At 5am we were waiting for our ride. For the first time, they were running late. Finally at around 5:45 a large van-type vehicle showed up. We joined the others already on board for a total of 11 plus a driver. We were on our way to Nha Trang and Dalat, a four-day journey. Another group of 7 would join us in Nha Trang the next morning. They would be driving all night. There was Jackie, Yen, Jackie’s parents, Yen’s brother in law, who was in charge of the whole affair, his sister and husband and a couple of cousins including Jackie’s 19 year old cousin, who immediately grabbed my arm and became my best friend. I was sure she was only 14, but I guess that’s because I was a very mature 19 year old and kids in Asia are much more sheltered.
So the first stop was breakfast in Saigon. It was just a little hole in the wall, as most places are here and we had the typical breakfast of pork chop and broken rice and of course, café sua da. The reason for the ridiculously early departure times is to avoid the crushing Saigon traffic, which we did successfully when we went to the Mekong Delta at 3 am. This time, we weren’t quite early enough. By 6 am, the city is pretty much in full gear and it takes a couple of hours just to cross and get out of the city. And the city goes on forever. Once we got to the outskirts, I had to laugh at all the statuary sellers. Just like outside of most cities, these big lots, or small, full of big statues, but here they were big Buddhas and Kuan Yins along with huge statues of Jesus with his arms outstretched or the Virgin Mary.
It wasn’t long before we made our next stop, one of the roadside hammock cafes! I was so excited. One of the relatives, I think he’s Yen’s sister in law’s husband’s brother in law, who lives in Northridge, found me a nice hammock and brought me a coconut with a straw. It doesn’t get better than that, let me tell you.
We started going through what seemed like the dragon fruit growing capital of the world. Miles and miles of huge fields of these cactus looking trees with sideshow bob looking haircuts with these weird hot pink mini football spiky fruits hanging off of them.
As far as the eye could see. For hours. We just kept passing towns that seemed dedicated to growing dragon fruit. And people on the side of the road selling big baskets of them, or putting them in trucks and hauling them off. We made another stop at a gas station and convenience store that was surrounded by a huge orchard of these crazy trees. So we all went walking through the fields and picked some and took pictures. They look weird on the outside and inside they’re beautiful, all snowy white and filled with black seeds that look just like poppy seeds. And very sweet and juicy and tasty.
We passed fishing villages with fleets of these beautifully painted blue and red wooden boats. No chance to stop, unfortunately. My biggest frustration and disappointment is passing a beautiful picture every two minutes and not being able to stop and shoot it. This is not that trip and I hope someday that I can take a trip that will allow me to somehow travel without a group so I can go at my own pace and take the kind of pictures I love to take, not the typical tourist shots of common sites and landscapes, but the local people and architecture and flora. It is just so beautiful here, so colorful and lush. And the people are so beautiful and friendly. They always have the most beautiful warm smiling faces. I am trying to capture as much of that as I can, but there is so much more that I have missed.
So we arrived at Mui Ne, a new beach resort development along a stretch of beach that not long ago was bare and is now covered with a whole string of huge resorts like Kona or Lahaina. As we’re driving along a narrow winding road we see one that has big buses lined up on one side of the road and a parking lot filled with smaller van type buses like ours. I was thinking to myself, “Thank god we’re not part of an organized tour and don’t have to stop at a place like this.” Silly me. We pulled into the parking lot and out we went. The place was a zoo! Packed with huge groups of people. Some even had tents set up. There were vendors selling food and souvenirs, kids running around screaming. Fishy smelling. The beach was packed and didn’t look so pretty. I was bumming out. But our tour guide was running around with a huge smile on his face like he knew exactly what he was doing, which he did, but it was too soon for me to stop doubting his knowledge, so I had to be miserable for a few more minutes. A long table was assembled for us
and we sat down. He was running around for a while, I guess ordering for us. Every once in a while he’d come by the table saying ‘So diep…” Not sure what all he was saying except I do know that so diep means scallops and sure enough, that is the specialty around there. And they started coming and didn’t stop till we’d consumed 10 kilos of the poor creatures. They arrived on squares of cardboard, roasted and slightly charred with salt and pepper and lime to dip them in. Delicious! We also had beer and soup and snails and crabs. All so fresh and delicious. He also bought a small bottle of Hennessy with a little shot glass that he passed around for everybody to sip from. That’s supposed to keep you from getting sick from the seafood.We left without going in the water, which was fine with me since it was just too full of people. We still had to get to Nha Trang, another 200 km away.
Not more than 2 hours later, just in time to go to the bathroom, we stopped at another roadside cafe filled with hammock. This one was even better. All thatched and surrounded by palm trees, scrappy dogs running around and a little girl riding around on a bicycle being adorable and silly. She was trying to ride the bike by sitting behind the seat. I’m not sure why. But she loved me taking her picture, which I took lots of because she was so darned cute.
We didn’t arrive in Nha Trang until around 6:30. I was surprised at what a big city it is. Somehow I had the idea that it was a sleepy beach town. Wrong! And even though it was 6:30 on a Monday night, it was hopping. It turned out there was a huge fair going on. I think we had just missed the parade. The streets were as packed as Saigon and we came to a roadblock, which happened to be where the hotel we were going to stay at was located. So began the search for a place to stay. We went to three different hotels, and of course, I had no idea what was going on, since it was all going on in Vietnamese and nobody cared to translate for me. We were all pretty exhausted and finally we checked into the first place, which was like any cheap roadside motel in the States, except it was right across the street from the beach and right on the main drag. We had half an hour to shower and get ready for dinner.
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