Frog Legs Anyone?!

Had a great time in Nha Trang, Vietnam! It's been 30 degrees or higher every day since we left Tokyo! Loving it!  We were supposed to meet up with our friends, Anh and Jimmy, from Calgary but our flights from Bangkok to Ho Chi Minh to Nha trang were delayed. Our first flight was delayed and we almost missed our connecting flight - thank god it was delayed. The bottleneck was the visa on arrival process - unless you want to wait for an extremely inefficient process, I'd probably recommend getting a traditional visa. When we finally got to our Nha trang hotel,  they had given our room away because of our late arrival so we had to find at alternate place to stay at 12 am! It ended up being fine and found a decent place quickly and ended staying there all 3 nights, Golden summer hotel, which was just a basic hotel without any frills but had awesome pho for breakfast! The highlight of our a few days here was definitely the cooking class we took (Lanterns cooking school)! We were taken to the local market on a "cyclo" which is basically a bicycle carriage and took part in the bartering process. Wow - what an experience that was! If you get grossed out easily, do not read further lol. If you are an extreme germaphobe, I'd advise you never to enter such a market in SE Asia - what you dont know We had been to smelly markets before but this was over the top. Adam had an unknown meat juice sprayed on his arm as we walked by a stall as a women was butchering meat to give to a customer. I saw a dead rat on the ground in a corner. The women selling fruit are squatting with their bare feet next to the fruit that they've displayed - I saw one lounging amongst her vegetables and watch her bare feet graze past some of them - that thought entered by mind as I looked at the salad I was eating later that evening. I don't think a single vendor could have passed a food safety inspection by Canadian standards here! If you eat frog legs, you may never want to eat them again if you saw what they did to those poor creatures! I cant seem to post videos here but check my facebook page for the video later this week. They basically take a live fog, beat him on the concrete, then slice him open (yes, he's still alive), take out his innards, then chop off the legs. It wouldn't surprise me if they ate more than the legs here! All the seafood is alive prior to purchase - including the king prawns, eels, etc. There are a lot of moving creatures at this market! Thank the lord we didn't see any cats and dogs at the market or we were strategically taken away from that area by our "chef." Fresh meat definitely is the moto here! When we came back to the restaurant, we made fresh shrimp salad rolls, clay pot chicken/fish, and banana/mango flambé! So yummy that Adam and I had to take a nap from a food coma!  Although Nha trang became a tourist destination because of the beach, it's nice but it doesn't have white sand. Nonetheless, its an interesting place! There are tones of Russian tourists here which you usually don't find. There was some white sand at an island that has cable car acess from the mainland. The island is called Vinpearl and basically it's been transformed into a hotel plus entertainment complex including a waterpark, rides, underwater world, etc. Surprisingly it is really well built and had high quality watersides similar to a water park we recently went to in Ottawa. Although it was raining, it was a really nice to be entertained within a tropical surrounding. I think it was Adams nightmare though lol so we didn't stay for long as we may have on a nice day.  We are now in Ho Chi Minh city. Will post again soon!