I’m pleased to report that a large part of Wednesday the 5th of November was spent on the beach.
In the morning the rain was coming and going, the sky ranging from overcast to scattered to sprinkling to downpour. The hotel we were staying at was famous (in guidebook circles) for having the occasional decorative naked lady adorning the bathroom wall. Adam and Catherine thought I was talking about Alice when I said that there was a naked lady in the bathroom, but no. As a man I cannot truthfully say that I wanted her gone from the fixtures forthwith, but I can say that I was puzzled about what she was doing. I mean, it wasn’t like a bad copy of The Birth of Venus, or anything of that sort; it was a photograph of a naked lady which had been converted to tiles and set proudly upon the wall. But why?
Anyway; no more of the naked bathroom wall lady. Look at the picture for yourselves, have a mystified giggle, and move on.
Next door to the hotel there was a cafe, where I had a mushroom omelette with cheese, and Alice had something similar. Only, almost anything marked ‘with cheese’ in Vietnam is served on a plate, with a small wedge-shaped plastic wrapped piece of cheese much like what we used to call Kraft cheese sticks. Halfway between margarine and actual cheese. Bread with cheese is a bread roll, with a wedge of cheese. Omelette with cheese is an omelette (and sometimes a bread roll) with a little triangle of cheese. It seems always to be the same type of cheese; with a grinning cow on the front, and the cow for some reason has a big silver earring.
By midday the rain was drifting away, and we could see no more large clouds looming over from the ocean. So we walked on down to the beach, which was less than 750m from the front door of the hotel. This beach was much like the one on Hoi An; wide and flattish but no waves of any recognisable dimension, just a bit of frothing in the last 5 metres before the shore line. Just the same, perfect for wallowing around in. I was starting to get hungry and had bought some kind of large flat LP-record sized coconut/sugar wafer thingy from a lady with bags and bags full of them, for 10,000 VND each; and you’d be amused to know that it tasted like a cornflake. A giant cornflake.
We had wallets and stuff to acquire lunch with later on, so we took turns having one person laze on the beach under the shade of the palm trees, keeping half an eye on the gear, half an eye asleep, and the other on the procession of people walking past trying to sell you things. If you look totally asleep they don’t bother you, but otherwise consider yourself fair game.
We did get hungry, and went into a beachfront restaurant which had it’s own pool table and swimming pool, and brewed beer, but it was strikingly expensive, and instead we walked back into the streets and found a cafe where we could have a pizza (which came with a bonus beer). The pizza was pretty good, and beer never tastes better than when it’s free. Alice struck gold when she picked off the menu a tropical shake, which was a blend of pineapple, coconut and mint. If people at home could kindly begin experimenting with different amounts of these ingredients, so as to determine the appropriate recipe in time for our return, that would be greatly appreciated.
Unlikely, I know, but it seemed worth asking…
We got back to the hotel in time to slope around for an hour or two and then get into a taxi with Tuan to go and visit his uncle’s restaurant. From the road our hotel was on, you drive west, then make a left, drive along there for ages, past the waterfront and the yacht club and some large flower-shaped memorial building, and then left down a wide-ish street about another 100 metres. We knew in advance that it was a BBQ restaurant, and that you had the pleasure of grilling your own, but we had no idea how much fun it would be, or that the BBQ would be an 8-inch round stone cauldron, filled with hot coals, with a wire rack on top. We all got a plate each to supervise; fish, chicken, beef, vegetables (including pineapple, tofu and cassava), and the fun began. Until we learned to pay attention to the grill, and not to our beer or to the hammering rain outside or to the vast amounts of smoke filling the high tented enclosure from the top down, all the food was charcoaled-style.
Yep… it was fun.
For the purpose of scenic tour we preferred to walk back to the hotel, seeing as there were about two turns to make, one vast puddle at the intersection to navigate around, and only one marijuana seller to dodge along the way. It’s common for people to try and hand you a bit of paper advertising their restaurant, less common to see other tourists attempting to hand out these types of things. But we saw that on the way back as well. Good luck to them, I say.
Greg
