Nha Trang - little Russia?!

Mot hai ba dzoo!

Or 1 2 3 drink!!!

That pretty much summarises our experience in Nha Trang!

So because of a Vietnamese strategic alliance with Russia (Vietnam is very cautious of China trying to annexe it and wanted Russia's support), there are no visas for Russians and direct flights to Nha Trang.

All of which add up to little Russia by the Vietnamese coast.

So what is there to do in Nha Trang - well it's a beach town, so you can go to the beach or the islands, however in the rain this isn't so appealing.

We found ourselves with the Russians at the mud baths - perfect for slightly crappy weather. We soaked in mud, soaked in mineral waters and then soaked in the hot swimming pool. Very relaxing & lush! Those minerals are a miracle cure - they restored Cat's sore throat so well she was out drinking and dancing that evening.

Which leads me on to the other thing you can do in Nha Trang - drinking.

We started off at Wave bar, where we practised our pool and connect 4 skills whilst examining the increasingly flooded street outside.

In a break in the rain we headed to Oasis bar, where the camp host was trying to set us up with a couple of boys! We met up with Karin & Jess here and then a group of people from the hostel that we'd been mud bathing with also turned up - the party kicked off!

Jessie & Karin

The gang! All photo credits to Cat as I didn't take any decent photos...

Next up was the infamous Why Not Bar - where we'd been warned about watching your drinks being poured as they tended to drug and rob people (!) but even with one of the guys holding his beer out and asking for the drugs we didn't have any side effects....

We were glad for our private room that night. When we first got to Nha Trang we were staying in True Friends Inn, but unfortunately they didn't have the ensuite dorm room working (or something...) so after one night there we moved to Mozjo Inn - the private room was great! One thing that both hostels had in common were fabulous staff. They all took the time to learn your names and would sit and chat to you in the common areas.

So next up we decided to skip the only other activity we didn't do in Nha Trang - the bowling and head to Hoi An whilst it wasn't raining so much!

I'm on a boat....

From Cappadocia we headed to the coast via overnight bus to Antalya where we saw a large protest in support of Taksim square.

We also checked out the old town of Antalya 

Cirali was a lovely beach town with no development - we lounged on the beach there and then set off for a hike up to see the chimera in the dark.

The Chimera was a Lycian myth of a fire breathing animal - however we just witnessed the natural gas fires - very impressive but we forgot the marshmallows to toast doh!

The following day we headed to our boat - Myra 1 and motored around having competitions to see who could jump into the water best (aka diving except most of us can't dive!)

After BBQ fish and drinking around a bonfire we headed to sleep under the stars on the top deck of the boat.

The following day after some swimming to wake everyone up we saw the sunken city in the water and then headed to our next stop - Dalyan.

Dalyan is famous for 3 things - mud baths, turtles and the Lycian tombs carved into the rocky hillside, so we got another boat to explore these!

Mud baths did what they said on the tin - see the mud monsters! 

After the mud dried we washed off and soaked in the thermal pool - more of that to come later in the trip.

On the way to the beach we passed the tombs - very similar to Petra in how they are cut out of the rock - the facades more inspired by Greek architecture though.

We saw the loggerhead turtles being fed crabs and went back to get some crab for ourselves - very tasty!