I slept with my legs fully stretched on an old, dirty sleeper bus next to a cute but slightly crazy Indian girl from Texas. Morning arrived soon enough and I watched thousands of Nha Trangers participate in Ti Chi, badminton, swimming and other exercises along the ocean front avenue as we pulled into the city at 5:30 AM. Such an early rising culture! By 6, we were on the hunt for a room in this new city on a Saturday morning. After a few tries we settled on a hotel, recommended by our Lonely Planet guide, at the end of a narrow alley just across the street from the Ocean. Other family operated hotels, food stalls and seedy men with tobacco stained teeth offering you easy rider tours surrounded our cozy alley. After eating breakfast at the cafe Veranda right outside our alley, we went to the beach for a few hours playing in the somewhat heavy shore pound, reading and deciding what we wanted to do here. We had been researching getting SCUBA (which stands for self-contained underwater breathing apparatus) certified in places like Santa Cruz and Hawaii before but we still didn't know exactly what kind of certification we wanted or even if we could afford it. But it sounded really appealing, especially for the places we plan on seeing on this trip. After a bit of online research, we learned that Nha Trang was one of the cheapest places in the world to become PADI open water SCUBA certified and after visiting two recommended dive centers, we were signed up with Nha Trang’s Sailing Club three day open water PADI certification course, with a textbook and homework to be completed that evening. That afternoon, exhausted and excited about our decision, we were stopped by an unfamiliar hotel employee at the entrance. He told us he just mopped and wanted us to wait a while before walking through. We didn't mind so we sat down at a circular concrete bench and table and pulled out our textbooks and homework and started rifling through the first few pages of our reading. This caught the attention of the guy who stopped us and he came over to sit with us asking questions about diving which we couldn't answer and about English, which we could. He ended up talking with us for over an hour with Tri (pronounced “Tee”) about Vietnam, English and recommendations on good local restaurants. We even attracted the attention of some alley loiterers (mostly the seedy ones), some of whom, Tri made perfectly clear he didn't like. It was all good fun and ended up with a dinner invitation with he and his girlfriend in an upcoming night. We even became Facebook friends (Facebook is blocked in Vietnam) and he showed me how to change my wireless network settings to gain access to the website.
The next morning we started at 6 AM having chicken pho for breakfast, on Tri’s recommendation, and beginning our classroom video sessions all morning. We breaked for an hour for lunch and after getting outfitted with gear (wetsuit, fins, snorkel and mask, buoyancy control device, regulator assembly and tank) we were taxied to a small, gorgeous beachfront resort with one of those “endless” pools. The remainder of morning and afternoon was spent learning the ins and outs of basic scuba diving and about the equipment. I won’t go into detail but there is quite a bit to learn and good portion of the exercises we were trained in were for emergencies and I hope I only ever have to practice those. Our instructor, Khoa, was very good and patient with us and I felt much more confident about diving in open water the following day. We left the Sailing Club office fatigued and hungry and let the fatigue take over with a long nap. Dinner was late and I found myself getting slightly anxious about the following morning. Would Megan and I enjoy this? Was this a poor investment after all?
The next morning we started at 6 AM having chicken pho for breakfast, on Tri’s recommendation, and beginning our classroom video sessions all morning. We breaked for an hour for lunch and after getting outfitted with gear (wetsuit, fins, snorkel and mask, buoyancy control device, regulator assembly and tank) we were taxied to a small, gorgeous beachfront resort with one of those “endless” pools. The remainder of morning and afternoon was spent learning the ins and outs of basic scuba diving and about the equipment. I won’t go into detail but there is quite a bit to learn and good portion of the exercises we were trained in were for emergencies and I hope I only ever have to practice those. Our instructor, Khoa, was very good and patient with us and I felt much more confident about diving in open water the following day. We left the Sailing Club office fatigued and hungry and let the fatigue take over with a long nap. Dinner was late and I found myself getting slightly anxious about the following morning. Would Megan and I enjoy this? Was this a poor investment after all?
We went out on our first open water dive on March 11 early in the morning, one of the longest and most memorable days on memory. Cafe Veranda greeted us with tired smiles from the three women that work all day and eggs with baguettes, weak coffee and fruit. The ferry from the harbor to the marine sanctuary around Mot island took about 40 minutes and before I knew it we were being summoned to put on our wetsuits, stack our weight belts and test each others equipment. I was nervous. Would this be disappointing and boring? Difficult and painful? Then, one by one, we took turns taking one big step off the boat, careful to hold onto our weight belt and mask, and plunge into the morning calm, turquoise water. We did a controlled descent by gripping the boats anchor rope all the way to the bottom. Khoa went over some exercises we were introduced to the previous day in the pool and we had no trouble performing them again in the open water. After the review, it was time to sightsee. Once you get used to regularly equalizing your ears and breathing the dry, compressed air, the underwater world becomes more natural and incredibly stunning to stroll around in. All the stupid cliches in the training videos came true - you really do get to see entire cities and colonies of exotic animals going about their business right up close. As anxious as I was to go down to 10 meters (33 feet), it is so calm down there that the most disturbing thing was me; kicking my fins to ascend reminded me very much of a rocket launch, kicking up the sand in a giant cloud of turbidity. During the dive we saw tons of cool corals, fish, thumb sized jellyfish and even an octopus changing colors rapidly.
Back on the boat, we had a good yellow curry chicken and steamed rice lunch with a side of pineapple and got to know some of the fellow divers from Canada, America, Germany and China. The second dive went much the same except Megan was much more confident and I felt more relaxed with her more in control of her buoyancy. This time, after the training exercises, the highlights were a baby lobster in a secretive shelter and a lionfish. I was giddy throughout the entire dive. We had more class time that afternoon and were thrilled to return to our hotel where Tri greeted us warmly with more curiosity about our latest scuba exploits. At seven o’clock, we took our rented scooter in search of Tri’s recommended soup kitchen. We carefully scanned the landmarks Tri told us to pass but couldn’t seem to spot the kitchen itself. I got off the bike and started asking for directions a few different friendly locals. Some thought our bike was broken and others wanted us to join them for dinner (which was starting to get tempting). But we were on a mission and I had to have this crab noodle soup. Finally, in front of the train tracks during the passing of a train, one man was sure he knew where it was we were going and pointed to the next intersection and around the corner where we found it bustling with activity. It was in a tire shop. I had remembered Tri saying something about tires but I didn’t realized that it was literally a tire shop by day and kitchen by night. We sat down amongst stares and friendly gazes from children. I was so happy. We ordered two and were served a bowl delicious smelling soup with crab meat balls and a juicy pork rib. Then we were brought mint, chili and bean sprouts to add to taste. It was an amazing soup and weird to be sitting amongst stacks of tires and mechanical equipment while eating dinner. After paying, we rode, victoriously, back the hotel. From here, we followed Tri and another couple to Tri’s other restaurant across the bridge for a birthday feast for his Russian girlfriend, Ola, who was turning 30.
We were showered with deliciously cooked shellfish (one of which I was unsure of how to eat) and a squid hot pot with noodles. Seeing the raw whole, fresh squid on a plate was so foreign to me and when he had me slide them into the hot pot one by one, I thought to myself, “What am I getting myself into?” as my fingers stained with ink. But oh was it a delicious meal! I had so much fun eating myself seafood silly and drinking and talking with Tri, his friend and the other couple from the hotel. It had to come to an end at some point as Megan and I had our final day of open water SCUBA instruction the next day and it was pushing 12:30 AM as we rode back to the hotel in single file. Between the local cultural feast and the excitement about our next day of instruction, I could hardly convince myself to sleep.
We were showered with deliciously cooked shellfish (one of which I was unsure of how to eat) and a squid hot pot with noodles. Seeing the raw whole, fresh squid on a plate was so foreign to me and when he had me slide them into the hot pot one by one, I thought to myself, “What am I getting myself into?” as my fingers stained with ink. But oh was it a delicious meal! I had so much fun eating myself seafood silly and drinking and talking with Tri, his friend and the other couple from the hotel. It had to come to an end at some point as Megan and I had our final day of open water SCUBA instruction the next day and it was pushing 12:30 AM as we rode back to the hotel in single file. Between the local cultural feast and the excitement about our next day of instruction, I could hardly convince myself to sleep.
We were blessed on our final day of certification with extraordinarily calm waters and good visibility. Same routine to get out to the dive site except a new variety of nationalities on board the ferry including a pair of Swedish girls and a French couple both on their second day of certification. They took us to two new spots today and saw some large puffer fish and a tiny slug but nothing that topped an octopus, even diving down to 18 meters, our certification limit. Everything went smoothly and we even learned how to navigate underwater. The whole day went by in a sun filled blur but it ended with us passing our written tests and officially obtaining our open water SCUBA certification. We celebrated with delicious Texas BBQ burgers and beer!
The next morning, out of habit, I woke up early and disappointed that I was not soon getting onto a boat for a dive. We spoiled ourselves with beach time and delicious food for the next two days straight, not really doing much except relaxing, reading and writing.
The next morning, out of habit, I woke up early and disappointed that I was not soon getting onto a boat for a dive. We spoiled ourselves with beach time and delicious food for the next two days straight, not really doing much except relaxing, reading and writing.