Adventures By Design

In which the travelers greet the beach and have a few Bellinis

This was our first day in Nha Trang. We walked around a bit, found breakfast and a grocery store, then headed to the beach for some sunbathing. Gin is determined to darken her tan, especially since her trip to the spa in Indonesia where they scrubbed it all off.

Hanging out on the beach was relatively comfortable, once we found a good place to do it. We walked along the beach for a while, trying to find somewhere that had a nice atmosphere and wasn’t too pricey. Unfortunately, we couldn’t have both. The cheapest places (i.e. free) were on the sand, but you’d be incessantly harassed by vendors, and the sand was sharp and near boiling. We decided on the mid-range option: two lounge chairs on the beach under an umbrella.

When evening came, we went to a restaurant called Guava for dinner. Guava serves mostly Western food and drinks, including a delicious banana shake with a zest of lemon, and their famous Bellini. We ordered some great food that was delicious but definitely unhealthy: chili cheese fries and a bacon cheeseburger. Afterwards, while we were playing cards, we saw a younger woman sitting alone near us, so invited her over to hang out. Turns out Rachel had just finished a contract teaching English in Shanghai, and now she was taking a few weeks to travel Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand before flying home to Michigan. She was fun and bubbly, and had some good advice about places to eat.

On a banner hanging outside Guava’s entrance, they invited people to join them for a Canada Day party next week on July 1st. Gin made an interesting observation: in several countries we’ve been in we’ve seen advertisements for Canada Day parties, but we’ve never seen one for American Independence Day (July 4). You’d think a bar owner would use every opportunity to throw a party, and fleece foreigners of their cash, but for some reason they choose the Canadian patriotic summer bash over the American. Our theory is that an Independence Day party may not appeal to nationalities other than Americans, while a Canada Day party brings in all sorts of folks. Do any of you readers out there have any theories or insight?