We’ve been in Nha Trang, Vietnam’s premier beach area (supposedly), for a few days now. Unfortunately, it’s been raining most of the time. However, on the one sunny day we did get out to the beach I found myself pretty disappointed. To be fair, I consider myself pretty spoiled, beach wise. I’ve been lucky to have been to places like Key West, Hawaii, the Great Barrier Reef, etc. I guess what I’m saying is that it’s really not up to par with many beach areas I’ve been to–though it’s not necessarily that it lacks beauty. It just lacks, well, sanitation.
The actual beach has litter everywhere: cigarette butts everywhere, wrappers, plastic bottles. There’s a gross brown film that you can see on the water. And there’s the fact that every 2 seconds you get harassed by the same 10 people asking, “Hey, buy something?” We’re polite to everyone, but I was irritated at a man who came with a box of books all in Vietnamese. When I said I could unfortunately only speak English, he walked off muttering under his breath. No idea what was said, but I can guess it wasn’t pretty.
Which leads me to whom most of the travelers here seem to be: creepy single European men. Hugh and I had a really weird experience where an old man flat out STARED at me the entirety of breakfast. Hugh finally moved his chair between the man and me, and I saw the man sort of grin. When we finished and left for the elevator, the man followed us in and started talking to us. I saw him later on the beach sitting on a bench and staring at us (and others.) Later, a random Vietnamese woman came up to him and they started talking. Shortly after, they left. I’m not going to presume anything, so I’ll let you do that. =P
Tags: beach, nha trang, travel, United States, Vietnam
