Rough Guide to Vietnam - Jan Dodd [169]
Vinpearl Resort 7 Tran Phu 058/391 1116 6, www.vinpearlresort.com. This luxurious resort is actually located on Hon Tre out in the bay, and features nearly 500 well-equipped rooms as well as the biggest pool in Southeast Asia (5000sqm). It is accessed by speedboat or cable car from the southern end of Tran Phu. US$151 and over
Yasaka Saigon Nha Trang 18 Tran Phu 058/382 0090, www.yasanhatrang.com. One of Nha Trang’s most impressive high-rise hotels, in a prime location along Tran Phu. Facilities include a fitness centre, swimming pool and tennis courts. All rooms face the sea, the higher ones with fabulous views, and are well appointed and chintzy. US$76–US$151 and over
The south–central coast | Nha Trang and around |
The city centre and beach
The disorienting knot of roads constituting central Nha Trang hugs the southern lip of the Cai River. Its beating heart is the hectic central market, semicircular Cho Dam, which stands on land reclaimed from the Cai; the market positively churns with life from morning to night. Most new arrivals in the city, however, make a beeline for its municipal beach, a grand six-kilometre scythe of soft yellow sand lapped by rolling waves, whose upper extent lies five minutes’ stroll east of the market. There’s a pleasant promenade running along behind the beach, with some very unusual modern sculptures and topiary set in trim lawns. The tourists who descend on the beach every day are promptly besieged by traders hawking massages, tropical fruits, t-shirts and paperbacks, though it’s possible to escape their clutches by wandering further north or south along the beach or at the pool at the Louisiane Brewhouse (free for customers or 25,000đ). There’s also a small but well-organized water park (daily 8.30am–5pm; 30,000đ, children 20,000đ) at the south end of Tran Phu. To avoid the midday sun, locals wait until the hour before dusk to do their bathing, at which time the surf is peppered with squealing, splashing kids.
The south–central coast | Nha Trang and around | The city centre and beach |
The Alexandre Yersin Museum
A local sight well worth visiting is at the top of Tran Phu in the Pasteur Institute, where the Alexandre Yersin Museum (Mon–Fri 7.30–11am & 2–4.30pm; 26,000đ) profiles the life of the Swiss-French scientist who travelled to Southeast Asia in 1889 as a ship’s doctor. Yersin developed a great love of the country and learned to speak Vietnamese fluently. He was responsible for the founding of Da Lat (he recognized the beneficial effects of the climate there for Europeans), and settled in Nha Trang in 1893. By the time of his death in 1943, Yersin had become a local hero, thanks not to his greatest achievement – the discovery of a plague bacillus in Hong Kong in 1894 – but rather to his educational work in sanitation and agriculture, and to his ability to predict typhoons and thus save the lives of fishermen. Significantly, his name is still given to streets, not only in Nha Trang but around the country, sharing an honour generally only granted to Vietnamese heroes. Yersin’s desk is here, with his own French translations of Horace still slotted under its glass top; so too, are the barometers and telescope he used to forecast the weather, and a model boat presented to him by grateful fishermen. But it’s the doctor’s library, where French, English, Latin and Vietnamese tomes cover subjects from medicine to horticulture, astrology to bacteriology, that conveys most strongly Yersin’s thirst for knowledge. Guided tours are given regularly, and a short video on Yersin’s life is also available for viewing. The institute (which Yersin set up in 1895) is still active today, and you’ll see white-coated technicians buzzing about.
The south–central coast | Nha Trang and around | The city centre and beach |
Along Thai Nguyen
Thread your way southwest from the Pasteur Institute, and after a few minutes you’ll hit Thai Nguyen, home to two of Nha Trang’s best-known sights. Presiding over the