Vietnam Vacation, Pt. l: Ho Chi Minh City, Mui Ne, and Nha Trang

The summer in Cambodia is LONG, folks. For the first part of it, I was busy with my library project: completing the world map (which took about three weeks), and then working on the inside of the building with my three student helpers. We've managed to get a lot done in the month or so devoted to it: we've cleared the space of clutter, “thrown out” (or rather, shoved into a separate room so I can pretend they don't exist) old books, maps, an alarming number of dusty portraits of the king and company, a collection of musty sombreros (I have no idea for what purpose these were being stored in the library… unless there was some sort of Spanish club or weekly fiesta night of which I'd unfortunately been left unaware), and much more.

We painted the walls, windows, and bookshelves, and began painting the benches. After much hard work and being told repeatedly by tongue-clicking mings (aunts) at the market that I was “more beautiful before [this project started],” I knew a vacation was in order. My boyfriend Garrett, fellow PCV and human extraordinaire, and I made plans to go to Vietnam.

To begin our journey, Garrett and I met in Phnom Penh to travel to Takeo to see the K6s (new group of volunteers) swearing-in ceremony, which marked the end of their training and the beginning of their lives as Peace Corps volunteers. It was pretty cool to see things “as they were” (when I was still in training) but also "as they are now" as I rode my bike into my training village with a widened perspective to visit my previous family, whom I hadn’t seen in over a year! It was pretty fantastic to see my bong s’rey (big sister) again after so long and to chat with her so much easier than I could during training when my Khmer was still just a tiny bird in the process of hatching from its egg (can that be a real metaphor? I believe I just made it so).

After the ceremony, Garrett and I traveled back to Phnom Penh to catch a bus to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), also known as Saigon. The bus ride was only six hours! That’s a shorter amount of time than it takes to get to Siem Riep. Anyway, since I think journeys of this magnitude are better expressed visually, I’ll jump right in with maps and pictures to narrate through those.

The total distance we traveled by plane, train, and automobile was 20+ hours. As you can see, Vietnam is a REALLY LONG country! It’s about 40 hours by bus/train from top to bottom. Because of its length, the scenery is constantly changing from place to place, which made bus and train rides particularly engaging.

So we begin in HCMC with what else? Food. Since I’d heard that Vietnamese food is “like Khmer food but way better” I was excited to try it! Here we have a sticky rice cake with banana, cut up into pieces with scissors in front of you and topped with tapioca and sesame seeds before serving. SO GOOD.

NOM.

While in HCMC, we went to the Cu Chi Tunnels- the infamous tunnels with which the Viet Cong won the war through surprise attacks on American soldiers and navigation by military personnel and transport of goods. A typical entrance to the tunnels looks like this: a definite challenge to squeeze through for your average well-fed American.

Booby traps were used to capture American soldiers in a pretty gruesome manner: spearing them with metal rods as they fell into a foliage-covered pit, or puncturing legs and other extremities with rotor-till like metal spokes, thus preventing any possibility of escape.

Our guide prefaced this display by saying, “The Viet Cong didn’t actually wear uniforms.” I’m not sure who decided it’d be an authentic representation to have these soldiers displayed around a fire, cozily writing letters home and sipping out of flasks when that was not the reality at all. The Viet Cong often spent weeks and even months in the tunnels, which were cramped and airless, as I can attest from having crawled through one myself, hunched over and trying not to head-butt the person in front of me’s rear-end.

Here we have a preserved tank, which tourists are encouraged to climb up onto and explore… Immediately after this display, our group was led to a firing range where visitors can gear up and shoot AK47s, pistols, or rocket launchers to their hearts’ content… This seemed a morally regrettable juxtaposition to me, and just a tad reprehensible at a site on which decades of suffering and fear plagued the people who were now encouraging visitors to release still more artillery fire into the mountainside. This, in addition to the “pleasure house swimming pool” made me a little weary of this historical site and left me with mixed feelings with regards to its effect.

This same day, we visited the War Remnants Museum which proved, as expected, an extremely powerful and poignant historical site. While the images I saw wandering through the museum are not soon to leave my head, I appreciated seeing what the American War (as it is referred in Vietnam) did to the Vietnamese people: how much destruction it caused and how little has been done in years following to account for it. It’s sad and disappointing on the part of Americans, but also inspiring to see the scale of Vietnam's recovery from rubble in just a few short decades and to see how forgiving its people seem to be.

Onward from HCMC! Next on our itinerary was Mui Ne, a small beach town on the southeastern coast, just five hours away by bus 

Mui Ne is renowned for its red sand dunes, which extend from the landscape opposite the coast. We barely ventured into the dunes but they were breathtaking nonetheless. Sunset is definitely the time to go since the evolving colors of the sky are reflected by similar hues in sand and water.

Possibly my favorite picture from the trip

  Or maybe this one

No, no- it’s gotta be this one

See? We can be normal sometimes

Said to Garrett later of this picture: “I don’t know why I’ve got my leg popped like that. It’s just something I’ve seen people do.”

We had some amazing seafood while we were there!

From Mui Ne we continued up the southern coast to Nha Trang (pronounced “Nyah Chahng) by bus- another five-hour drive.

The coast of Nha Trang is more varied than that of Mui Ne since there are mountains in the background, however there are also more tourists so Mui Ne still holds a more favored spot in my heart.

I was so glad the hotel thought to remind me not to stick my electric plugs into glasses of water. I’m always forgetting that!

PHỚ ! This is a breakfast staple in Vietnam, and for good reason: thick strands of white noodles bathe in a savory broth that’s topped with thin slices of beef and garnished with your choice of blanched and steaming bean sprouts, mint leaves, lettuce, garlic, chili sauce, and several other unidentifiable but lip-smacking sauces. Anthony Bourdain provides a pretty good description of phở' here (bottom of 80-82). Be warned: it’s blush-worthy.

More seafood! Prawns and lobster on the beach

This lucky pup and his friend got our leftovers...

How could they not? :)

Vietnamese night markets are good for diversion since there are always great finds to stumble upon, like this E.T. turtle.

Beyond the curious consumer goods there are plenty of typos to revere

As well as yummy, cheap food to try at different small eateries set up on the sides of the market. This was a favorite of mine: garlicky scallops with chives and peanuts.

And another favorite: beans in dessert! (my favorite food group. FYI). This yumminess is called xôi chè and is a typical Vietnamese dessert comprising various warm puddings with jellied lotus nuts, mung and broad beans, and mixed with coconut shreds, finally topped with a smattering of tapioca, sweet and condensed milk, and ice shavings. It was delicious and for 10,000 dong ($0.49), couldn’t be beat.

This has already been a very long entry so I’ll stop myself here and continue my story in another post, where our two wily protagonists continue their journey with an overnight train ride to a distant land on the southern-most edge of Vietnam's central highlands to a place called Hoi An. A chance encounter with another Peace Corps Volunteer? A thrilling novel called Badger, Beano and the Magic Mushroom? Public urination and a ten-day imprisonment in a Vietnamese incarceration center? Read on to find out which of these tales proves true...