Day 161 & 162 Diving

I arrived in Nha Trang today by overnight bus. After a beautiful sunset, I had a bad night with not much sleep, as usual in these overnight buses.

When we arrived in Nha Trang at half past 6 in the morning, I fell directly into a tourist trap. Still a bit sleepy, a motorcyclist asked me if I had already booked a hostel. When I told him the name, he said he was from that hostel and before I knew it, his colleague had already driven off with my backpack and I was sitting on a second motorcycle. They took me and my luggage to the right hostel, but it was an expensive ride. In retrospect, I was annoyed with myself for not paying more attention.

Of course, I couldn't check in at the hostel at this time. So I let the brochures about the activities in the hostel guide me. Quickly, I found out why I came here. They say Nha Trang is the best place for diving in Vietnam. And since I had a taste of it in Hoi An, I wanted to dive again here.

I found out that the dives started at 7:30 am, in about 1 and a half hours. So I went to the dive center hoping that it was already open. And I was lucky. I could still sign up for today's dives. So I went back to the hostel to get my things ready and change clothes.

The boat was crowded. I had already noticed that Nha Trang must be a holiday destination for Russians. All the shops were labeled in Vietnamese and Russian, and all the tour offices boasted that the tours were with a Russian guide. Nha Trang is like Mallorca for Germans. There were about 25 Russians, 5 Japanese, and me on the boat. The introduction on the boat was also in Russian. Until someone noticed that I don't speak Russian and gave me the introduction in English. The Japanese seemed to have been here for several days, as nothing was explained to them. I did two dives with 3 Japanese before lunch on the boat. On the way back to the harbor, I asked one of the Russians why so many of them were here. His answer was that it is cheap and there are several direct flights to Russia from here.

In the afternoon, I walked along the beach and enjoyed doing nothing.

On my second day here, I did the same thing. In the morning, I went diving, although there were only 3 Russians on board today, the rest were Germans, Austrians, and Asians. There were also noticeably fewer people on board. In the afternoon, I strolled along the beach again and let my soul dangle.