BEAUTIFUL BEACHES, TAXI RIDES, THROWING FRISBEES AND PADDLING IN THE SEA
HEADING TO DOC LET
We left Nha Trang and headed 50km further North, along the coast, to the beachside town of Doc Let.
We hailed a taxi and negotiated a price of 500,000 Dong (£18) to take us there. A pretty good price for an hour’s journey and the meter ended up showing 750,000. Win!
We arrived at our hotel – Quyet Thang – by lunchtime. It was fairly basic, but would certainly do the job for one night here, before we would head off to Whale Island.
ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER BEACH
The town of Doc Let is quite small, but we didn’t have time to take a look around it and the beach, so we decided to prioritise checking out the beach.
I’m glad we did.
The beach here was a gorgeous stretch of coastline, with fine golden sand and beautiful blue, rolling sea.
There didn’t seem to be any tourists here and the beach was quiet, with only local Vietnamese enjoying the sea. Doc Let is clearly not a backpacker hotspot, but while touring the Vietnamese coast, it seems a shame that more don’t stop off here as it was well worth a visit.
We stopped for lunch by the beach and then walked for miles up along the coast with our feet in the sea.
Views of fishing boats on the horizon as the sun fell low in the sky gave me an incredible sense of peace and tranquility.
We played frisbee for a while, while the locals were swimming in the sea and playing football on the beach.
As the sun was setting, we retraced our steps back along the beach and I nearly stepped on this washed-up puffer fish:
STRUGGLING FOR FOOD
That evening, we headed out from the hotel and to the only restaurant we could find within a mile.
We had a couple of beers and then tried to order some food, but unfortunately the chef had already gone home – I guess they didn’t expect tourists to be turning up!
We had to settle for some salad, nuts and booze.
Fortunately, we did manage to organise a good deal for a taxi for the next morning though, through one of the guys who worked at the restaurant. We hadn’t previously figured out how we were going to get to the next destination, so I’m at least glad that we were able to sort that out really easily.
We were only in Doc Let for a short while, but I’m glad we stopped off there.
I wouldn’t recommend spending much time in Doc Let, but just to visit the beach and take a walk along the seafront was worth it. It was also nice to see another beachside town, which is authentically Vietnamese, unlike the tourism focus and business of Nha Trang.
NEXT STOP – WHALE ISLAND
We were heading over to the paradise resort of Whale Island next, where we would be enjoying 3 nights on a quiet, peaceful island.
Read on to see what we got up to there!
