Saigon, Vung Tau, Mui Ne

Well, my dreams of diary keeping and interesting blogs got away from me. Having fun outweighing my desire to cram myself into a hot, sweaty internet café that crashes every 15 minutes.

Saigon has been great. We took a car and stayed over night in the old American R&R beach of Vung Tau. There we stayed in a hotel where the employees were as friendly as immigration staff and would probably kill themselves if they could be bothered moving. We then found out it was owned by the government, Ah. Public servants.

We found a great beachy bar next door, just like out of Cocktail. We played pool and drank nice beer; the unforgiving sounds of Saigon traffic replaced with consistent waves crashing. I feel asleep on a couch outside and woke at four in the moving, covered in sweat and insect bites.

The next day, I nursed my brain in the traffic jam home.

Our typical day here in Saigon starts with meeting for an iced coffee in the little café outside. Then lunch, or as we call it “breakfast”. Then we usually drink into the night at the place across the road. Cheap been, no English and smiley waiters.

On Saturday we took the van to Mui Ne. A beachy resort fishing village now filled with middle-aged couples. We were booked into a hotel by a friend which turned out to be straight out of a sit-com. The hot water was cold, the fridge was hot, the pool empty; door knobs fall off if you turn them enough, looked like abandon ruins. But had character in a camping sort of way.

The best night we had in Mui Ne was in a pub owned by an American. Outside on nice lawn, with grass mats and bean bags, sitting around drinking all night looking like hippies, being served by a boy who had a bar in the bar of a Kombi Van, until we racked up a million Dong worth of Tiger.

Coming back to Saigon again felt like home and we sunk into our old ways.