The sleeper bus, van & motorbike trek

After 1.5 weeks of winding north along the Vietnam coast in search of beautiful beaches, we decided to head to Hoi An, known as the food capital of Vietnam & supposedly quite alluring. From Quy Ngon, the best option was again the bus. Our hotel helped book our bus tickets for us. The woman was very helpful & insisted upon us taking this 6:30 bus as it’s a 45-seater and “much better for us” vs later 16 seater buses. I was happy to get moving early so as not to waste the full day traveling. But we asked further questions to try to understand WHY it was better for us. That was fruitless so we just went with her recommendation. Boy do I now know why it was better for us.
The bus was no local bus, rather a bus suited for longer trips & one that fellow travelers typically take. But not from Quy Ngon bc there are no travelers but us so once again, we crashed the local transportation. I think I’ve mentioned the Vietnamese’ odd obsession w neon lights so it came as no surprise to find the bus decorated inside & out w day-glo lights. We couldn’t get anyone to tell us how long of a bus ride to expect but based on our book, I guessed around only 5 hours. So I was surprised to find that the bus, instead of having proper seats, was a sleeper bus w stacked reclined seats. There is no option to sit up. In fact, they also provide you w a blanket & pillow (in a puppy pillowcase), insist you take your shoes off & place in plastic bag upon entry, & turn the lights off, but for some blue & pink neon track lighting. You’d think they were really trying to promote sleeping. They even passed out little candies and we joked that maybe they were roofies. But then they insisted upon playing, at deafening levels, various clips from some sort of Vietnamese lip syncing/fashion show/live-action music video/variety show. I at first assumed it was all local Vietnamese music but then they broke into a rendition of “Besa Me Mucho” so while it was confusing, loud & brash, it was also impossible to ignore, considering one of the few tv screens was directly in front of my seat, so I was riveted. That, coupled with the erratic driving and incessant honking by the bus driver meant sleeping was impossible so I just uncomfortably laid there.
Despite the fact it was a sleeper bus, there still didn’t seem to be a bathroom on board which meant I again refused to drink anything as the timing & frequency of stops was very unclear. Well I should clarify, for the first hour, the bus stopped about every 5 minutes to pickup new passengers (even though our hotel assured us it was a direct bus w no stops) and each time, the 2 onboard barefoot employees (in addition to the driver) directed each new passenger to a seat. There went my 5-hour estimate.
Just less than 2.5 hours into the ride, we pulled over at a rest stop. As the only non-locals on the bus who clearly couldn’t understand the overhead announcement, we waited and observed as folks were getting off the bus but leaving their stuff. Bathroom stop. Yes. Grabbed our purses and hopped off. But not before they gave us black rubber sandals to wear as opposed to me wearing my own flip flops. Full service apparently. The bus crew had steaming bowls of pho waiting for them upon arrival and we went in search of the bathroom.
Apparently after our brief stopover, the AV entertainment switches from the Vietnamese variety show to a movie. The movie was an old Cuba Gooding Jr & Dolph Lundgren film, “One in the Chamber”. Must’ve missed that one. The best part was the fact the English dialogue & any sound effects/thematic music was muted so all you could hear was the dubbed over Vietnamese voice – the same female Vietnamese voice for every character including Cuba & Dolph. This bus ride was a gift that just kept giving.
2 more hours and another bathroom stop at a gas station at the side of the road. I’ve become quite adept at squatting over a hole, while juggling my purse, and then flushing with a bucket of water. A seasoned SE Asia traveler perhaps? Who needs a bathroom on a bus? Amateurs.
At 12:15, we were abruptly told the stop was “Hoi An” & to hurry to the front of the bus. They proceeded to drop us at the side of a 2-lane highway in what was definitely not Hoi An. Thankfully, a van promptly pulled up & gestured for us to drop our bags in back and get in. We got them to nod when we said “Hoi An?” So that was a positive. We then took a 15 minute van ride to what was definitely Hoi An, where we were then pounced upon by 2 motorbike taxi drivers offering to take us to the hotel. Initially we resisted saying we’d prefer a taxi as it didn’t seem terribly safe riding w our large backpacks & other bags on the back of a motorbike. They somehow managed to communicate there were no taxis allowed in the old town & we actually didn’t see any at the bus station so we negotiated down to 50% of asking, & I’m sure still overpaid. It ended up being a semi-safe ride as they provided helmets & took our backpacks to ride between their legs. It was a short 10 minute ride through the darling Hoi An streets & across rivers to our hotel… All in one piece and after a lot of fun.
Not sure if these travel stories are boring you all. Please let me know if that’s the case. We find them terribly amusing as we adapt to travel like the locals. Some of our favorite days on the trip.

Video so you can get a feel for the atmosphere

https://youtu.be/QHivnq0tCaY

Quy Nhon, Vietnam beach #3

There have been a few places I’ve traveled in Turkey & the Middle East that are a bit off the beaten path & it seems as if there’s a pretty good shot these people have never seen a white person before, let alone an American. We found a place like that in Quy Ngon. This seems to be a weekend holiday destination for the Vietnamese, but bc there are no name brand fancy hotel chains, the international traveling elite hasn’t yet discovered it, nor have the early adopting backpackers. Young people especially seemed very taken by us & often went out of their way to ride a bike or run past wildly waving just to say hello. A young Dutchman was interning in our hotel & explained in his rough English there was only one person in the city who spoke good English. So it seemed perfect for us.
We visited during the week so the gorgeous, wide beach & waterfront were empty and all ours all day long, for the most part. The early rising locals mobbed the beach at 5am before sunrise to cram exercise into their busy schedules and then the school kids would hit the beach after school released at 3:30 to swim & play football.
Like everywhere else, the people were very warm & helpful and we enjoyed the very best seafood we’ve had all trip. The beach was lovely but to be picky (& to compare & contrast), not quite as white & soft of sand & as blue & warm of water as Doc Let & a bit more intense afternoon winds than Nha Trang, but it’s massive & empty so we really enjoyed it. So overall, very glad we found this place & continued to get off the beaten track.

The food… toasted grouper eaten wrapped in rice paper w mint, basil, cilantro, lettuce, cucumbers & chili spice

Grilled crab… delicious but a lot of work

The frustratingly difficult Vietnamese language

We’ve been in Vietnam for nearly 3 weeks so far so you’d think we’d have a decent grasp on basic key phrases, especially since we’ve had help along the way from locals to fine tune our pronunciation. Pronunciation really matters here. The same word said w different intonation can have up to 6 different meanings. So it was a little disappointing last night when we learned that instead of saying “thank you” & “fresh beer”, we most likely have been saying “shut up” & “smelly beer”. Perhaps that’s why people have been smiling & laughing at us. Fuck.

The local bus

At breakfast, Londoner Mark asked where we had decided to go. I told him we had opted for the local bus to stop off in Quy Nhon. See I’ve learned most people head straight north to Hoi An. Even the backpackers who found Doc Let were skipping anything in between. Our Lonely Planet Vietnam book and additional online research, as well as a helpful Siem Reap store clerk who is a Vietnam native, led us to believe Quy Nhon had lovely beaches, a nice town and was not yet infiltrated by international tourism (rather only domestic). Mark exclaimed how glad he was to hear we were doing something different (they had just come from Hoi An). And he was also “thrilled to know someone who’s trying the local buses” as he said they considered it “but decided against it” (as he gestured to his lovely wife Nix, thus silently assessing blame) and “wants to hear all about it”. That should give you an idea of what we’re in for. Just another adventure to add to the list.

Our taxi driver picked us up at 9am to take us to the local Doc Let “bus stop” which apparently is the town’s lone gas station on the main highway 1 that runs north/south along the Vietnam coast. After about a 10 minute wait and 2 buses passed, our driver waves down a bus bearing a sign in the window “to Hanoi”. Our taxi driver, who speaks no English but was told in Vietnamese by our hotel manager what to do/say, jumps on the bus to tell the bus driver where we’re going and negotiate price. 150k dong each (USD $6). We confirmed the location with the bus driver (who also speaks no English) by pointing to Quy Nhon on our map and he nodded. So we’re good.
There were 3 other local guys on the bus in addition to the driver. Two guys seemed to be traveling with extremely large stereo speakers and they got off the bus with them about 10 minutes after we boarded. So we were left with only the bus driver, a local who I later deduced was his friend (they had similarly sized backpacks placed together at the front of the bus), and a shitload of fruits and veggies (primarily papayas & greens from what I could tell) that were in plastic wrapped boxes piled up in the back of the bus and the aisle, rendering the bulk of the bus unusable. I can only assume the bus driver, instead of picking up actual passengers (but for us), conspires with his friend to use his bus route to conduct some sort of fresh produce shipping business. Oddly all of the seats were covered in plastic, perhaps to guard against exploding fruit? However, the bus looked fairly new, so perhaps the bus driver was like one of those old people who insist on using plastic couch covers to guard from dust. I was just hoping this produce was bound for a stop north of Quy Nhon although part of me would’ve enjoyed seeing it periodically doled out to random street vendors. So the 4 of us headed north.
With no bathroom. That’s another thing. We were told the bus ride would be 5-6 hours so surely there’d be an onboard toilet? Negative. I immediately went into camel mode, eschewing any water (we had come with a lot bc we were prepared unlike we were for the Cambodia boat trip), in hopes of making it the whole trip as I have a terrible travel bladder. At the same time, I refused to acknowledge my predicament should I be unable to hold it. Positive thoughts. So I wasted away the time taking in the lovely scenery, from quaint little fishing villages with various sized wooden boats to bright blue-green seascapes with deserted white sandy beaches and lush mountainous islands, writing this blog post, and trying to keep my mind off my bladder, all the while our crazy bus driver is madly honking his horn to move any vehicle out of his way and wildly passing semi trucks on blind curves of winding steep 2-lane coastal roads. What a trip (literally & figuratively).
As if it couldn’t get any better, after about 3.5 hours, the bus driver abruptly pulled over at what certainly didn’t look like a bus station. More like the Vietnamese version of a truck stop diner as there were semi-trucks pulled over everywhere haphazardly parked. We were unsure what was happening. The bus driver was gesturing for us to leave the bus. We weren’t about to do that, unless we were certain they were also getting off. So we followed them off the bus. The place was a small outdoor restaurant jammed with locals eating lunch but we were still uncertain of the purpose and length of our stop. So we quickly went in search of the outdoor toilet behind the resto and decided upon return, we’d take the lead from our driver & fellow passenger. The passenger gestured us over to a table where he already had a plate and was eating. Then the restaurant manager ushered us back to the kitchen where he had heaping plates of sticky rice waiting for us and pointed excitedly to various types of meats and seafood. We picked out some meats (not a clue what we ate), he piled them on and led us back to the table with our food, where we sat as a foursome enjoying lunch. AMAZING.
Based on my rough math of speed and km signs posted along the way, I had already surmised the 5-6 hour estimate seemed quite excessive as long as we kept up roughly the same pace. Before lunch, I had estimated only another 45 minutes. Somehow over lunch and a lot of map pointing and gesturing, we managed to convince the bus driver to drop us off near a bunch of hotels instead of the Quy Nhon bus station. That happened a mere 30 minutes later. We walked into a hotel on the beach, asked if they had available rooms (they did) & selected one with an ocean view and two beds ($50 including breakfast). On the empty beach by 2:30 (we literally were the only ones on the massive stretch). We both fully agreed this was already one of our favorite travel days.

London flat swap

While staying at Jungle Beach, we met a lovely couple, Mark and Nix, from London district 2. He’s an artist, she’s a part-time yoga instructor & consultant. Mark went to grad school in NYC over Chicago but has apparently always had a thing for the Windy City. Such a thing, it seems, that he proposed doing a flat swap – Chicago for London – for a bit of time. So we exchanged information and plan to keep in touch. London wouldn’t have been my first choice but I’m certainly not about to shut that down if I need to get away for a month or so down the road.

Doc Let, Vietnam beach #2… Good luck finding it on a map

We “made a reservation” the day before arrival which involved me tracking down Sylvio, the French-Canadian now long-time Vietnam resident and Jungle Beach Hut owner, on his cell phone. He said they had room for us but we’d sort out the type of room (ranging from a bed outside w a mosquito net to a 2 BR thatched hut with a private bathroom) and cost upon arrival and he arranged for a car to pick us up at our Nha Trang hotel as it’s an hour+ drive to a quite remote locale. We were all set. The driver arrived at 9am and we arrived at Doc Let, in the middle of nowhere, by 10am to find Sylvio, shirtless, tanned and hairy, demanding our passports and then giving us a quick 5 minute tour of the place, including its common dining room, shared bathrooms, and all of the available accommodations. We decided on a 2 BR with private bath as it cost us an additional $10 over 2 nights. By 10:30, we were on the isolated 18km beach, featuring the most glorious soft white sand, crystal clear blue water and gentle warm waves, perfect for swimming.

Price included 3 meals a day and 1 afternoon fruit snack so we literally had no decisions to make and nowhere to go. Beer and wine were extra and tracked by tallies next to names on a piece of paper. Beers were 75 cents and the local Dalat wine was $5 a bottle. For the first time ever, I felt as if I was in a movie sans beer-promo-product-placement-dollars bc when you wanted one, you simply ordered “a beer” as they stock only one kind (Bia Saigon). The local food was delicious, the communal atmosphere facilitated meeting interesting like-minded travelers, the nightly after dinner drinks and beach bonfires led to a lot of fun and the remote location made for a very special stay. Can’t imagine any place topping this. This is the place.

The “hotel”/”town”/”everything”… bc that’s all that’s around

We had the right half of this hut, top & bottom

View from our hut (yes, that’s our hammock)

My afternoon view from the shade of man-made beach furniture. The entire place, all structures, were built by Sylvio the owner.

To the beaches of Vietnam’s SE coast… #1 is Nha Trang. Warning… The Russians have invaded Vietnam

From Siagon, we decided to travel north up the SE coast of Vietnam, starting with Nha Trang. We read it’s built up w fancy hotels & restaurants but the beach itself is beautiful. All of that proved to be true. As we stayed at an “okay” place in Saigon, we decided to splurge a bit & stay at a nice joint right on the beach.
We took an early morning flight from Siagon. Prior to landing, we flew over Nha Trang & its surroundings & it looked gorgeous. A 45 min drive into Nha Trang revealed it’s even prettier as the beaches are vast and backed by lush mountains & the blue sea is dotted w similar lush mountainous islands (upwards of 70 islands just off the coast). I had pho for breakfast for the first time since landing in Vietnam & was on the beach in comfy chairs by 10:30am without a care in the world.
Our days went like this:

– Sleep in, workout in morning

– Pho breakfast

– Beach chairs & umbrella by 9:30/10 for swimming, sunbathing, napping, walks on the beach. We needed that umbrella. I think we’re fairly close to the equator here & that sun gets awfully hot.

– Lunch on the beach

– The winds would pickup around 3pm so we’d head up to shower at 4 & hit the rooftop bar w gorgeous views for 2-for-1 happy hour drinks & trip research

– Great dinners, drinks & then retire
After 3+ weeks of non-stop traveling & touring, it was just what we needed. What we certainly did not need was all of the loud, obnoxious, selfie-stick obsessed Russians who have infiltrated this place & apparently adopted it as a vacation destination. There are store signs and menus in Russian & some servers even speak a little, all catering to the fact that they apparently love this place & are everywhere. As a result, the city at night is a little douchey. There are bright neon lights everywhere. There are douchey clubs everywhere playing douchey music as if that’s going to lure me inside. After dinner one night around 11, we swung by a mini-mart type shop along the beach to pick up some water, beer & snacks for the room only to find the shop also sold handbags, luggage, shoes, etc. We commented on how odd it was they carried that stuff just as 2 different Russian couples entered & a woman picked out a bright pink handbag & a man was inspecting the luggage. I guess they know their customer base.
Also a little tiresome were the tour buses jammed with Chinese & Japanese tourists that would periodically stop for an hour break & swarm the beach dressed head to toe in clothes, hats & raingear so they could enjoy the sun without threatening their pasty white skin tone, painstakingly documenting the excursion w their selfie sticks.
So while the atmosphere during the day was, for the most part, relaxing & definitely entertaining, we had our fill after a few days as I needed to go in search of what I had dreamed about when thinking of Vietnam beaches… Pristine beach & a whole lot of nothing.

Pork w salt & pepper (& chilis of course)

Barbecue beef marinated in Vietnamese 5 spice

Saigon foodie tour

Saigon is a massive city split into 19 large districts. We stayed in district 1 in which most of the tourist sites are located as are a ton of hotel & dining options. The city is so big, it’s difficult to get out of district 1. For this reason, our unbridled enthusiasm for street food & perhaps the fact we’re hardheaded as we apparently didn’t learn from our Bangkok bike tour experience & are not scared off by the Saigon traffic, we opted to do a street food tour of various Siagon districts… All while traveling on the back of motorbikes driven by locals. I could not have been more excited. The motorbikes are driven by Vietnamese women aged 21-25 (approx) wearing local dress, who are English speakers, quite engaging & thoroughly adept at traversing Siagon traffic. I was paired with Quynh, a beautiful young girl recently graduated from university w degrees in English & restaurant management, who picked me up, w Amy’s driver, at our hotel on a busy street, strapped a helmet to me, & was off w a start, driving the wrong way through traffic before darting to the proper side at first opportunity. Amazing.
For the next 4 hours, we made stops for street food & sightseeing, all the while dodging traffic & exhaust pipes of other motorbikes. If I didn’t feel as if I was putting my life at risk, I would’ve loved to get a video. At times I felt as if we were in a race & Quynh generally won as she was heavy on the gas & a great maneuverer through traffic (but very safe mom). She did say there are very few accidents in Siagon as the traffic generally moves quite slow as it’s so backed up. The food was phenomenal, eaten in locations we’d never otherwise find & excluding commonplace items like pho & banh mis, the opportunity to see a lot more of Saigon was wonderful, & the time spent on the bike getting to know my driver was super special. Overall, easily one of the best tours I’ve taken in all of my travels & I’d certainly recommend it to all.

Stop 1 in District 1 for Bun Bo Hue – beef noodle soup from Hue; lemon grass flavoring; veggies (banana flowers, morning glory or water spinach, bean sprouts); sate (homemade chili w garlic)
Stop 2 is non-food stop in District 5 (Cholon or Chinatown) to see their crazy food market… Everything is alive
Stop 3 in District 8 for barbecue – tofu sauce served w goat & chili rock salt served w beef, prawn & frog (served w skin on & off… way more flavorful w skin on) with grilled okra on the side.
Stop 4 is non-food stop in District 7 (AKA Koreatown), a boring, polished expat spot w chain restos that I couldn’t leave fast enough
Stop 5 in District 4 (AKA Mafiatown). I had to take off my simple gold necklace so as not to draw attention. This was my fave stop. Extra lively place w people & street food restos lining both sides of the street. The place is known to have the best seafood in the city. Crab served w black pepper, chili powder & kumquat juice sauce; sweet sauce served w scallops on the shell; tamarind sauce served w quail. We also had mini veggie/shrimp pancakes wrapped in lettuce and soup w clams, steamed Thai way (like tom yum (sweet & sour)). The “special treat” was a local specialty… boiled duck embryo that you eat directly from the egg. Many were grossed out so few tried it but Amy & I both did; she didn’t care for it while I liked it but didn’t finish it (I kinda wanted to see its contents). Dessert was a coconut jello.

The girls dropped us back at our hotel w super full bellies & big hugs.

Quynh would sit next to me at every stop to describe the food, the local customs, help prepare it & accompanying sauce & desribe how to eat it. At the first stop, I ate something delicious & exclaimed “yum” afterwards. Quynh, with a laugh, quickly told me I shouldn’t say “yum” in Vietnam as it means “horny”. Haha. We kept that in mind as it had been part of our regular vernacular.

Vietnamese food differs from other SE Asian foods as many are served w fresh greens & most are sauce heavy, which I love. While many Thai, Lao & Cambodian dishes are served inclusive of heat (& a lot of it), Vietnamese food is not but they serve you with chili salts, chili sauces, soys, limes, etc so you can mix your own sauce & ramp up the heat to whatever level you’re comfortable with (high for me). We are becoming professionals at this by now.

The whole crew… prob a group of 14 customers & their drivers.

An inpromptu game pitting Amy & I against one another in a battle of chopstick skills by testing fastest to transfer bean from your driver & put in a bottle.

We traded places for a bit… but just for a pic.

Crab legs w great chili salt & lime juice sauce. Perhaps my fave.

Quynh cracking open thr duck embryo. She then poured out the liquid for me to take as a shot & prepared my first bite. We’ve been told locals eat this as a delicacy & an excellent source of protein in the morning.

A couple duck embryo videos

https://youtu.be/Prs7w52tJc4
https://youtu.be/utDpgp-5v40

The aftermath… & evidence of a smile so proof I enjoyed it. I’m a weirdo.

I didn’t originally include this picture but I got a lot of questions about the duck egg so here goes. It’s eating a fertilized duck egg (not an unfertilized one). So there’s so much protein bc it includes a tiny undeveloped duckling. You can see the contents on the lower half of the plate (little duckling on lower left). It’s all mixed together in the egg, as you can imagine, so I took 4 bites to try the local delicacy & then we opened the egg to see the contents left (bc I was curious too). Sorry for grossing you out but I’ll try anything and we eat actual duck so I didn’t really have a problem with it. Judge away.

Doing it like the locals do

The masks. Asians wear them a lot for a variety of reasons including vehicle exhaust, dust from gravel roads, illness & likely even pollution (Bangkok). People take it to extremes so we couldn’t help but make derisive comments. That is, until our Phnom Penh tuk tuk driver, Mr Vann, insisted we wear masks bc the killing fields are out of the city & past several gravel roads. We now have an appreciation for them (in certain cases only) & were of course now making fun of those dummies who weren’t wearing them & hacking away in the dust storms.

Saigon and The American War

We wandered one day around district 1, or central Saigon, taking in its charming streets, local markets & fancy skyscrapers. It’s quite an alluring city. We also spent a day touring the key tourist sites memorializing the “American War,” as the Vietnamese refer to our Vietnam War. This includes the Reunification Palace, formerly the base of the South Vietnamese government & where the North Vietnamese tanks memorably stormed the gates & raised their flag, thus ending the war. This also includes the War Remnants Museum which is a fascinating look at the war & it’s atrocities through the eyes of the Vietnamese including the “aggressive US war”, the devastating impact left by Agent Orange, & “aggressive war crimes”. One day hardly seemed like enough as my family has some personal family history with the war, so I’ll likely be back & further dig in to the history a bit more.