Nha Trang

Our early train from Ho Chi Minh arrived in Nha Trang in the early afternoon. We got a Grab to our hotel and checked in. We haven't taken photos of everywhere we have stayed, but this place for £15 a night including a rooftop pool was pretty good!

We had a nap and made some calls home - then headed out to explore Nha Trang. Its a much bigger city than we thought it would be with a lovely beach. We initially didn't think it was as nice as some of the beaches we saw in Thailand but looking back at the pictures now, maybe we judged it too harshly.

We spent the evening walking around the city centre - and picked a Thai restaurant for dinner (because we hadn't had enough Thai food from 4 weeks in Thailand). Early night for a busy day tomorrow!

The next day we're out early to head to VinWonders - a huge theme park/resort on an island just off Nha Trang. We had heard good things but didn't quite know what to expect. All we knew was that we needed to Grab to the cable car station!

We arrived and found possibly the most opulent cable car station in the world. They've clearly spent some serious dong on this place. The views were pretty awesome!

The resort turned out to be a bit like Disney, but a lot cheaper at £30 each. We were not in the peak season so it was fairly quiet which was nice. Maps were only available in Russian, Chinese or Vietnamese so we had very little clues queuing for rides too!

Inside the bigger resort with shops and hotels is the main theme park which was what we were there for. We'd heard that the Alpine Coaster was one of the most best rides so that was first up. It was awesome! Dan had thought it would be a bit like the toboggan in Llandudno, but it turned out to be more like a proper rollercoaster where everyone has their own individual car and you had to control the breaks around corners. It was much faster than we expected but lots of fun.

We spend the rest of the morning on fairly typical theme park rides. The most memorable was an indoor boat ride which we assumed would be very tame and started similarly to 'it's a small world' at Disney - but right at the end was a surprise log flume which Dan got a bit splashed and Lauryn got drenched. Most signs were in Vietnamese and Russian only... thankfully you dry off quickly in the tropical sunshine!

Next was the zoo and aquarium, which we wandered around for a while and they had some impressive animals, even hippos! The enclosures were on the small size though :(

After lunch, we went to the water park section and had an awesome time on the water slides in rings. Sadly no photos as we both like our phones!

We didn't realise we would spend all day there but it was quite easy to. Our last ride of the day was a 120m tall ferris wheel.

The photo that probably sums up the park the best is the Starbucks - the whole place feels like you're in a land Far Far Away (from Shrek).

After a busy day, we got the cable car back, ordered a Grab and had a McDonalds delivered to the hotel.

The next day was a bit more relaxing - probably Nha Trang's 2nd most well known attraction is the mud baths. Again, we didn't know exactly what we had signed up for but if it's meant to be relaxing it can't be too bad? The mud bath was quite strange - it was pretty dense mud with grainy bits in it so you felt like you were floating and could exfoliate your skin. We did feel very soft afterwards so it must've done something. To wash all the mud off, they had a very scary looking walk through shower which we both walked through - it did the job but can't say that was very relaxing. We then spend half hour in a hot tub and feeling pretty relaxed, we spent an hour reading our books and falling asleep in the spa gardens.

We had gone to the mud baths before any breakfast, so there was no other choice than the cafe with a well reviewed full english. It's safe to say, this was easily the best fry up we have found abroad - complete with Yorkshire Tea and HP sauce, we couldn't fault it (except maybe some fresh milk for the tea rather than UHT). We didn't ask but can only assume the owner is English.

That evening we were booked on an overnight train from Nha Trang 12 hours north to Da Nang. We organised a late checkout from the hotel and spent a bit of time doing some admin and bookings. We also watched a Bond film in the lobby to pass some time.

This was our first sleeper in Vietnam, and we shared our cabin with a friendly elderly Vietnamese couple who were on the top bunk and kept chatting to each other until about 1am - we hope we are like them when we are their age! There had been a tunnel collapse part way on the journey a few days before, so we had to use a rail replacement sleeper bus for about an hour, but we were put back on an slightly nicer train the other side with no delay (the trains are slow). The train was a lot more comfortable than the sleeper bus and we thanked ourselves to choosing the train option! There are hot water urns in every carriage so you can make yourself some instant noodles for breakfast.

We were getting off the train in Da Nang - the closest station to our next stay: Hoi An!