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Southeast Asia

Jungle Beach, Vietnam |

Nah Trang
We were in Nha Trang for an evening, more as a stop over than anything. It is a cruddy little beach town. The hawkers are insanely aggressive and the beach really isn't even that great. Not the nicest of places. I'd give it a pass.

Jungle Beach
Jungle Beach was a really pleasant pit stop. My neighbour who is good friends with the owner recommended the out of the way stop and we are grateful he did. Jungle Beach is about 60 km North of Nha Trang and is 3 km of beach surrounded by jungle. The nearest neighbour is a little village. You pay a flat price of $16 which includes your meals and very basic accommodation. We had a 3 sided hut
with bamboo shutters right off the beach. It was kind of like sleeping under the starts with the added bounus of not getting rained on. Brandon and I really looked forward to eat'n time because the meals were tasty. Highlights included pumpkin soup (some kind of squash blended to a pulp), rice flower pancakes with mashed bananas, deep fried baby shrimp pancakes, and swordfish. They also offered
yummy lemon water and the best coffee I have ever had in my life. I'm glad I never saw them mix the coffee because if I were to actually see the amount of sugar cane and condensed milk they must have put into the coffee I would never have put it into my body. My teeth hurt just thinking about it. Brandon could easily have 8 cups a day. In his defence, they were pretty small cups and he is a pretty big guy.

The best part of the meals was that they were served communally at one big table. Everyone got to know everyone else and lunch or dinner could easily turn into a 2 hour affair. There are some interesting people staying there with us but the most interesting had to be crazy Sylvio.

Having 3 km of beach to yourself is an amazing feeling. We would wander up and down the beach for hours accompanied by Momma dog and Ugly dog, two of the most loyal beasts you could imagine. They would follow us up and down the beach and sleep outside our little hut at the night. They were our shadows the whole time we were there.

We also went on the best hike I have ever been on. We had to navigate over a massive pile of boulders, walk up a small waterfall (really more like a water slide!), and squeeze though a small opening in a cave. In retrospect I don't imagine it was completely safe, or perhaps safe at all, but damn it was fantastic! It was a great physical challenge. The waterfall was well...a waterfall...but there is a really deep lagoon and our guide climbed to the top of the waterfall and jumped into the lagoon below. I'd guess it would be 12m. Either way, he was crazy. It was hilarious to watch him navigate his way up to the falls. He could walk upright and jump from rock to rock whilethe rest of us had four points of contact at all times.

It was also Brandon's 23rd birthday and Sylvio ordered a cake and had it delivered to the resort (really, the middle of nowhere.) It was a fantastic cake that had so much icing it gave everyone a belly ache after 1 piece, except the birthday boy who manage to scarf down 2.

Locations Visited: Nha Trang


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