After the 14 hour journey with barely any sleep, I get to the party town Nha trang. I go to my hostel and ta-da its full. I am
totally exhausted. The lady there takes me to another hotel. I have to
pay a couple of dollars more but I'm in no mood to haggle. I get to my
room and the shower doesnt work. Far out! I take a cold shower at 6 in
the morning and all I can think of now is to call my bank ASAP to cancel
my card. I come downstairs and go back to my original hostel. The girl
there is very friendly and I tell her the rough night I had. I
call my bank from my phone and do all the privacy/security checks for 3-4 minutes and just when she is about to transfer me to the correct department to cancel my card, I get cut off! Damn, I dont have enough credit.
The receptionist takes me to a grocery
store to buy a refill card to top up my balance. Now I have only $100 on me and I need to get by for another 3 days plus return back home. I pay 100.000 dong ($5). I scratch it
and enter the pin and.......it doesn't work! Oh god. Turns out it was
another phone company's card and wont work on my phone. The shop lady wont take it
back as it is already scratched! Ahhh $5 gone! I take a
deep breath and head to the nearby post office and try calling from
there. I call my bank and get disconnected for another 3-4 times again then finally I cancel my
card. I ask them if there have been any transactions on the card since
yesterday - she checks while placing me on hold - my heart is beating so
fast and I m sweating and shivering - "no transactions after 4.30pm" she
confirms. Phew!!
Now I can totally picture my brother taking his hands to his
forehead and shaking his head. I obviously wasn't going to call him -
there really is nothing he could have done except worry. I have to sort
out the mess I created.
There is just something with me and travel - last year when I was in gold coast, I
lost my wallet and my licence, I've lost ATM cards numerous times in Sydney and the medicare card - it has been reissued like 6 or 7 times.
No, I'm not proud of this and I'm not bragging at all. While I am laughing now thinking of how it all happened, it was not nearly humorous then.
Well, another lesson learned. I
only hope the heartache of losing something teaches me to be even more
cautious next time.
So its 8.30am and I have the whole day to go around Nha Trang - I ask my
hotel lady to book me on a tour which starts at 8.30. The trip costs $6 so I think its much better than sitting
in my hotel room. She calls the guy and I run to the bus. I get on the bus
and all I see is Asian people. WHAT! where am I! I thought Nha trang
is a party town full of white people but the bus is full of local Vietnamese couples. Now I have nothing against Asians, but hey we all know they
are least friendly and how love their own group. I sit and spot a white
couple. Its the 3 of us vs the sea of local vietnamese. We get off the bus
and I start talking to the English couple. The whole bus is full of couples and I am the only
single traveler. I have never felt weird traveling alone until I came
to Nha trang. The asian couples are the worst - wearing his/her
t-shirts, taking pictures of each other in the most random locations with awkward poses and
doing all couply things. The tour guide comes to
me and says, "Why you come alone, you come with your boyfriend, more fun".......Yeah, thanks!
They take us to an island to snorkel and dive. There is no
instructor to help you snorkel but there is a guide for diving. Now I can do basic swimming...like a dog - not like the cute dog on TV commercials, but an angry dog trying to save its life while splashing water on everyone. Hmmm...I am not going to embarrass myself...or Australia or India. So I decide to go diving with an instructor. Its $25 - I think twice and decide its O.K. I
wear my gear and my guide instructs me. The english girl says she went
diving and she hated it. I'm already in water, hmmm O.K.
So he puts the
breathing apparatus on my mouth and I feel like I am about to choke. I m
not even 10 meters in the water and I just want to go back. I have
water on nose, eyes and ears and I already have a bad cold & flu. I m
half way down to see the corals and I tell him I want to go back, he
convinces me I'll be fine but I insist I want to go back. He keeps
telling me I'll be O.K. but I am petrified of going deep underwater. He then
tells me I would still have to pay him $25 for coming half way. WTF! I
take the breathing apparatus back from his hand put it on my mouth, shut
my mouth, hold him tight and dive straight in.
I am prepared to die
than waste $25! Geez!
I see some beautiful corals and beautiful fishes. He says its time to
head back - $25 for 10 mins.
We come back to our boats and we're taken to other islands where we laze on the beach, and just relax. We again get back on the boats and we have a song/dance show. So what they do is, they invite tourists from every country individually and sing a popular song from the country. So one by one, people from US, France, UK, Korea and other countries go up to the stage and sing songs. Its Australia's turn. He asks me if I know Waltzing Matilda. I only know "Aussie Aussie Aussie....Oi Oi Oi" Oh god, I am such a disgrace to Australia :( He doesn't know any Indian songs so I sing 2 lines of Jai ho and mime the chorus of Waltzing Matilda and hide my face and come back to my seat.
We finish our tour at 5. I get back to my hotel and I am
ready to leave for my last bus trip to Saigon.
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