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!

Finding Beach Paradise - Deserted to some, Chaos for others

Beach adventure time! Bob (Marshall's co-worker here) and his family invited me to join them to the beach. They had arranged a van and driver to take the family to the beach and Bob and a friend were going to ride mountain bikes there and meet us for lunch on the beach. It's still the Tet holiday and the normal 1.5 hour drive turned into three. Usually, that's not a big deal, but with 3 kids and a rambunctious puppy, it was a long 3 hours! Actually, Bob's kids are pretty easy - there wasn't a single temper tantrum and I only heard "are we there yet?" twice :) 

Finally at the beach, it was crowded beyond belief! I think this was the annual beach trip for most of the factory workers in the area. There were so many people, it was hard to see the ocean or even sand - standing room only. But the odd thing was that they were all scrunched into a small section of beach - maybe 200 meters of coast. There was plenty of room to spread out, but I thanked they enjoyed the crowded atmosphere. We did not and promptly cut through a restaurant and walked up the nearly deserted beach to a perfect strip of sand.

The water was warm and a lovely shade of jade. Absolutely perfect if you could ignore the plastic bags floating by every now and again. 

We spent hours making sand sculptures, digging for clams and shells and swimming. 

Every now and again, I would look down the beach at the staggering crowd of people and wonder how that could be enjoyable. Most of them probably drove their scooter here - 3 hours or more of crowded highways and country roads only to go to a beach where there is hardly enough room to lay a towel down. Seems so crazy to me! 

Perhaps where we were was technically private property. I know we crossed onto one resort where a security guard was giving us the stink eye and made sure we passed through. But there was just empty, deserted beach right next to them! I guess that's just the difference in culture. We americans like our space - big lawns, our own tables at restaurants, and 3.5 feet of breathing room. 

I made a little map to help explain the absurdity of it: