Happy Birthday Mai 
Today was a travel day. Before leaving the hotel the staff had arranged a small cake for Mai because it was her birthday!
We were flying out of Da Nang and we stopped at the dragon bridge on our way to the airport. The bridge crosses the river Han and was completed in 2013.
Along the water’s edge there was a statue of a carp turning into a dragon. Folklore claims that heaven once hosted a dragon competition. Only one carp succeed and it was turned into a dragon. This statue reminds one to alway strive and persevere until you succeed. It also represent luck and taking advantage of opportunities as they appear.
On Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights at 9 pm the dragon breathes fire and water.
We walked across the bridge and on the other side they were decorating for the lunar new year or Tet which is Jan 29. It will be the year of the snake.
We got back on the bus and continued to the airport where we got a flight to Nha Trang. During the late 1960s, the U.S. Army’s First Field Force, Vietnam was headquartered in Nha Trang. Nha Trang is close to Cam Ranh. In the Vietnam War, Cam Ranh was a major military stronghold of the United States and the South Vietnamese government. The US military built Cam Ranh Air Base into a major military base, with many fortifications. Four years after the fall of Saigon and the unification of North and South Vietnam, Cam Ranh Bay became an important Cold War naval base for the Soviet Pacific Fleet. In 1979, the Soviet government signed an agreement with Vietnam for a 25-year lease of the base. The Vietnamese did not renew the lease in 2004. Mai told us we would see Russian signs as a result of their presence here but I haven’t seen anything yet.
After checking in at the hotel, we went for flan coffee which is like frappaccino with chucks of flan in it. Rick said it was too rich for him.
Afterwards we relaxed in the hotel for a little while before holding a small birthday celebration for Mai (our efforts yesterday were successful). The “birthday cake” was very different from our traditional birthday cake, it was very gelatinous. At the birthday party I had a little bit of bird’s nest soda. Bird’s nest soup is a delicacy in China and is made from the salvia that a swallow uses to “glue” together its nest. The soda was a little weird. One swallow (pun intended) was enough.
After our celebration we went to dinner at a barbecue restaurant. It was tasty but very smokey.
But wait there’s more. We weren’t done with our day yet. After dinner we went to see a Vietnamese grocery store. I got a snickers bar 
