Monkey Island

This is just me climbing over to the other side of Monkey Island.

This is the guy that got bit. He was walking up to this big monkey trying to feed it and this old, haggard looking one walked up behind him, grabbed hold of his leg and just dug her teeth in.

Well since Heather mentioned on her blog that I would have a certain picture on my blog I feel somewhat obligated to post said picture. Even though I'm fairly certain no one is even reading this thing anymore.

So the story goes that we jumped on a large ship that kind of resembles some ancient Asian war vessel to tour Halong Bay up in the north of Vietnam which is now being considered for the next seven wonders of the world. It's pretty frickin amazing and totally worth a nod. So after a night spent aboard this boat which is actually referred to as a "junk" (I never asked why) we got off on Cat Ba island for a little trekking before taking a bus to the port on the other side of the island to then get on a another boat which transported us to this even smaller island called Monkey island. Needless to say it had monkeys. But the best part was that it was set up in this little cove with a very private beach, with our own bungalows nestled just under the forest. It was totally baller. I felt like Englebert Humperdink or Jay-Z or somebody like that.

But the point of this post is to tell the incredibly embarrassing story of hiking up this rugged, dangerous, never-in-a-million-years-would-this-be-approved-by-OSHA, super liability trail to the top of one of the many mountains on Cat Ba seeing this fellow wearing almost the exact same thing as I was. Now I'm not usually one to play fashion victim but what are the chances. The only difference was that he had his shirt tucked in like he was climbing up here to attend some formal speedos dinner party.

Numbered days

We're now two hours out from catching a flight back to Saigon. The air transit in Vietnam is so affordable it makes it worth it to not waste twenty hours on a bus or train. But Saigon will be our last stop before heading home on Wednesday night.

Cham ruins at My Son

Homesickness is only in your head

So we've gotten around a little bit since the last time I posted. Currently we're in Hoi An which is one of the towns that got hit pretty hard by the typhoon about a week ago. The water damage is still visible on the walls which reaches over six feet high. It's hard to imagine what this town really looked like during the worst of the storm. And even harder to fathom how they pulled it together so quickly. There is still a film of dust and dirt all over the surfaces here where the waters have only recently receded but most of the debris has been cleared and everyone is open for business. It's really incredible to think about. We took a bus out of town to visit some old Champa ruins at My Son and there are still remnants of the flood hanging high up on trees and power lines. It seems that in some places the waters carried the washed away at least ten feet up leaving a dangling mess of dead foliage. We are really lucky that we detoured though Dalat instead of coming straight up the coast.

So in between here and Dalat we spent a few days in Nha Trang which is a whole other world when compared to the rest of the Vietnam that we've seen. It's located right on the coast with beautiful beaches reaching forever in both directions. Palm trees, blue waters, clear skies. I mean the place would be an absolute heaven if it weren't for the mass of foreigners attempting to mold it into the next Cancun. I constantly felt like I was walking down some beach strip in southern Fl. But the upside of this was the oh-so-satisfying comfort food. I actually had to come to Nha Trang for the best burger of my life. I have pictures and I will post them soon enough. But believe me when I say it was worth coming back for. And then there was the guilty pleasure BBQ joint. We were just walking the streets one night and some round guy came walking out of his place attempting to lure us in for "the best BBQ you've ever had". The exclamation on his statement was the giant neon cowboy sign waving back and forth with his right hand. I could only scoff on the inside since I'm from the south and he was too big to offend. His spiel I actually found very ugly. The selling point being that all of his meat came from the states, "none of this Vietnamese crap". For one I feel that the meat being corn fed and medicinally filled in the U.S. cannot possibly compete with the grass fed, free roaming beef that they have here locally. The tastes just don't size up. And two, if you're going to come over here and open a restaurant, not help contribute financially to the community that allowed you this opportunity by buying overseas instead of locally, and then knock the quality of food that they both eat and provide here, well then you're just a huge dick and your business should fail. But then he mentioned that he served hot wings so I went in and had some. I live for both hot wings and guilt so it was sort of the perfect storm.

So yeah, we spent five days there eating too much and also having a blast. We got totally lost on bicycles, went scuba diving and snorkeling, braved the roads on a scooter, got a sunburn, went to a day spa for a mud bath, and basically lived like royalty. It was super awesome.

And now we're here loving this place with it's old-world French architecture until tomorrow afternoon when we'll take a plane up to Hanoi and venture out from there.

Dalat

Some of the slimey eats at the local market.

We happened to be here for the annual moon festival when the moon is at its fullest. There are roving dragons with their own soundtrack (kids on drums and cymbals banging away) running all over the streets and into stores. Supposedly they bring good luck to those they visit.

This white one just about visited my face but when his laser beam eyes caught mine he turned the other way. I don't know if that's lucky or not?

Dalat to Nah Trang

We've been Holed up in Dalat for four days now which is one too many. We had scheduled a bus ride back to the coast for this morning but canceled it last night. If you have'nt heard there have been some really hellaceous storms on this side of the world. Only three days ago a typhoon barrelled through the Phillipines and as of the last time I checked there were at least two-hundred and forty dead. When it reached the South China Sea it picked up strength again and hit the cental coast of Vietnam pretty hard. So far there are twenty-four poeple dead and more than a few unaccounted for. Luckily for us we're further inland and at a higher elevation but we still got an idea of what this thing was like. The weather yesterday was just furious and from the inside of our room, five stories up we could hear the wind ripping through the streets. A tree fell on a woman while taking her kids to school on their scooter and a couple of back-packers new to the hotel said they passed a car with the top crushed in only a few kilometers outside of town.

So just to play it safe we put off our ride out for one day. Tomorrow we're heading back to the coast to Nah Trang. This is probably going to be nothing more than a pit-stop before heading north to Hoi An which is an area that took the brunt of the typhoon. I'm curious and a bit anxious to see what's happened out there.

And the picture is just something I took during a storm in Phu Quoc. It has no relation to the storm I just referenced.

Ca Phe

The coffee here is pretty great for the most part except that there is no such thing as a free refill. Each order is brewed at your table over your own cup in a mini-filter. And what they usually serve is just a dense, near syrupy liquid that is incredibly satisfying. Maybe that's the reason behind the refill rule. The amount of caffeine being served in every drip. But they shouldn't assume to know my tolerance. Or it could also be due to the extra jolt of energy you get when ordering Ca Phe with milk. They prefer to use sweetened condensed milk which is kind of like white yoo-hoo but sweeter. Actually I haven't seen any fresh milk in this country despite the prevalence of cows. Most places just serve the sweet stuff or boxed milk. One night at dinner I had a craving for the "fresh milk" offered on the menu and what arrived to my table was a slightly watered down glass of sweet milk with some ice-cubes. And the really strange thing was that when I got near the bottom of the glass there were a significant amount of sugar crystals just hanging around waiting to be drank. They actually added sugar to my sugar milk. I really do love it here.

This is food

For some reason I thought this was going to be filled with bacon or sausage. Hoping actually. But it turned out to be kind of sweet. Strange. This one cost about thirty cents but they had a slightly bigger version with about a dozen little piglets suckling at the teet which was priced at fifteen-thousand Dong. About eighty cents. Fair, no?

North from Saigon

So yesterday we caught a plane from Phu Quoc back to Saigon. The weather just wasn't letting up, the storms were getting stronger and more consistent and we found ourselves stuck close to the room. We rented a scooter a few days ago to try and get around the island but after we navigated the scattered brick path from our hotel and found the road to be nothing more than rutted out, wet red clay we turned back. So due to the weather conditions we had pretty much exhausted the island.

And now it's seven a.m. a day after we caught our flight and we're about to get on a bus for a six hour ride up north to the city of Dalat. At dinner last night we got to talking to a young ex-pat who's been here for a year and told us that there wasn't much to see there but we're going anyway. Maybe we'll only be there for a day or two before heading north again but we're going none the less. Supposedly it's rich with French Colonial architecture set mid-way up the mountains. So why not go?

Zen and the art of living like the rich

For Sunday

So here are a few pictures of some of the foods we've gotten into. Mostly hits and only a couple of misses. More strikes than gutters. All in all the food has been a highlight and a reason in itself to be here. The prices have been inconsistent for sure but we've yet to spend more than ten dollars on any meal. Most often it's costing us about three to five dollars. We could be paying even less but we've adopted a habit of ordering at least three entrees for any one meal. As I write this we have just finished our fourth meal of the day. The first being the staple, egg and bread. Lunch #1 began with a pork and mustard green soup followed by a fish and tamarind soup and washed down by a few cups of strong coffee and and some carrot juice. I'll have to reserve another post at another time to write about the sweet, sweet coffee they serve over here. Lunch #2 came when another (and there have been many in the last few days) violent storm found us and we waited it out in a beachside bar/restaurant. I wasn't particularly hungry yet as I sat there and enjoyed the rain but I just couldn't pass up a thick piece of Tuna steak cooked in chili and lime juice. Especially when it cost just over two dollars. And since we've got the menu open let's just add a couple giant BBQ prawns dipped in a honey/ chili sauce. And one more cup of coffee please because I'm on vacation. Thank you. But somehow the time wittles away, it's near dark, and well the best internet access around here also happens to be a fine spot for a bite to eat so why don't you just bring us a plate of coconut prawns. But it just seems a little sparse on the table so if you wouldn't mind also cooking up that pork chop with onion sauce to kind of fill the space we would certainly appreciate it. Hmm, maybe this getting to be a little unhealthy. Yes, that's probably right. OK then bring us a plate of fruit. Now I feel better.

Steve Perry's got nothin' on my jouney

So I'd like to paint a picture for you. It concerns the modes of transportation and level of gag-reflex control that it took to get over to this incredible island.

We awoke at six in Chau Doc to pack our bags and get a little something to eat before heading out yesterday morning. Breakfast was simple and the heat was already invading when our "bus" pulled up outside of the hotel. It was actually the equivalent of a Volkswagon Vanagon and Heather and I were the ninth people to get on. The road to Rach Gia I was told would take three and a half hours so I assumed that this was just a shuttle to get us to the bus depot. but we continued to pick more people up and headed further outside of the city. I maybe have let on a little too much there and ruined the surprise which is that this "bus" was going all the way. Not so terrible since it was overcast and a bit rainy, which brought a cool breeze through the interior. But it seemed like there was no limit to how many passengers this caravan would include. Soon we had sixteen people crammed inside and hurtling along, horns-a-blarin'. It became a bit of a jig-saw puzzle as we came upon more people. Some had to get off to reconfigure the load and everyone squeezed in just a tiny bit more. At last count there were twenty-one people in what was morphing into a Vietnamese clown car. And they were alowed to smoke. Anyway, it was about this time that, predictably, we scored our first and unbelievably last flat tire. But even with all the stops and the single tire change it only took three and a half hours. How could they have known.

And then we are in the middle of Rach Gia and need to make our way to the Ferry which we have no idea how far it is or where it might be. Obviously we need a ride but the only available option is the back of a scooter. Two people on a little scooter seems dangerous enough but we were still carrying our over-weighted packs and it continued to rain down. The only thing that made me feel even a little at ease was the image I held in my mind of a family of five riding a single scooter down a very busy and not so flat highway just a day earlier.

Now were at the boat Ferry which was given the unfortunate name of SUPERDONG 1. It's a fast boat that takes us from the mainland and across the ocean to the East side of the island Phu Quoc. I thought that it would be an awesome ride, chilling on the bow, staring out at nothing, on a smaller version of an American ferry. No. It was the Vietnamese equivalent of Greyhound but really fucking fast. I should have known that this was going to be a rough ride from the smell of puke all over the floor behind me. But would I have not gone? No. So we get out of port, crammed in tight and this thing takes off right out of the gate and soon enough the waves are big and it's tossing the boat around, smacking the hull like a steel drum. At times it felt like we were boating down a gravel pit and I thought to myself how ironic it would be if we had fretted about the flight over only to die in a boat crash. This I shared with Heather to her dismay. But obviously we made it and I didn't have to use the barf bags that they were handing out.

So from the port at Phu Quoc we caught a real taxi to the other side of the island and it's unspeakably gorgeous. So private and quiet and our room is only twenty yards off the sea. The food is incredible and I think that I would like to die here. But we will be flying back to Saigon.

marinade?

Well I have yet to see any Thit Cho (dog meat) on the menu but I've asked around and it's definitely out there. Our vietnamese tour guide said that it was very potent "like levitra" and then in a mock-girls voice, "too much, no more".

Chau Doc

Alright, we made it out of Saigon just two days ago and currently we're in Chau Doc. The town sits on the border of Cambodia and Vietnam about five hours from Saigon. We chartered with a company that provides gawking tourists a ride around the Mekong Delta but it was a pretty fair deal. For fourteen dollars we got a two-hour bus ride South to Cai Be where we transfered to long boats for a ride through the Delta and along the floating markets. We got off the boat in some remote villages to check out the locals making things like coconut candy, puff rice, something like caramel corn, and other things that they then had the opportunity to sell us. It was nice. Some things we probably couldn't have seen without the connections of the tour company and they also make it possible for the villagers to make a couple extra bucks. Good stuff.

After a couple of hours trucking along narrow river passages we made it to Vinh Long which was our intended destination. The idea being that we would split off from the tour and find another boat to take us up to Chau Doc. After talking to someone about our plan it didn't seem like that was going to be a very easy ride to score. Luckily another group was leaving from Vinh Long to Chau Doc later that day so we just hooked up with them. We thought that it was cool because it also included a room on a floating hotel. Romantic right? Yeah, it was definitely more of a floating motel and they made us pay extra for a/c. So it goes.

Now we're stuck inside our room trying to beat the heat which is alright since the day started at five-thirty. We've already made accomodations for an early morning ride to Rach Gia where we catch a fast boat ride across the ocean to the island of Phu Quoc where we're hoping to just settle in for a few days and relax.

Ho Chi Minh City

So we're here in Ho Chi Minh City. Have been for just over a day now. It took roughly twenty hours to travel from our house in Olympia to the hotel in HCMC. The time diference is fourteen hours ahead so it's two in the afternoon in the states and four in the morning here. My sleep schedule is also on vacation at this point.

We're giving ourselves two days in HCMC to get adjusted (oriented?) before we head down to the Mekong Delta. But so far so good. All flights on time and the hotel is nice. Right in the heart of Pham Ngu Lao which is the cheaper back-packer area. But still very nice. For as many people that reside here there is really very little trash. The air quality is a whole other story. Believe me when I say you can feel more in the air than the heat.

So nothing much has happened yet for me to write about. Just a few meals, some conversation, and to-die-for napping. But Heather is also running her own blog and she'll be uploading alot of the photos we'll be taking. You can link to it on the left side of this page along with two blogs from my friend Sunday whom any day now should be landing in New Zealand. GalacticMu is dedicated to the world of sci-fi and Anger Burger concerns itself with food. Both of which should be checked out by anyone who has an appreciation for good writing.

VIETNAM