Plan a few days on the beach in Nha Trang, Vietnam

That Time We Accidentally Got A Personal Chef

You might not consider going to Vietnam for a winter beach holiday. Maybe you'll change your mind after reading this.

When planning our honeymoon, we decided we wanted a little bit of everything: city, beach and culture. We wanted to spend New Year’s Eve in a more lively atmosphere and so went to Ho Chi Minh, Nha Trang, Hue and Hanoi.

After Ho Chi Minh (you can read about our visit here), we took a flight to Nha Trang, where we were picked up and taken to our hotel on Vinpearl Island. It was amazing. We were driven to the coast, handed over our suitcases and took a small ferry across to the island. There, a golf cart took us to our double storey villa and a few minutes later our suitcases were dropped off too.

In that short time, we quickly ran around the villa to discover all its eccentricities, like two bathrooms, heated toilet seats(!), iPad-controlled curtains, and most importantly, a private pool. The hotel also celebrated our wedding with a special honeymoon cake and fresh fruit every day. It was incredible.

To top it off, if we wanted to go to the beach, or the restaurant, all we had to do was call reception and a golf cart would come dashing towards our villa. Perfect.

But there was a small problem… although our pool was entirely private, it wasn’t heated. In fact, it was freezing. The large trees did such a good job shielding the pool from others that it ended up blocking the sun too! Siraj tried going in a few times to try and enjoy the Jacuzzi but as it was so cold, he could only stay in for a few minutes at a time.

Oh well. Instead, we were at the sea literally every day. Our daily routine saw us have breakfast, go to the beach, have lunch, and go to the beach again. The beach was really great, too. As the sea was fairly cool, a lot of the guests preferred to stay by the pool, which just meant there was more space for us. We’d get a hammock or a spot under a beach umbrella whenever we wanted. There was also an unlimited supply of coconuts on hand, fresh off the trees.

We also went for massages in the hotel spa, located on a floating hut on the sea. We timed it perfectly, booking it just before sunset. The one problem: We booked Thai massages not knowing what they were and ended up feeling very relaxed but also quite sore.

And after we were done with the beach in the evenings, we’d get dressed and head to dinner.

Speaking of food… before we made our booking, we emailed the hotel and asked if they served halal food. They said they did and we booked. When we got there, the chef came to our table to greet us and said they weren’t able to get halal meat!

But there was a surprise. Each day, he would make us whatever we wanted, so during our whole trip there, we had our very own private chef who cooked delicious meals just for us, while everyone else ate from the buffet.

The other cool thing about the island was that it also had a mini-theme park, if we ever got bored of the beach. There was also a water lights show in the evening, which we went to on our first day. It doesn’t sound like much but it really was incredible to watch.

Some tips:

You can read more about Ho Chi Minh here. (LINK)
We spent four nights in Nha Trang, which was definitely enough to relax and enjoy the beach.
December is not known for being particularly warm so don’t plan a trip then if you don’t like swimming in cool waters. If not, you adjust to the water after a few minutes – and besides the water, it was about 25 degrees (celcius) on most days, so it really was warm.
Something to point out is that while we went for our honeymoon, Vinpearl – and Nha Trang generally – is a family-friendly place. Russia has quite close links to the area and we met many Russian families during our stay.

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