No. 25 The Worst Best-Water-Park-in-Asia
Vinpearl, Vietnam
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No. 25 The Worst Best-Water-Park-in-Asia
Visiting Vietnam in summer is like walking on the gravel bottom of an aquarium filled with boiling pho. At 99.99% humidity, it is aromatic, delicious, but impossible to dry off.
When our cruise ship docked in Nha Trang for the day, choices to explore the unique local culture abounded: Hon Ba Nature Reserve, a 50,000-acre forest bursting with endangered flora and fauna where you can visit the outstation of the French doctor who discovered the cause of the Bubonic plague; XQ Historical Village which preserves the ancient Vietnamese art of embroidery so exquisite that the works are often mistaken for paintings; Cho Dam, the largest market and hub for local life; and the 8th-and-12th-century-built Po Nagam Chan Towers which sit at the mouth of the Cai River, to name a few.
We didn’t choose any of them.
We selected the activity that promised the most relief from the weather—outside of camping in the air conditioner—a day of splashy family hijinks at Vinpearl Waterpark.
It was hot. We were sweaty. Screw local culture.
Through no fault of our own, the day started well. We met the tender on time to float to the bus to drive to the world’s largest cable car. It provides a pleasant fifteen-minute ride fifty stories above the ocean in spacious glass cars with panoramic views of the bay, islands, and mainland. (The price is included in the park entry fee. Visitors can also take a ferry to the island of Hon Tre to reach the waterpark which has since been rebranded as VinWonders Nha Trang Water Park).
Inside the park, the main square was immaculate, perfect in that artificial Disneyworld notion of the fantasy, medieval-European town center. It was also weirdly empty. The buildings were all facades. Not one of the doors opened into a store selling overpriced, branded merchandise and snacks. The capitalist brain boggles at the lost opportunities.
After hours, at least, the empty downtown came to life with a “BLOCKBUSTER multimedia” experience called The Tata Show, starring the Tata Princess.
It’s probably the one cultural experience my boys wouldn’t have minded seeing.
Beyond the main square, the typical water rides awaited: a lazy river, a family tubing ride, a water coaster, a huge wave pool, and the ride we chose to do first, a tube flume with lanes for individuals to race side-by-side.
After a quick stop at the lockers to dump our stuff, we crossed the sun-scorched desert of concrete pavers. The rides didn’t allow flip-flops, so we hopped, skipped, and leapt our bare feet across the volcanic expanse to reach the ride. Each of us grabbed a heavy-duty tube, at least fifteen pounds of wide, fabric doughnut, and dragged them to the end of the queue.
The flume required a climb up five flights of wooden stairs. They were showing their age, splintered and split. Loose treads lifted from the risers, nails and all if you stepped off center. Close to the top, a sudden breeze threatened to turn the tubes into parasails.
The kids and I went first, starting down the hump of the initial hill slowly and gaining speed until the headlong rush was arrested at the bottom by aggressive jets of water.
Tim’s sluice down the fiberglass track looked twice as fast as ours. When he reached the bottom, a terrific gout of water geysered to either side. His prescription sunglasses flew off his face into the lane where he promptly rode over them. Moments later, his body spun around, legs akimbo. The tube launched over his head, and he came, face first, to a stop. He lay there stunned. After a moment, he stood with measured movements.
With a face the shade of a thunder cloud, he placed his sunglasses back on. Gold wire frames skewed several degrees higher on one side than the other. The lenses were gouged across the middle. He said, “They just shot a fire hose at my bezubits.” The tone suggested that it was premeditated, and malicious.
We left him in the shade of an anemic tree to steam and drip. The kids and I floated on the lazy river until lunchtime, and then ambled to the cafeteria where our low expectations were met with nutritionless, Western, fried food and soft drinks. Tim is a firm believer that all circumstances are improved by drinking a Coke Zero, so his mood improved.
We spent the remainder of the afternoon tackling a floating obstacle course in the bay. When our excursion time was over, we collected our stuff at the lockers, and met the driver at the cable car station to return to the ship before it departed. That’s when I noticed that my camera was missing.
The camera’s most likely location was the lockers. The family wanted me to leave it. It was digital, waterproof, and had all of the pictures of our trip on it, which made it arguably more important than the children themselves. I was not leaving without it.
I dashed across the park, knowing full well that we had one hour before disembarkation and at least 45 minutes of travel between us and the ship. There was a long line at the locker rental. I jumped to the front and asked if anyone had found a camera. The girls behind the counter shrugged. They radioed security. The guard was only ten minutes away if I could wait patiently please.
I felt the minutes ticking. The guard arrived and asked if I had any identification. I didn’t. It was in the bag of stuff that my family was holding so I could run across the park. How could I prove that the camera was mine, he wanted to know. I refrained from pointing out that my ID would not prove that the camera was mine either.
Somewhere in the hundreds of snaps, there must be a picture of me I suggested. He opened a safe behind the counter, and I was relieved to see my camera. About a hundred pictures back, the guard found the proof that he sought, a picture of me riding a bicycle on a dirt road through the Vietnamese jungle. Satisfied, he handed over the camera. I ran for the cable car.
As we glided back over the sea, I scrolled through the pictures to make certain they were all there. I found a few more than I expected.
This guy must have been trying the camera out. I felt the tiniest bit bad that he had probably built his hopes up about a free camera. No doubt I ruined his day when I came back for it. He was probably thinking it was his lucky day.
But then I thought, at least he has the Tata Show to look forward to.
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"Through no fault of our own, the day started well."
In a post overbrimming of wit, this is one of my favorite one-liners of all time. I fully intend to steal it.
Congratulations (or Happy Birthday?) on two years!