NAHTRANG

 Ever since Kong Lor cave i had kept in contact with Dan and Tan, but our timing was a little off, in Vietnam we were finally able to work it out. At the time, they were also traveling with an Italian couple, Tuli and Mateo. On our first day together we went to Vinpearl, a massive Hollywood-style water park. It was a blast! Spent the whole morning on the watersides, lunch at the gorgeous too-perfect-to-be-true white sandy beach, and the afternoon at the roller coasters. They even had a roller coaster where you drove your own cart warning "any damages to other vehicles are your responsibility", translation: do not brake ;).  The sunset was beautiful and the night fell upon us as we rode on the cable car over the ocean. Went back to freshen up and enjoyed a delicious feast of fresh seafood.

The next day we rented bikes to go check out a couple of waterfalls. This calls for motorbike accident #2... it was quite embarrassing actually .. i braked too fast with the front brake...minor scratch. We ended up squishing into two bikes, Asian style ;). The scenery along the was was picture perfect, fishing villages on the ocean, mountains inland, and boat-shaped trees along the median. We managed to find the path to the waterfall at the end of a dirt road. After a sweaty 10 minute walk we were at the first pool. Went for a refreshing swim; there were lots of rocks to jump from and you could go behind the waterfall itself into a mini cave. Dan and I went to explore the rest of the pools, the path got a bit rough, long jumps from rock to rock and steep climbs but worth it after all. By 2pm we were getting hungry and there was nothing around the waterfalls, so we left in search for a restaurant. We thought that the fishing village would maybe have some fresh seafood...silly us. There were no 'real' restaurants... we wondered around the dusty streets being greeted by curious smiles. Dan, Mateo and I settled for a green concoction, a sort of porridge with ground meat, while Tuli and Tan found a little place that had noodle soup and bread. We all sat on tinny plastic stools with the elder lady that owned the stand. It was one of those experiences that stick with you.

Back in town we went for a walk along the beach and into the night market. We found a fancy sushi place and decided to splurge a little. It was well worth the $10 :p. Went out for drinks, mostly free or happy-hour ones and then had a couple of pool matches at one of the bars.

The last day started nicely, I woke up early and went for a run along the beach. Back at the hostel got packed up and we had a bit of an issue with the manager, which scaled fast and furiously. We were trying to pay but he was overcharging us for the rooms, using an outdated currency conversion. He refused to give us our passports back ... days before, Mateo and Tuli had some money stolen, he was also trying to charge us extra to leave our bags for the day ... it almost turned into a fight, we almost called the police... in the end, we stormed out of the with all of our belongings. We were homeless and our bus didn't leave until later in the evening... thankfully we had made friends with the owner of a nearby restaurant where we had breakfasts every day and he let us leave our bags there until our bus came. Spent the rest of the day at the beach, relaxing an playing cards and then Tuli Tan and i went shopping for a bit.  When the bus came to pick us up they shoved 14 of us with packs and everything in a minivan to the bus station.... it was like they were trying to see how many backpackers could fit in a minivan.... but the ride was only 10 minutes so no big deal. The bus was a sleeper, and the 5 of us got the whole back of the bus. The seats went all the way to a horizontal position, it was pretty comfy. We payed a mini game of risk and then i quickly passed out.