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.

Visitors, the Mekong, and a Wedding

Hotel Fox is officially open for business. This last weekend our good friends Aditya and Priyanka came to check out HCMC and crashed at our pad. We started out with a trip to our favorite hole in the wall Banh Xeo place (no illnesses to date) and then later met up with friends at a pool hall on Friday. One highlight of the weekend was a day trip to the Mekong. It started with a three hour boat ride down the Saigon River and up one of the 9 distributaries of the Mekong River (called Cuu Long here) to My Tho and Ben Tre. It was amazing to see all the traffic – small boats, barges, tugs – all with red and white eyes painted on the bow. We took a little tour which included: seeing an apricot tree garden (important for the tet holidays), visiting a beekeeper and tasting tea with honey, tasting snake oil wine, going to a coconut candy factory and sampling the snacks, listening to a traditional music performance, and taking a "rowing boat" ride down a series of canals. And that was all before lunch! After eating, we toured the local town on bicycles that were probably perfect for very small people back in the 60's when they were made. As we made our way across the river to the bus that would take us back to Ho Chi Minh City, the skies opened up and poured, which made for a beautiful scene as we plugged along in our covered boat.

The previous day Adit and Priyanka went on a day trip to the Cu Chi Tunnels/Cao Dai Temple, so Nikki and I had stuck around town. I spent the morning playing tennis with a group of guards, drivers, and employees from the consulate. I got my butt totally kicked, especially my first game with a bunch of Vietnamese business men, but everyone was super friendly. Next time I'm bringing a ringer (Nikki).

In the evening, we attended our first Vietnamese wedding (the brother of one of my buddies from soccer). All I can say is that Vietnam has got the whole wedding thing totally figured out. The entire event was barely two hours long, but they crammed in pictures, food, dancing performances, speeches, karaoke (why does everyone in this country have a fantastic voice?), and of course lots of drinking. The bride had no fewer than 3 costume changes and there were multiple confetti cannons, exploding balloons, laser-lights, and crazy ornate costumes. I feel very lucky to have been included in the festivities (Nikki and I were the only foreigners there) and appreciated the insight into the local culture.

Food report – continued the exploration of street food with a sandwich (banh mi) from a random local stall (pictured above). I shudder to think of what might have been incubating in the pile of fish pate that was scooped into a fresh French roll along with cilantro, lemongrass, peppers, and assorted meats and presented to me for the reasonable price of $0.75 – but damn, it was delicious. I'm so happy our friend Omar made me buy one. We've also hit up fancier places around town with friends, including Villa FB (you can sit in a cube that is designed to be a giant fountain) and Nha Hang Ngon (literally, "delicious restaurant," cute indoor/outdoor courtyard). So much deliciousness and so little time. I now understand why Anthony Bourdain loves this country.

First Week of Work and Trip to Nha Trang

Nikki started her job this week after three weeks of language training. The initial reviews are good – everyone seems really nice and the work is interesting. She's already got a trip to Hanoi in the works, which will be a good excuse to see the northern part of the country. Today there was a happy hour organized to welcome us and we had fun catching up with all of her work colleagues. I'm still doing some work for MLPA and MarineMap and am also working on a proposal for some new work here in Vietnam regarding aquaculture planning. I take Vietnamese classes for 1.5 hours every day and Nikki is probably going to start back up soon.

Monday this week was a holiday and we took advantage of it by booking a 30 min flight to the beach town of Nha Trang. Travel itself was pretty interesting. The lights in the airport in Ho Chi Minh City went completely dark no fewer than 8 times while we sat waiting for our flight, which was delayed several times. Then, when the flight started boarding, there was no announcement and the signs showing destinations for the gates were mixed up. Finally, we made it to Nha Trang, and took a harrowing 30 min taxi ride to our hotel along steep cliffs (which turn out to be gorgeous), where we were utterly convinced the right rear wheel of the car was going to fall off.

It was totally worth it though. The first day we went diving, chartering a "speed boat" to visit some of the outer islands. The whole area is beautiful, with fishermen in tiny round boats and steep rocky cliffs where people live and collect swiftlet nests for use in birds nest soup. Our guide, Anh, was super interesting, having worked as a deep water diver for the government for many years, and was willing to help us practice our Vietnamese. We dove nitrox for the first time and saw tons of great stuff, including at least 10 different nudibranch species (unfortunately, our underwater camera housing is still being shipped!). We got back around midday and headed for the beach, where we lounged, had delicious drinks, and caught up on our reading. When we got hungry, we sauntered down the beach to a restaurant in the sand where I got to pick out a live fish to be cooked for dinner.

We started the next day doing things we love – we started with breakfast on the beach, followed by a 4 hour massage for Nikki (approx $50) and wakeboarding for me. In the afternoon, we took the world's longest over-water gondola (2 km I think) over to Bamboo Island which is home to the Vinpearl Amusement Park. They had a ton of waterslides, a nice aquarium, delicious ocean-side dining (I had a "snake head fish"), and some barf-o-licious spinning rides. They also had a light and water fountain show that was entertaining – imagine Bellagio-style waterworks choreographed to soviet and Vietnamese patriotic folk songs. We finished the evening by visiting a bar in the backpacker park of town and having dinner at a lovely place called "lanterns."

Monday was a holiday for us, but not the rest of the country, so we had the town pretty much to ourselves. We visited a temple with a huge white Buddha and memorials to several monks that were self immolated during the "American" war. Properly introspective, we headed for the local oceanographic institute, which had lots of big fish tanks and a surprising number of preserved specimens. Finally, we visited the gallery of a local photographer that takes pictures of everyday life and develops his film with a homemade mix of chemicals. The photos were stunning and we had to purchase a couple, even though we have a ton of art on the way. We then squeezed in a lunch al fresco before heading to the airport (where we had all kinds of trouble getting our bottle of Dalat red wine back home!).

The social schedule is of course packed. We had our first evening with the dinner club last week and are going out for billiards tomorrow. Hotel Fox has officially opened and our friends Aditya and Priyanka are here this weekend for a visit. Saturday we've been invited to a wedding and there is tennis planned as well. So much to do and so much to see!!

I'll end with the culinary highlights of the week. First – mushroom hot pot. What is that you say? Well, you add delicious herbs and peppers, along with your selection from 25 different kinds of shrooms to a bubbling pot of water on the middle of your table and voila! tastiness abounds! Pretty good, but the absolute highlight for me was a small Oc (better known as "little things with shells") restaurant. We had three different kinds of shellfish/snails that were cooked with lemongrass, spicy pepper sauce, butter, and other secret ingredients. We went with one of our Vietnamese teachers and rolled up our sleeves at tiny tables in a narrow alley crowded with locals. Noms! And I feel like we are just getting started.

More Exploration of HCMC

During our second week in Ho Chi Minh City we've gotten a little more settled and seen some more of the local, less-frequented sites and restaurants. Oh yeah – and I won a 4k on Sunday and got a free business class plane ticket!  More on that below. Some of the more practical news from this week: our first shipment of stuff from the US arrived, so we now have a few more clothes, toiletries, food, etc. This might sound boring, but it was much anticipated! Also, we hired a cook/housekeeper that makes delicious food twice a week!

On the fun side, we took field trips with our language teacher to a temple, the local zoo (learning animal names!) and a "water puppet" show. The temple was beautiful with 7 levels and various representations of the Buddha throughout. We interviewed a monk who was reluctant to talk at first, but then launched into a detailed description of his beliefs (of which I understood very little!). The zoo was interesting – orangutan, monkeys, crocodiles, white tigers, civet cats, etc – though it seems they should dedicate more of the proceeds to animal food. The water puppet show had to be one of the highlights of the week. It's an art of telling stories about the countryside using puppets in/over water set to traditional music with narration in Vietnamese (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_puppetry). These guys were super-skilled and we totally enjoyed it.

On the weekend, we had originally planned to take a hydrofoil to a nearby beach community called Vung Tao. Unfortunately, the return tickets were sold out, but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. After waiting out a huge rain storm drinking coffee and reading our books in a café, we made our way out to Chinatown (a place called Cholon) where we toured a half-dozen different beautiful temples and were generally overwhelmed by the huge number of people, scooters, and stores. It was way more dense (and less clean) than where we live in district 1, but very interesting and "alive." We opted to walk home (about 4 miles) and saw every imaginable kind of store. We also witnessed our first scooter accident (scooter with 2 people meets bicycle), which didn't result in any major injuries – it's a wonder these things don't happen more often.

I started Sunday with a fun run. It was a charity event put on by the British Business Group in Vietnam and about 6000 people entered. Despite not running at all for about 2 months and a couple nagging injuries, I somehow managed to gut out a win (with a course record!). The whole thing was pretty interesting – I started in the middle of the pack and wove through strollers, rollerbladers, flag wavers, and a marching band to make my way to the front by the first mile. People were running in all manner of gear, including a fair number of barefoot competitors. Once I reached the police escort, things improved, though about 400 meters from the finish I had to literally jump/run over a wall of moving scooters that had failed to heed the flashing police sirens. The prize for my efforts?  Free Adidas gear/shoes and a business class plane ticket to Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, or Bangkok. Nice!

After the award presentation, a performance by a Cuban band that plays locally, and a nice breakfast to celebrate, Nikki and I headed to the local horse track for a different kind of race. The entry fee was a mere 50 cents and for another $5 we sat in the VIP section, which had air conditioning. We won all that back and more with a 30:1 bet on a horse that miraculously got 1st place. Could this be a new career? After we got home we did a little work on our scuba nitrox certification. We take the practical portion on Tuesday, so we'll be certified before we go diving in Nha Trang this weekend. In the evening, we tried out a cool restaurant called Bobby Brewers that has a mini-movie theatre upstairs where you can watch free (probably bootleg) films if you order dinner. We enjoyed some mindless action-thriller (Predators) before strolling home in a light drizzle.

Here's the food update: We've been eating at home more often, but explored some more small-scale restaurants as well (after our first week of frequenting the nicest places around). We've tried out a few of the ubiquitous pho (beef noodle soup) restaurants, including a local chain called Pho 24. I'm definitely a fan, even though it often includes a random assortment of beef parts (including tripe). Another great local dish is Banh Xeo, which is basically a crepe/omelet thing with shrimp and pork wrapped in a lettuce leaf with mint and cilantro. Sound weird? It is! But super delicious. We went to a hole in the wall place (maybe "side of the street" is a better description) that specialized in the dish. The good news is that it was fantastic and we only had minor gastrointestinal issues afterwards. Other colorful dishes from this week included a "fishball coke" (half a coke with a tray of fried unidentified fish balls floating on top – yummy after-school treat) and a "California burrito" (definitely not a burrito, but not a bad attempt).

We are continuing to make friends and settle in. Nikki is looking into a book club and I have my usual soccer practice. I also got a chance to play cards last week with some US and Aussie expats which hopefully will be a regular thing. This week is our last one in language immersion before Nikki starts work formally, so we're planning on a bit more fun before getting down to business.