Spa Day

Nha Trang was one of those places we had to go to, as opposed to somewhere we had planned to visit - a necessary transportation hub on our way South. Although it was another big city, it was luckily on the beach. 

Nha Trang is a big, brash, ocean-resort kind of place. High-rise hotels line a long stretch of beach popular only with Russians. This seemed unusual to me, but a quick google search informed me that there was a Russian naval port there from 1972 to 2002, and that Nha Trang continues to be a popular vacation spot for Russians. There were signs in Russian at many of the bars and restaurants, and the ice cream vendor at the beach announced his arrival with a Russian military-sounding song. Almost every Russian had the same white beach cover-up with a hood, which makes me wonder if Canadians or Western tourists all appear the same in a way I don't realize, or if this beach uniform is a communist thing. 

I took the kids to the beach in the morning and let Rob sleep off our overnight bus ride (third and final one of the trip). The waves were not quite as fierce as in Hoi An, and the kids enjoyed bobbing around. While arguing with the beach attendant that I was not going to pay 20US$ for an hour of lounge chair time, I met Fong, an American/Canadian/Vietnamese who now lives in Pittsburgh. I got to hear about his work in IT, and how he escaped Vietnam in 1981 with his aunt and uncle. We also talked international travel and about Pittsburgh. It was nice to have a conversation about a city I've never been to that didn't involve anything about the recent shooting.

The kids and I made Rob get up to join us on our afternoon adventure: a trip to the spa. That's right, a spa. Since Nha Trang wasn't really our scene and we'd had a long journey to get there, I decided we needed to splurge. At this point I'd also walked by endless massage and nail places without stopping, and a spa sounded like it needed to be part of my Vietnamese experience.

We took a taxi out of town to a place called I-Resort, where we signed up for a mud bath. This was even more disgusting than it sounds. The four of us piled into a large tub filled with a warmish muddy slurry. Then we sat for half an hour. Actually, Rob and I sat, and the boys slithered. "I feel like a snake" Dassa said. Since the tub was slippery the kids were incapable of sitting still. It was an odd moment of family togetherness, (Stop touching me! Please sit still!) but probably one we won't repeat. Or as Rob said, while sitting up to his chin in mud, "I think this is a one-off."

We enjoyed the spa much more after the mud tub. We showered off in various hot and cold pressurized fountains, and then found a pool with a waterfall. I

had read online that the spa had many pools, but I hadn't realized how many. Each was beautifully landscaped and surrounded by gardens. Just when I got comfortable in a warm pool with a jet, the kids would discover a cute little stone water slide, or a beach with a wave pool. It was a lot of fun, but also exhausting.





 

Unlike most of Vietnam, the spa was also relatively uncrowded. There were a few other Russian tourists and a large group from China, including some young women who took a shine to Dassa. This has happened a few time during our travels. Dassa has been asked to pose with total strangers, always women, in a few places. And Dassa is always happy to comply. Luckily for everyone, no one ever asks Makaio to do this, as he despises this kind of attention.

 

Back in Nha Trang we found the city had erupted into a party-town. Buildings that had been shuttered during the day were open and filled with Russians (and Vietnamese too) drinking and eating. To continue our eating adventure we had Nem muong Ninh Hoa. This consisted of platters of grilled meat, lettuce leaves, fresh herbs, rice vermicelli and garlic that we rolled in rice paper and then dipped in a sweet-spicy fish sauce. This was both delicious and fun to eat. It was also slightly more up my alley than

breakfast which was a tad too adventurous for the early hour. We had Bahn Can, little rice pancakes cooked in individual clay pots. Since we were close to the sea, these had squid in them. Dassa refused to have anything to do with these. Unlike his brother who has the Smith-gut-of-steel, he has the sensitive tummy of most Liebermans and prefers to stick to food he can identify to play it safe. Dassa has been working his way through every bahn-mi stand we've seen as part of his dedication to eating carbs.