This was yet another very winding road for the first two of the three plus hours it took us to get to our next destination. We climbed higher than Dalat (1500m above sea level), passing many, many green house constructions, until it became too high. Then it was just mostly pine forest and cascading waterfalls (Mick counted over 100) – kept as a national park.

Before we left the Terracotta Resort, I went for my last walk around the lake. I came across a group of very beautiful Vietnamese women posing in the gardens. I was a little shy to stick around waiting for the perfect shot, instead resorting to taking this next photo.

Once we got closer to Nha Trang and on lower land, we spotted quite a few rice paddies being tended by a handful of workers.

We did have one stop on the way as our driver needed to have his lunch. It was another interesting set up, obviously popular as a stop for local buses travelling this route. The toilets while Western in style provided a ‘first’ for us.

There was a huge block of ice in each urinal – we assumed for flushing the toilet slowly as the ice melted.

We arrived at our motel a few streets back from the waterfront. We had opted for this area as Mick and I really like to be among the small shops and street food restaurants.

Mick and I will spend 5 nights here so we decided to explore the facilities. We found the rooftop gym, pool and bar area on the 21st (and top) floor, where we later had a swim with quite a few small children. As I ventured in slowly, one of the little girls decided it would be fun to splash me – so I had to take the plunge more quickly than I had wanted to. The view from the pool was pretty nice.

One job that had to happen as soon as we booked in was to get some laundry done. Our son’s friend was able to organise that very quickly for us all, and within 20 minutes our clothes were collected and returned to us in under three hours. The washing is charged at a rate per kilogram; the three separate lots of washing cost a total of 180,000VND ($12AUD) (including 40,000VND delivery fee).

We went for a small walk around the area and found the night markets which we visited after we had dinner in a local seafood restaurant. The markets, while promoted as a “must see” were very disappointing.

We are pretty confident that we will be able to keep ourselves happily entertained here for the next few days.

Tomorrow morning we farewell our son and his fiancée as they head off on their motorbike tour.