Dunes and Food

Mui Ne, Vietnam. Dunes and Food.

Mui Ne is a resort town on the beach, a five-hour bus ride from Ho Chi Minh City. Here is a photo taken inside the bus.

This is a so-called sleeper bus; the picture was taken between the left and the center rows of double-decker seats (three rows in all). To my amazement, nearly everyone except me manages to sleep in these hard, narrow reclining seats. We took buses like this several times in Cambodia and Vietnam. I would be happy never to ride in one again.

Mui Ne has developed rather recently (since 1995) as a resort town with shops and restaurants along the beach side of the road, hotels and other businesses on the other side. Here is a photo of our very nice hotel and one of the view.

Dunes. Mui Ne is popular for surfing and other beach sports. It is famous for the sand dunes about an hour’s drive from the village. The hotel manager called a driver with a jeep for us and off we went, stopping to take a few pictures along the way.

Fishing boats along the beach

Tricia and our driver

Just a nice view of the coast

The dunes look like other dunes you’ve seen – very beautiful, giving you the sense of being in a different country from where you just were. The wind covered up our tracks soon after we made them.

On the way up . . .

We didn't rent a dune buggy

Tricia trying to tie up her hair against the wind

Sun starting to go down

Angela and Katherine going back down the dune

Many people rent a sled to slide down the dunes. The vendor will wax the sled for you so it slides better. We resisted the vendors at the white dunes, but caved in to the very persistent elderly woman who followed us up the red dunes, which are about a half hour away. The ride down the dune was bumpy and, uh, sandy. Unfortunately, it was too dark to take pictures by the time we got there.

Food. This section is mostly about food we didn’t eat, so skip to the end (banh xeo) if you prefer to read about something that we did eat.

Since Mui Ne is a beach town, near a fishing village, seafood is fresh and plentiful. Katherine and Angela partook enthusiastically; Tricia and I found vegetarian alternatives. None of us sampled the so-called exotic dishes, seen on the pages below from the menu in a restaurant where we had lunch.

Finding snake, turtle, and frog on the menu was less surprising than seeing the dishes in Russian along with Vietnamese and English. We later learned that Mui Ne is very popular with Russian tourists and that quite a few businesses there are Russian-owned.

Alligator wasn’t on the printed menu of the seafood restaurant where we had dinner, but was simply displayed on the counter, waiting for another customer.

In another restaurant, in the town of Da Lat, the menu pages labeled Beef, Pork, Chicken, Fish, etc. were followed by a page titled “Animal,” apparently meaning wild meat.

It's interesting that boar, anteater, and porcupine are all prepared either with ginger or lemongrass, but deer isn't, or at least not at this restaurant.  -- I  didn’t know they even had porcupines in Vietnam, let alone that they are eaten.

Banh xeo. Lest you think we were overly preoccupied with collecting examples of startling foods in Vietnam, let me conclude this post with a delicious snack we enjoyed, banh xeo. Walking around the French section of Da Lat, we stopped to watch a vendor cooking these little morsels, like a thin crepe but crispy on the outside, like a super-thin taco. In the picture below, we had already demolished two orders of banh xeo and started on the third.

The crepes are cooked on a sort of griddle, spread with a thin layer of a pork and shrimp mixture (or other filling), then folded over. To eat them, you wrap them in a lettuce leaf with herbs and dunk them in the sauces – at least, that’s how the vendor told us to do it, but then we saw other guests plop the whole thing into the dipping sauce, cut it up with their chopsticks, and eat the pieces. I can’t describe the flavor, except to say it’s very yummy, spicy and a little sweet, and not like either Thai or Chinese seasonings. Here is a link to a recipe that I found online; of course, I don’t know if our vendor would think it’s authentic.

http://thelunacafe.com/vietnamese-crispy-crepes-banh-xeo/

When you open the link, scroll down to find the recipe. Let me know how it turns out if you decide to make it!

Highlights of Ho Chi Minh City

Highlights of Ho Chi Minh

War Remnants Museum.  This was our first stop on our second day in Ho Chi Minh.

There are way too many exhibits to see in one visit. Taking pictures isn’t allowed. The exhibits force you to see the war from the Vietnamese perspective, which is only fair, I think. The one I found most interesting and well done was about photographers who were killed during the war. The majority were Vietnamese, but there were also American, French, British, Australian, and Japanese photojournalists. For each individual, there was a brief bio and statement of how he or she died, and some of their most important photographs. When you see the whole roomful of people who died trying to document the events of the war, it is very moving and memorable. Another exhibit I spent time in was titled American Atrocities, self-explanatory.

Close Encounter with Aggressive Vendor. The museum closed over the noon hour and everyone had to leave. We were walking in the general direction of our next destination, the Notre Dame Cathedral, when a man selling coconuts approached us and placed his carrying pole on Angela’s shoulder, then Tricia’s.

At first, we were amused by the man's antics, but after passing the pole from Tricia to Katherine, he abruptly started slicing the tops off coconuts, thrusting them into our hands, trying to put the drinking straws into our mouths, and demanding money. We told him we didn’t want coconut water, but he persisted, quite rudely. Luckily, a uniformed officer showed up, at which point the man left in a hurry, and we had a new story to tell.

Cathedral and Post Office.  The Notre Dame Cathedral was unfortunately closed until mid-afternoon, so we just took pictures from the outside.

Side view

Detail view

The post office, a historic building, is across the street from the cathedral. It's currently  undergoing a face lift. It’s quite beautiful inside.

Saigon Post Office from the front

 Post office ceiling

Arch above door, with map

The building is not only a post office, but also has  banking services, travel agents and two gift shops. We spent the rest of the afternoon at an indoor market with dozens of vendor booths crowded together, a huge selection of items, and high-energy vendors given to hyperbole:  "Madame, you are killing me!" (Said to me by a woman whom I offered the same price for trinkets that had been asked in Cambodia -- and was too high there! I didn't buy them.)

Enter the indoor market here!

A O Show at Saigon Opera House.  In the evening we went to the Saigon Opera House to see the A O Show, a combination of acrobatics and dance accompanied by traditional Vietnamese instruments. Picture-taking during the show wasn't allowed, but here is a link to a trailer of the performance if you are interested.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SP3q-pjY4g4

The performance was very enjoyable – the dancers are highly skilled, the stories the dances tell all seem to have happy endings, the music lets you know you are in an Asian country but is easy on the ears, and the opera house is beautiful inside and out. Here is a partial view from the front.

Amd here are some views taken inside.

Dancers being photographed with tourists

Stairway where the dancers were sitting

We struck up a conversation about Peace Corps service with some Americans on a tour of Cambodia and Vietnam. The couple in the photo with us below are thinking of joining the Peace Corps to liven up their retirement years. We continued the conversation over drinks and a late supper.

Walking back to the hostel, we encountered sirens, smoke, and traffic that was even louder than usual – Vietnamese drivers seem to use the horn as their primary tool of navigation in normal traffic and become more vehement during emergencies. Here is a brief video to give you the idea.

We found out the next day that a fire had broken out on a boat on the lake in the park across the street. Good thing we didn’t cross the street to cut through the park!  As far as we know, no one was hurt in the fire.

We left Ho Chi Minh the next day.

Ho Chi Minh, Cu Chi

Ho Chi Minh City and Cu Chi Tunnels

As in Cambodia, our time in Vietnam was short. We packed in as much as we could in between long bus rides. If you’re on Facebook, you’ve seen a few of these photos already.

Ho Chi Minh at Night.  The lights in Ho Chi Minh City at night are different from the lights in Bangkok and other Thai cities. They have a sort of neon quality that I found very beautiful. Here are a few pictures from our first night. As you see, the name Saigon/Sai Gon is still in use, despite the official name change to Ho Chi Minh. We had to take off our shoes before entering the hostel; there are racks where you can leave them.

The breakfast menu at this hostel included baguettes and cheese -- which may not sound very special to you, but Thais don't usually eat either one, so it was a treat to us. We had found baguettes in Cambodia too, a remnant of the French influence in both countries.

Here are two views of our street seen from a second-floor restaurant where we had dinner. The brilliant lights of the taller buildings are striking. Watching the building directly across from us was like looking into a shadow box theater, waiting for the actors (dinner guests) to enter.

 First Day in Ho Chi Minh.   Here are a few daylight shots of the same street as above, just to give you an idea of the kind of neighborhood we were in.

Our first stop was the travel agent. Here is Garfield beckoning customers in – you’ll see him at travel agents in Thailand too.

By noon, we had booked a tour of the Cu Chi Tunnels, reserved tickets for the AO Dance Performance at the Opera House, made plans for museum visits, and reserved tickets for two trips away from Ho Chi Minh.

For lunch I had this salad (# 17).

I googled knotweed to find out what I’d eaten. Apparently it’s an annual herb native to Southeast Asia (polygonum odoratum). The misspelling on the menu (flagrant) would be a great name for  a more ostentatious member of the knotweed family. Anyway, the salad was fragrant and delicious.

Cu Chi Tunnels.  As far as I understand, the Viet Minh used the Cu Chi Tunnel system when fighting against the French in the 1940s. The tunnels were greatly expanded and used by the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War. A portion of the tunnel system is now maintained as a tourist site, about an hour and a half drive from Ho Chi Minh City. Our guide spoke very good English and gave us detailed information about the role of the tunnels during the war.

Before entering the tunnel site, we toured the adjacent lacquer ware workshop. We were told that the workshop employs people who were disabled by Agent Orange, the effects of which continue to this day in the form of birth defects, cancer, and other illnesses.  Here are a couple of pictures of lacquer ware displayed in the workshop. The items are also for sale in the workshop.

 

The sales assistant assured me that the rice bowls I bought are dishwasher safe and won’t break if dropped. Vietnamese lacquer ware is said to be very durable because of the high-quality resin from Vietnamese lacquer trees. The lacquer ware is of course also produced in factories and is widely available in markets.

During our tour of the tunnel site, our guide kept up a steady narration about the tunnel construction, Viet Cong tactics that thwarted American efforts to find and destroy the tunnels, and information about key events in the war, such as the Tet Offensive of 1968.  He would pause his narrative to invite us to take photos of ourselves climbing into tunnel entrances or onto a tank or standing next to booby traps. Here are a few photos to give you an idea.

An entrance that drops straight down

Deciding not to go in headfirst

Angela trying to see down into the tunnel

Angela coming back out

The tunnel entrances have been enlarged; otherwise they would be too small for many tourists to enter – just as they were too small for most American soldiers to get into during the war.

Below you see a photo of a small hole at the base of a tree that allowed fresher air to get into the tunnel. You can imagine how many ventilation holes there would have to be for a tunnel complex 75 miles long. The other photo shows my traveling companions posing on a tank.

(front to back) Tricia, Katherine, Angela

Here are a few examples of the kinds of booby traps that were built where American soldiers would be likely to fall into them. Very nasty contraptions.

Folding Chair Trap

Clipping Armpit Trap

See-Saw Trap

 There are several more types of traps that all use similar mechanisms. The names are self-explanatory – basically, when someone struggled to get out of one of these traps, the mechanism would turn and drive the spikes in deeper. When one soldier tried to help another one, the second person would get caught too.

Toward the end of the tour, we arrived at the gift shop and shooting range. Tourists can fire weapons of the type that were used during the war. I believe there is an extra charge for this.

After that, we were invited to go through a short section of the tunnel (I think about 120 meters). Here too, the tunnel has been enlarged. We didn’t have to crawl (as the Viet Cong or anyone else who used the tunnels did) but could walk in a stooping position, bent over at the waist. When we emerged, we watched a video about the war and the tour was over. It was humbling to learn what American soldiers who fought here were up against. At the same time, it felt strange, on the one hand to be confronted by so many gruesome details and on the other hand being invited to smile for pictures on a tank or fire a weapon. Enough said.