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Nha Trang, Viet Nam
12° 15' N 109° 11' E
Apr 02, 2006 13:28
Distance 415km

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Other entries in Nha Trang

Jungle beach not Vietnam

Text written in: English

So one day I was walking down the street in Hoi anh and lo and behold someone shouts my name:

"david" I turn to see which motobike driver had learned my name and sitting just to my left at a restaurant were a couple that I had met in Panama. Valentin and Viviana from Italy and Spain respectively, sitting having a drink in Vietnam when they belonged in Bocas Del Toro where I met them. So of course we stopped I had a drink and they told me of a place just north of the beach resort town of Nha trang called: "jungle beach."

A few days later we had placed a call to the owner, sylvio (a canadian),  who insisted that this place was not a resort but was a nice way to experience Vietnam. We took an hour long car ride from Nha Trang and arrived at a resort. Not that this was bad, but try as he might, sylvio has created a resort.

The place has a few options for rooms. From sleeping under a hut with a mosquito net and no electricity to staying in the "house" with a light and a fan everything was clean but sparse in luxury. What was luxurious about the place was the service and the convenience. Jungle Beach had its own stretch of clean beach free of vendors and most other tourists, it also had 3 meals a day included delicious and served to you at a communal table, a great atmosphere (except for one whiny little german boy), and workers who would help you with your every need. When you walked up to the main house (where the meals were eaten) after the beach, the workers would immediately hand you a lemonade! Anyway I digress. Noah and I opted for the darker and cooler rooms in the main house which were complete with lights and a fan because both of us were feeling a little sick (me with a stomach bug and noah with a rash) and also we were paying 16 dollars a day ( a fortune by vietnamese standards).

After a day of lounging and feeling sorry for myself, I awoke the next day feeling mostly better and ready to enjoy the resort with viviana and valentin so we packed some water and a camera and prepared to hike to a nearby waterfall. To get to this waterfall, we first had to get to the next beach which was seperated from ours by about 400 meters of huge boulders which jutted into the water deep enough to make swimming it impossible with an expensive camera. So we started our ascent. We removed our sandals for better traction and began to scramble up and down boulders. At times this was quite easy and just a matter of scrambling a bit, but other times we were wedged between two huge boulders above a 20 ft drop searching for a good handhold. We made it however only a little bit sweatier and out of breath to the other beach. Once there we had to search for the path up the hill and through the jungle to the waterfall (which we could actually see from the beach).

We crossed where the stream trickled into the ocean and were off on a path into the jungle. Unfortunately this path went NOWHERE... so we had to turn around. We found another path which also led nowhere but was very close to the river, so when it ended we decided to just follow the river up. We began to hike and soon came upon a waterfall, this was not our intended waterfall, merely a dinky one, but this waterfall presented an obstacle. There were immense rocks at this part of the stream that we would have to climb up to get to. We picked our route and did some pretty daring moves to end up at the top of the waterfall. after about 10 more minutes of contortions, grunts, and some worrying points we had arrived at the waterfall. It was pretty and the water was cold and refreshing and you could climb up on some of the surronding rocks and jump in, but we only had an hour to get back for lunch... so we jumped in the water cooled off took some pictures and headed back down (the path this time) to jungle beach.

the way back should have been easier, yet the rocks were much hotter and we ended up in some sticky places. At one point we must have gone up and down  the rocks 3 times looking for a place to move forward without having to expose ourselves to too much danger, but were forced to execute a move in which we to jump across a small chasm onto a smallish boulder that was steeply sloped. It was incredibly scary, but we couldnt fry on those rocks... so we each leaped and luckily we made it. WHen we finnally made it back to jungle beach our legs ached, the palms of our hands and feet were burned, and we were physically exhausted, but what a rush...