Star Cruise - Nha Trang (Vietnam) - Day 4

5 April 2014 (Sat)

Another exciting day ahead! While we were sleeping at night, the cruise is heading towards another port of call - Nha Trang!

But first up, dim sum breakfast again :p eat eat eat.. haha

After breakfast, we went out to see our surroundings and another cruise ship is spotted in the distance. A much bigger cruise then ours - Princess Cruise!

For today, we chose a Nha Trang City Highlights which is an approximately 6 hours tour. Total per pax for this tour is HK$670 for adult.

As the waters closer to Nha Trang is too shallow for our large cruise ship to dock, the vessel has to be dock out at sea and the cruise's life boat ferries guests to and fro the cruise and mainland.

That's the life boat that we took~

And we are on shore!

First stop of the day is Institute of Oceanography, just located at the place the life boat dropped us.

"The Museum of Oceanography located in the Institute of Oceanography has many showrooms of the sea creatures and the eco-system. Visiting the aquarium, visitors seem to be lost in a colourful world of rate and valuable sea creatures, such as sea anemones, red and blue starfish, holothurians, snakes, tortoises, shrimp, fish etc."

That's from the itinerary given by the cruise. But the place wasn't as exciting as described.. though there was indeed many different marine creatures there.

  

And even a Fin Whale Skeleton... 

And a Dugong Skeleton!

But that's about all the interesting things in this museum.

Then it was time to head to our buffet lunch at a hotel. But it was quite a chaotic lunch due to the many tour groups there from our cruise.

The food we took for the 3 of us.. :p

After a 1 hour lunch, we proceeded on to the next stop - Long Son Pagoda.

But meanwhile, some sights we saw while on the way to the Pagoda.

After a short bus ride, we reached Long Son Pagoda which was founded in the late 19th century and has been rebuilt several times over the years.

There's a 14m high Buddha which is visible from afar as one enter the premises.

But to get to this Buddha, one need to climb up 152 stone steps up from the entrance of the pagoda and we can look over the city of Nha Trang from up above. So up we climb~

And this awaits us when we reach the top!

Then it was a climb back down and we proceeded to our next stop - Cham Ponagar Tower.

"The tower was built 900 or 1,000 years ago as a religious structure by the Cham people and the culture of the Cham is infused in the architecture and sculpture that make up the tower. Standing through the ages with historical events flowing around it, Ponagar Tower exists alongside four other architectural works. The site is located on Cu Lao Hill and it's divided into two sections: the Mandaga area and the tower area. The Ponagar Tower became a nationally recognized historic site of cultural value on April 29, 1979."

Along the way before we reach the Ponagar Tower..

And that's Ponagar Tower in the distance!

Carvings on the walls of the structures..

Managed to walk into the building and it was a cramp dark place for people to pray to one of the gods. Its amazing how this place is built out of bricks and with intricate details.

This is the view from the top! Nice!

And our cruise ships can be spotted in the distance! 

After that, it was time to head to the Dam Market for some shopping. This market is a circular three storey building where the middle area consist mainly of local souvenir shops, while the outside of the main building sells cap, hat and clothing shops. This market is somewhat similar to the market we visited yesterday.. so we didnt stay long there and ended up walking around the vicinity for the 45mins allocated to this place.

 Then it was the last stop before we had to head back to the jetty to board the life boat back to our cruise.
Last stop was at XQ Embroidery workshop. Typical tourist stopover for a day tour.

While waiting to board the bus, we spotted these trees! What a way to cut them!

Then it was back to the jetty.. last few shots of Nha Trang~

One of my favourite photo taken!

And again some last minute shopping for those who miss out on buying souvenirs at the market.

It was really a short trip in and out of Nha Trang.. and we didnt get to visit the beach which Nha Trang is famous for... >_<

-=-

Back onboard the ship, it was time to freshen up. After which we headed to our favourite place/activity.. :p Eat! Dinnertime!

Then it was some chill out sing and dance performance by this group of girls in the cruise's club.

And then we called it a day and headed back to the cabin to rest.