New Year's in 'Nam

From Hoi An we moved to Nha Trang, Vietnam – our first true beach-stop on the trip. Laura was determined to stop the stares and “Pretty, pretty!” cat-calling from Vietnamese women by finally getting a decent tan.

We checked into a nice place that had satellite TV in all the rooms. Caught the “Top Ten Extreme Tanks” on Discovery (rated on such criteria as “mobility”, “strength to weight” and “fear factor”) as well as the Jimmy Fallon and Queen Latifa career staller “Taxi” (here’s a bit of a stretch tangent: I read Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch earlier in the trip. The entire novel is about specific Arsenal football matches….how did anyone allow this to turn into a romantic comedy about love and Red Sox baseball starring Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore?). Oh, and we watched Must Love Dogs. Thanks HBO, for consecutively playing every film I’ve vetoed at Blockbuster over the past six months just when were coming off an eight week TV leave. Very shrewd.

The beaches were good. The highlight though, was our day-trip to some of the surrounding islands. The day was overcast, the boat was packed, but our guide Mui was unstoppable. Really nice older guy who had served in the war for the South (we hadn’t met anyone admitting to this previously) as an air traffic controller. “Very much stress” he told us. Now he was hosting boat tours and seemingly loving every minute of it. However on closer inspection, he may have loved Tiger Beer even more than boating. He was a Tiger Beer enthusiast. Big time.

We spent the latter half of the morning sight-seeing and snorkeling, before pulling into a bay for some lunch on the roof of the tour boat. As lunch wrapped up, we heard a snare drum and guitar tuning coming from below. A “band” had set up their gear (a beat-up Fender, the worst drum kit ever – one drum replaced by a bucket and a serviceable microphone patched into the boat’s P.A. system…heavy on the treble). The band appeared to be missing a singer, but we didn’t even have to ask. Mui was suddenly up on some collapsed benches, mike in one hand and a half empty bottle of Dalat brand mulberry wine in the other. Karaoke books were passed around that included every song you could think of, from all the Neil Diamond hits to the latest crunk classics. To our disappointment, Mui would not sing “Better Man” by Pearl Jam and tried to get us to sing it instead. That wasn’t going to happen. He led the crowd through a couple of Vietnamese ditties before belting out a raw version of “Hotel California” (quickly becoming the #2 most heard song on our trip behind that Carpenters tune. They prefer the live version with the long intro from the Hell Freezes Over tour disc)while his partner in mirrored aviators on guitar picked away. And he danced. A lot. Yes, there’s video. I guarantee we tipped more than anyone else on the boat. I also squeezed in some parasailing before the boat took us back, but it was far less exhilarating.

We moved to Mui Ne for New Years – another beach town, this one considerably smaller. The popular sport there is kite surfing. Two barriers: lessons start around $200 USD for five hours and you can only kite surf when there’s wind. In the three days we were there, it only got gusty enough for about an hour or so of surfing. Maybe next time. We did manage to go tobogganing in some sand dunes, which was cool. They call it “sledging”….is this is a real word, or should it be sledding? Not sure on this. Probably not a typo given the frequency that it appeared. And really, if they exclusively spell it in the typo form, there’s probably an argument to say that it’s no longer a typo…just the new way of spelling it. Annnnnnyway, we went sledging. Good time, thorough après-sledge shower was required. We went to “Jibe’s” for New Years, a popular Aussie-run surf shop/restaurant. Great buffet dinner. Clock struck twelve over a bonfire on the beach. Hey Jibe’s DJ – if I ever hear Abba’s “Happy New Year” again, I’m coming for you. Seriously dude, too many times.