First Weekend Get-Away: Vung Tau

This post has been delayed due to chronic food poisoning issues.... ugh, I'm not saying anymore than that... and also me devoting 4 hours a day to learning vietnamese. Flash cards, post-its, and audio recordings - it's like I'm back at the university! This weekend, we're going to do a little houseplant shopping at the local nurseries, hopefully I can put to use some of that knowledge! 

Marshall and I took our first weekend get-away to the coastal city of Vung Tau. It's about 1.5 hours from HCMC and we opted for the speedboat ferry instead of the charter bus, which commonly has people puking out the windows (people are used to riding scooters, not in cars or buses here). The ferry was a little bit more expensive but we thought it was worth it for the adventure and scenery. (A year ago or so, one of the boats caught fire and sunk... but never mind that, they've supposedly fixed them all!)

The ferry ride was pretty awesome. There were some great views of the city, bridges, country side, and HUGE ocean freighters. Here's our route that I recorded w/ Strava:

Vung Tau is a smaller city that's a common place for local HCMC residents go for a quick vacation - it's not really tailored for foreign tourists. There are some sights and attractions but it's really about swimming at the beach and eating a ton of delicious food.

We did see some nice sights - we went to a city park which we've named Rat TnA. It was a park filled with carved granite statues (all with obvious boobs and butts - except for the angry dolphins) and was infested with rats. It would have been a great place to lay under a palm tree with a book except for the fear of rabies and the plague.

On Sunday morning, once again, I felt like a crazy foreigner. Since we've been a little light on exercise since we've moved here, we decided to go on a hike to the top of the local 'mountain' to see the old lighthouse.

We got a bit of a late start, around 10:30 am and followed the curvy road near the ferry terminal to the mountain top. From the reviews I read on tripadvisor, it said it would be a nice shady 30 minute walk. Nope. The whole way was on narrow, uneven sidewalks and was completely exposed to the sun. It took us closer to an hour of walking... at least it felt like it!

At first, I was a little curious why no other people were taking advantage of this great little walk! Now I know why... it was super hot and the whole way we were being passed by teenagers on scooters who gave the occasional heckle. Luckily, there was a lovely restaurant about 2/3 the way up where we could enjoy a coconut drink and the beautiful view.

At the top, we were tired and the views were nice enough for a few pictures... but we had just passed another cafe that had hammocks, shade, and home made yogurt so we quickly made our way there to relax and call a taxi. I kind of felt like a wimp with getting a ride to the bottom but it just wasn't worth getting sun stroke. Plus the taxi fair was only $1.20 !!! SO worth it :)

Here are some pictures of our trip:

The ferry ride the way back home was a little more eventful. The sea was pretty choppy and the swell was pretty big. The hydrofoil boat was struggling in the waves, threatening to tip over or break in half - it was a pretty wild ride. The crew started handing out sick bags and bottles of water. People were running past us to the outdoor "look-out" areas... I was really nervous that it was going to turn into a puke-a-rama. Also, Marshall noticed a pretty sizable crack in the wall next to us that would get larger as the boat flexed - but no worries, the maintenance crew had obviously noticed it and applied some 'structural paint' to hold it together ;) Just before all hell broke loose, the captain eased back the throttle and we put-putted along until we got back to the calm river.

Vung Tau was a great place to visit for the weekend, we spent 2 days/1 night there and we would have been quickly bored with any more than 3 days there. There is still more to explore (there's an amusement park with alpine slides and a gondola) and tons more to eat (I still didn't get to try their pancakes that Vung Tau is famous for!) And it would be a great place to start a coastal motorcycle/bicycle tour - I can't wait until my bike gets here... if it ever does! I'm sure we'll be back!

Buying a Scooter

Meet my new scooter, Pippi.

Pippi (as in Pippi Longstocking) is a 2012 Suzuki Hayate SS 125cc automatic motorbike. I've had Pippi for about 48 hours and she's been back to the shop twice now. :/ The first time was 20 minutes after buying the bike, we went to put gas in it and the latch to open the seat trunk (to get at the gas tank) was jammed. I remember checking it out at the dealer and it was fine. Marshall drove it back and they fixed it in a few minutes. The second time, I brought it in because it runs way too lean on a cold start and dies anytime you touch the throttle. The only way to get it to run is to let it sit with the choke on for about 10 minutes until it put-puts its way to a warm engine. They spent an hour on it today so hopefully it starts right up tomorrow morning! 

With buying a used scooter, there are always kinks and pains to work through... at least I did some research and found a reputable motorbike dealer that gives the bikes a 1 month full warranty. And he's easy to talk to and doesn't seem to bullshit much. I really hope Pippi is just testing the waters with me and doesn't make this a long running game...

Marshall is still on the hunt for a more motorcycle style bike. With a bad back, the scooter position isn't great and also the auto transmissions kill the ride quality for him. Real motorcycles are a bit of a rare find here as anything over a 135cc engine is heavily taxed. There are some Honda 67's here which is like a scooter engine bolted onto a simple motorcycle style frame with a manual tranny that he's pursuing. There are a ton of cheap Chinese Honda knock-offs here that make it difficult to find an authentic bike. We'll see how that goes!

Another funny thing about Vietnam is that foreigners are not allowed to own anything like a car, scooter or a house. My scooter is technically owned by some local guy and the document proving this is a small blue laminated card that was issued by the government. How it works here is that there is no documentation of transfer of property. There is no standing in line at the DMV to transfer the title and pay tons of fees. What you do is just hand them your little blue card. The sale is done and who ever is holding the card, owns the motorbike. 

The learning curve to driving here is very fast, and it needs to be otherwise you'd probably kill yourself. I find the chaos and constant threat of impending doom to be almost... peaceful. Channeling your inner Zen Monk is the best way to make it through. If you start getting irritated, pissed off, or nervous it just makes everything worse and more dangerous. You just have to embrace it, love it and go with the flow.

I'm happy to say that my transformation into a local, seasoned scooter rider is almost complete. I've got a long sleeve jacket (even though its 90 degrees F), my backpack is hooked around my handlebars so thieves can't cut it off my back, and I've already carried two giant boxes that were held in place by my feet as I drove. I am one giant fabric face mask shy of being an authentic motorbike rider! 

Local style.

Also, for those who haven't seen the Top Gear Vietnam special - watch it here! It really is pretty accurate of how things are like here. I do appreciate how if you are in trouble or lost, people will come up to you and will try to help - and it's out of kindness and they never ask for anything in return.


** Posts are a little infrequent lately due to most likely the 'bamboo firewall'. Sometimes I can access the blog and sometimes it's blocked. If the blog disappears one day, just come back later and maybe the government has released the block.