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".