Vung Tau Weekend

Soviet-made hydrofoils leave every half hour or so from Ho Chi Minh City for a coastal town called Vung Tau. Nikki and I jumped on one last weekend for some beach time and an opportunity to use our new camera (which takes awesome pictures). Our hotel (The Imperial) was over-the-top fancy, with 3 pools, fox-hunting pictures, Roman statues, and best of all – a beach-side club. Nikki settled into the lap of luxury with her book under our cabana, while I found the nearest board shop and got totally fried while surfing my brains out. I made lots of friends on the water - some Russian and Ukrainian surfers and later some locals who offered me watermelon and beer from a communal jug when we got out of the water (how can you refuse?).

That afternoon, Nikki and I visited Vung Tau's answer to Rio – a huge Jesus on a mountaintop facing the Eastern Sea (it's actually a little taller than Brazil's). Not satisfied with just one mountaintop deity, we took a gondola to the top of a different mountain to visit a crazy-deserted amusement park boasting rides with funny names, pigs, a waterfall, monkeys, a weird shrine, and – you guessed it – a giant Buddha. The main attraction was a totally structurally unsound "sliding car" built on what appeared to be an old mudslide where two people careen downhill on a rail while trying to remember to break when directed.

Thankful to be alive, we continued our afternoon with a stroll down the harbor promenade and took in the scene of swimmers and moored boats. We happened across a couple small vessels piloted by men using their feet to control the oars and couldn't resist their offer to take us on a sunset ride around the harbor. Let me tell you – paddling a boat with your feet is way harder than it looks, and it looks pretty tough. Content to let the expert navigate, we chatted with the boatsman and Nikki snapped some fantastic pictures. By then, the sun was down and we were hungry, so we were lucky to find a wood-fire pizza place with outdoor seating by the water – mmm, thin crust Italian pies with hot Asian peppers – delicious. We ended the night with a drink by the beach and a late-night swim in the pool under a full moon. Man, it doesn't get any better.

We got up early the next day and wolfed down an excellent free breakfast of banh xeo, fruit, French pastries, and iced-coffee (I know, weird) so we could catch the low tide. When the water is low, you can walk out to a little offshore island at the end of the beach with a pagoda on it. We rented a double-bike and peddled at high speed past all kinds of sidewalk vendors, then dismounted and explored the intertidal (cool shells and seaglass!) on our way to the land-bridge that had appeared. Once across, we had barely enough time to explore the temple before a man announced that we had 4 minutes left before we were stranded for 12 hrs. We scurried across to the mainland and rode back to the hotel in time for a quick bite to eat on the beach (I had cuddlefish) before Nikki's scheduled massage (much deserved after her first week of interviewing people). With the tide up and no surf, I went for the next best thing – I rented a paddleboard and cruised down the beach, back to the island, to get a different perspective on the place. Thoroughly content, we met up after Nikki's massage and caught the hydrofoil back home in time for me to make my Sunday evening soccer match (a whole other story…)  

Food highlight of the week: "Mantis-Gambas." It's like a cross between a shrimp and a praying mantis – delicious with a tamarind glaze, but I'd be terrified of being in the water with a swarm of them.