NHA TRANG
CAM RAHN BAY
After completing my Jungle Survival School in the Philippines, I was flown to Vietnam in November 1969. We landed in Cam Rahn Bay and caught a hop on the third day to Phu Cat thmy home for the next 12 months. It felt strange to see the sand of Cam Rahn Bay again. I remember it as a fine grit that blew through the cracks into my temporary quarters and coated my bunk bed. It was memorable, for sure! A year later, when leaving Vietnam, I flew back to Cam RAHN Bay for my Pan Am freedom flight to the states.
Nha Trang was very similar to Ho Chi Minh City. It was crowded for its size with a population around 500,000. I was surprised to see mountains surrounding the Bay where our cruise ship landed. They would make great hiking mountains. The scenery around Nha Trang was prettier and that it was near the white sandy beaches of the South China Sea with plenty of access. Unfortunately, the smog was so thick. I could barely make out anything two blocks away let alone get a good look at the pristine water..
All in all I was not impressed nor filled with a desire to return to Nha Trang. Our tour guide, Michael, was fair to mediocre because of his poor English/. He was hard for me to understand, not only his broken English,, but his pronunciations. Even the common words and phrases he used were difficult to understand Words with letters like “t” were pronounced with the letter ‘d” like he would say, “fodder and modder”for father and mother. There are some professions some people should not attempt. I wouldn’t make a good German tour guide because of my lack of knowledge and poor German language skills.
Liam, our guide in Ho Chi Minh City and Michael, here in Nha Trang, told us a few statistics about the Vietnam people. They said that 70% of Vietnam were Buddhist, 20% were Catholics and 10% for other religions. Michael said he was a Buddhist. Our driver spoke English and I think I understood him better than Michael. All he had to do was drive. He liked to honk the horn a lot. We passed by blocks and blocks of low end stores and businesses that reminds me of the Philippine Barrios. As we stopped at some of the more impressive sites, including a government area near the beach that contain a special rock formation right on the beach that comes with a fairytale story about a naked Siren and a sailor who lost his head. I need to research that story on the internet someday and see if it is true.
Near the entrance was an open air building with seating where a band and some Vietnamese girls were playing beautiful music with unusual instruments. It was also a very soothing and mystical sound. One instrument was a rectangular guitar. The most unusual instrument was a row of various lengths of hollow bamboo where a girl clapped her hands together in front of the bamboo pieces to produce a sound. She created a beautiful tune by clapping her hands together in rhythm. It probably drew a larger crowd than the stack of rocks on the beach
We visited a couple more Buddhist Temples and a large Catholic Church. That was built after the war. Temples and shrines may look nice, but I’m not of the Buddhist religion and visiting more of the same was not calling my name. I did find it interesting to drive past the many shops and stores along the streets. I would have liked to stop and walk out on the pristine beaches. I heard they were beautiful but could not see them well. Debby said the beaches were beautiful and the water was clear. I would have to take her word for that.
We made it back to the ship in plenty of time for our 515 dinner time at the International Restaurant.
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