Nha Trang Off The Beaten Path Tips by magor65

On the way to Bao Dai villas

What I love doing while visiting a new place is walking to the parts of a town away from tourist attractions. To see how people live, even it is only the outside of the buildings, to watch locals at their daily chores is as important to me as seeing the highlights of the city.
On our way to Bao Dai villas we spotted in the distance a roof of a catholic church. We decided to find it. Having left the main street we found ourselves in the maze of narrow lanes, some of which ended abruptly leading to nowhere. The people we passed smiled at us and pointed the direction we should follow. I have no idea how they knew where we were going. Finally we found the church. We loved the way it was built - looking like a pagoda. Unfortunately, we couldn't get inside because it was closed. Nearby, behind the fence, was a buddhist temple. We wanted to enter its grounds when two big dogs started barking at us. Just then a buddhist nun appeared and invited us in. She kindly showed us around and we had a chat.

Bao Dai villas

Set picturesquely on the hills among lush greenery the villas were once the retreat of Vietnamese last emperor, Bao Dai. When he abdicated in 1945 the villas were taken over by high officials of South Vietnamese government, in later years replaced by communist officials. Today the villas themselves don't look very attractive and as a lonely planet guide-book states: "low ranking capitalist tourists can rent a room there". The whole site is very tranquil and the best thing about it are beautiful views of the port and the town of Nha Trang from the hilltop.
The place is guarded and one has to pay a small entrance fee to get to its precints. While walking around we didn't meet any other tourists so we were quite surprised to find an open restaurant in the main building. There were no other guests inside and we sat at a table by a window offering a fantastic view of the port. A nice waitress dressed in ao dai prepared the food we ordered on a portable cooker placed in the restaurant room. Although it was just fried rice with vegetables it tasted delicious.