Nha Trangquil

An overnight train took us from Ho Chi Minh City to the scenic coastal town of Nha Trang.
Beers was had on the train, and music streamed from my iphone in one crowded compartment. Eventually everybody crawled into their bunks, as arrival time in Nha Trang would be roughly 5:15.
As the sun rose and the waves broke, we took a stroll along the yet uncrowded sandy beach before brekkie.
As the late night slowly transformed to morning, it was time for a boat trip to some nearby islands for snorkelling, swimming, sunbathing and a visit to a local fishing village. The fairly large bamboo baskets they use for fish also doubles as dingys, and we were silently paddled in them across the water to our boat.
As for the snorkelling, it was perfectly fine wildlifewise, but as the visibility, even close to the surface, was fairly low, I decided to give any Scuba diving in Nha Trang a miss and instead opted to use the next day to catch up with Chez, who had randomly (or actually rather planned, as she pretty much had planned to go with basically the same itinerary as Intrepid, only on her own) arrived in the evening.
The town is definately less hectic than HCMC, yet one can easily find oneself lost among the streets, who are often annoyingly devoid of sidestreets. And since the taxis, tuk-tuks and cyclos tend to gather in the touristier areas along the beach, if you get lost in the more locally flavoured parts of the town, you'd better make sure you have your trekking shoes on and your internal GPS in tune.
Although beer is easily available throughout southeast Asia, the selection is poor at best; you can choose from three or four different brands of weak, if indeed refreshing, light lager. A welcome change from that was at Louisiane Brewhouse, a rather fancy pool- and beachside restaurant, in which they also had a microbrewery. As we had a very nice seafood dinner overlooking the beach and the sea, I had the pleasure of tasting their very fine lager, their weissbier, their ale and their dark lager, and all was good.
The relaxing days in touristy (for western, asian and Vietnamese tourists alike) Nha Trang ended with a barbecue dinner, in which we all sat down and were given miniature barbies and grilled our own very vast spread of meat, chicken, veggies and seafood.
As we were heading even further north along the coastline of South Chinese Sea, we boarded another overnight train, and this time we had an eskie. Kim specials were frequently mixed (orange juice, strawberry/raspberry juice, ice and huge amounts of vodka) and the train puffed along, heading for Da Nang.