We woke up early, wished each other a Happy Tet, and took a taxi to Da Nang train station. This was expensive, because it was far, and because it was Tet. Whilst we could have tried the bus again, we had no desire to walk 4km early in the morning, and fight with the bus conductor. And that was assuming the bus was even running on Tet. We thought a taxi would be a much safer option.

On arrival at Da Nang station, we were early, so went across the road for a coffee . This was undiluted and served with ice. We tried to explain we wanted it hot, and failed. Then we were overcharged for the coffee, and chalked it up to experience before heading back to the station. Here, we made ourselves comfortable in the waiting room, and at 11am our train arrived. This time, we had a soft seat for our 11 hour journey. We expected it to be packed, like all the other trains, but there was hardly anyone on it. There was a pile of vomit, but not many people. We settled into the journey, watched the scenery and entertained ourselves with an episode, a bit of reading, and a bit of eating takeaway pizza. We were also amused by the sheer quantity of drunk train conductors on the train. We wished them a happy new year.

The journey was long, and we arrived into Nha Trang's station at nearly 10pm. We were immediately struck by the fact that it was not cold outside when we stepped off the train! Shockingly, we had finally reached far enough south to pass the cold of the cold snap in South East Asia . And about time too. Rather than walk the 2km in an unfamiliar city to our hotel, we opted to take a taxi. This was metered and was fine. We arrived at our hotel, Duy Phuoc, to a chap who was insistent that we were late, and that he’d been waiting for us. We in turn insisted that he return our passports to us rather than keep them as he suggested, but he went out anyway and did not return them to us. The room was small and expensive, with a cold shower, though it had air conditioning. It was one of the few hotels left with availability, given the fact that it was Tet and we had booked comparatively late.

We opted to stay in for the remainder of the evening. Ken ventured out for some water, and on his return, claimed that it was like Newquay, but with Russians, outside. He wasn’t wrong. We were very tired after doing nothing all day so went to bed.

We had decided to go to Nha Trang, to see some Vietnamese coastline and superb beaches, and to do some diving . Whilst we’d been disappointed with Cambodia’s diving, Vietnam’s was meant to be better, with plenty of small stuff and coral to see.

On Tuesday 9th, we were up early to see the main attractions of Nha Trang. First, we had to find breakfast – not so easy when many places were shut due to the Tet holiday. After successfully procuring grub, we went to look at the beach. Nha Trang was a city by a long curve of golden sand. On the approach to the beach, the road was wide and straight, and we were hit by immediate recognition that this was very much like Rio de Janeiro. The beach didn’t disappoint, it too was very much like Copacabana beach, though much less wide. The sands were filled with people, beach chairs, shacks and vendors. The surf looked rough, but there were still plenty of people in the water, getting knocked about by the waves.

Our next stop was to a recommended diving shop from the Lonely Planet and the PADI website. It wasn’t where it was meant to be. We looked for our second choice, and it too was not there. Despondent, we found our third choice, Angel Diving, and they agreed to take us diving the following day for a reasonable price. We were aware that February was the start of diving season, and were acutely aware of the issue of visibility, especially after diving in Cambodia and seeing the roughness of the ocean. The woman running the shop told us that visibility was 5-10 metres, so we agreed to go, completed our forms, and went on our way .

We hailed a taxi, and went to our next stop – Long Son Pagoda. On the way, we were struck by how many signs were in Russian. Russian was more common than English on the signs, and this reminded us of Goa. We figured there was some kind of package tourism deal which made Nha Trang particularly attractive to people from Russia. We reached the temple and took in the structure, the glass tiles, the decoration, and the peacefulness inside compared to the shouting vendors outside. We climbed a small hill behind the temple and went to look at a large white Buddha, looking out over the city. This had reliefs of seven Buddhist monks who set themselves on fire, or self-immolated, in 1963. On the way back down the hill, we saw a giant bell and a reclining Buddha as well.

Our next stop was the Po Nagar Cham Towers. Another taxi ride later, we were at the towers and, like the pagoda, it was busy. Really busy. We paid our entrance fee and wound our way through the crowds to the top of the hill to see the towers, dating from the 9th century . Having been to some magnificent towers in our time (Angkor Wat, Bagan), we weren’t that impressed. One of the towers was open for entry but, on attempting this, a security man grabbed Jayna’s arm way too hard and this scared us off.

Next, we took a walk to Hon Chong Promontory, taking in some of the coastline along the way. We swiftly discovered that the promontory, touted for it’s views across Nha Trang and the surrounding coastline, was also extremely busy. We actually ended up with lots of photos of people – it was unavoidable. We had to pay an entrance fee, and wouldn’t say it was worth it. We got to see some coastline and waves breaking, but we could see nicer coastline from Nha Trang’s beach. We took a further taxi back, and asked to be dropped at a vegetarian restaurant near our hotel. Like so many things during Tet, it was shut. We found another a couple of blocks away, which was full of locals, and had a very nice dinner after a man helped us choose a good combination of food .

We returned to the hotel, and presently were told that someone was in reception to see us. It was the lady we’d spoken to from Angel Diving, come to tell us that the diving visibility had been one metre that day. One metre! As experienced dive masters, they knew that the visibility would be poor the following day as well. We got our money back and were very impressed with the service that Angel Diving offered – not many people from dive shops would be so honest, or come to your hotel to tell you such news the evening before.

Rather than waking up early and going diving on Wednesday 10th, we had a lie in and checked out as late as possible. We had another visit from the lady on reception to 'remind’ us what the check out time was – we knew so ignored her, and left in our own good time. We were able to leave our big bags at the hotel at least. After diving was cancelled, we had no plans at all, and had exhausted the nearby activities of Nha Trang. We had a very late train that evening, so killed the day by sitting in a café for several hours, slowly ordering drinks and food and taking our time in consuming them. After three hours of that, we tried to exchange our books at a book exchange, but were told we had to pay so didn’t exchange our books after all. We then went to the beach for a couple of hours of relaxing, and when it got dark, headed back to the same café for more extended food and drink ordering.

Later that night it was time to head to the train station for our next destination – Saigon!