Day Seventeen

Our first full day of relaxing by the pool.

The day started off with a decent buffet spread for breakfast. And then I headed down early to snatch a few loungers next to the pool (we noticed that they go fast).

A quick back story - Thomas our neighbor (who spent a lot of time working in SE Asia) told me about his time in Nha Trang. He talked about there being a lot of Russians. He said it in a whispered tone - almost like he was ashamed to say such thing. I took it just matter of fact and continued on with the conversation. He brought up the Russians once again - and said something to the effect of - yeah, the Russians...  I don't know if you have much experience with them...  But they're interesting. I talked to Jade later that day asking her if she knew about the Russians. She wasn't sure either.

So here we are at our MuiNe resort, and the guests are 95% Russian - of which we could care less, just interesting to be in a place that is so homogeneously not Vietnamese. Within minutes of sitting by the pool, and seemingly surrounded by the Russians, we found ourselves preoccupied with listening to their language. At the end of a sentence, one of them said something that sounded like Red Bull. Only he rolled the first R, and bull was pronounced Bwool (with an emphasis on the oo sound - deep in his mouth). Jade and I start laughing right away. And this would be something we repeated for the remainder of our stay here - Rred Bwool!

The Russian men are all huge, but don't necessarily look it. They're like 6'-3"ish weighing 250ish and they're not really defined and muscular, just big. The women range from huge and tank-like like the men, down to stick thin.   

I've heard Russian before, but not in this magnitude - so that's why I think it's so funny sounding. It's a pretty ugly sounding language. It sounds more like a string of swear words to me more than anything.

They don't seem completely rude, but maybe a little. They seem very direct, and seem like they'd steel a pool side lounger from you, and not really care (they didn't actually do this, but there were times I thought they might). Some of the women's swim suits were very skimpy, and the men all wore speedos - no matter the size of their hardened guts (I know I know - shrewd American). Jade wore a cute 1 piece suit and I think they were all puzzled by the styling, perhaps they'd never seen one - especially the woman who wore what looked more like thong underwear and bra than suit.

Jade and I enjoyed our time, muttering Red Bull in a severe Russian accent, and relaxing in the sun, and floating in the pool. We ate dinner out at an Italian place down the way which was decent. We stoled down the road after poking our heads in little shops and stands of trinkets etc. Then we headed back for the night. My cold lingered on - and seemed to flair up in the evenings telling me it was time to catch a little Nat Geo and get some sleep.