Usually when we travel I have a general idea about it. Going to Vietnam I really had no sense of where to go or what to do. I just knew I wanted to eat a lot of food and partake in a lot of services (get your mind out of the gutter!). Su planned the itinerary and we went all in.
The first thing we really had to learn was the money. The approximate conversion rate is 20,000 dong to $1. That means we're dealing in the thousands and millions of dong which gets pretty overwhelming. 2 million dong is $100. Because Su, Nancy and I have similar tastes in food (pretty much anything but auburgine salad) when we travel we pool our money together and call it a kitty, that way we don't have to spend every meal, cab ride, hotel, etc dividing things up. We start with $100 each and add more money as needed.
When we landed in Nha Trang we had no idea how much a cab ride would be to our hotel and didn't want to get ripped off so we looked up what we should pay on tripadvisor. The last post was about 3 or 4 year old but we decided to make that the highest amount we would pay. Knowledge is power. The cab ride was about $15 for a 40 minute ride. Pretty amazing. We had to negotiate but Su is a hard ass.
Our cab driver couldn't find our hotel, The Golden Moon. Turns out it was down an alley and wasn't really a hotel, more of a homestay, which basically means it's more a B&B, minus the breakfast, LOL. One of the reasons I picked this place was because we could check in at 9am. It was probably 8am when we got there. As we were dragging our bags down the alleyway (since we planned on ditching the suitcases, one was a cheapo from goodwill and one was missing a wheel, we weren't graceful) Nancy commented on the fact that everyone was looking at her. I laughed and said get used to it white girl!
The Golden Moon's gates were locked, so much for getting in early. Luckily there was a restaurant next door. The choices weren't that great so we went with a banh mi which is a Vietnamese sub. You can usually buy the in the states for between $3-$5. If you're paying more than that you're getting ripped off. In the Nam, they are half that price and amazing! The bread is fantastic. I'm salivating as I write about it. Usually bread is a vehicle to get butter or oil to my mouth. The bread in the Nam reflects it's history with France. As good as any bakery in Paris. I had a banh mi last week here in the states. I used to love it. Nowhere near as good as the ones I ate in Vietnam and it's because the bread was so fantastic!
 |
| About $2, I could have eaten 3 of these, the bread was like air. |
 |
| Pretty much our face during every meal, LOL. |
Sitting next to the gals are the empty glasses of Vietnamese ice coffee. Coffee is Vietnam's second largest export after rice. It's a way of life in Vietnam, maybe even more so that in Seattle which is hard to believe. Su and Nancy sucked their drinks down like it was a glass of water in the Sahara. They'll have to extoll it's virtues to you. They normally drank 2 at a time. 1 to devour, 1 to savor.
Once Golden Moon opened, we checked in. It was tiny but clean and only $30 for one night. The only bad thing is we were on the 3rd floor. My knees weren't happy but he took our bags up for us, something very common in Vietnam and I loved it! Especially since most of the places we stayed didn't have an elevator.
Nha Trang is a beach town and the beach was literally across the street which is funny because we never made it to the beach but we did enjoy driving by it on our way to the
I-Resort mud baths. For $32 we caked ourselves in warm scented mud and let it dry on us in the sun. Then we washed them off in outdoor showers. After that we soaked in mineral baths then we changed into clothes they provided, polyester shorts and tank. Our suits were muddy and gross. I told them to bring 2 sets of suits, only Nancy listened. After our soak they took us up for a lunch, to a beautiful pool and waterfall area. Thank goodness. When we got there the general population was full of kids and we were all groaning. This area only had a couple of people. After lunch we had a 60 minute foot massage, I fell asleep it was so relaxing and then we went back to the pool to hang out. I couldn't take a pic of all of the previous because I checked in my phone and they saran wrapped it to make sure no one had access. It was so beautiful where we were that I went and got my phone. I would have been sad not to have any pics. The pools are hot springs so they had a sulphur smell but the water was warm, which we didn't need, it was so hot but it was pretty relaxing.
 |
| The next cover of Sports Illustrated, ha! |
 |
| If you can't pick your friend's nose, are you truly friends? |
 |
| We were the goobs taking pictures but now we have fantastic pics of our time at the mud spa. |
 |
| This part of the pool was shallow and had the waterfalls. |
 |
| This side was about 4 feet deep for swimming. |
Our vacation is off to a wonderful start! After we had our feel of luxuriating by the pool we went back to our hotel to relax some more and gear up for dinner. Vacation for me is about getting from one meal to the next. I wanted to eat somewhere with lots of seafood where the locals ate. We asked the guy who owned the homestay and he suggested going down to a market. We asked him how much a cab ride would be, it would have been around a dollar. Once we got into a cab we started talking him up and he suggested some other place that he loved that was 3 kilometers away. We love local suggestions so we were in. It was a huge place, since it was outdoor. I got out and left Nancy to pay since she had the kitty. After 5 minutes Su and Nancy were still in the car so I went to check on them. The cab driver did something funky with the meter because he was trying to charge us 900,000 dong. We paid 300,000 for a ride from the airport. We paid 200,000 to go the mud baths. There was no way we were paying 900,000. The problem was Nancy had handed him the money before they caught the gouging. When I went to check on them the owner or manager of the restaurant came to see what was happening. Su and Nancy weren't leaving the cab until he paid back the money and I crawled in too and jumped into the argument. He crumbled under the pressure and changed the bill to 200,000 which is about $10. We still way overpaid but it was better than what he wanted.
 |
| There's more seafood that's not even shown, including turtle. |
 |
| The crab was sautéed in garlic. This was my fave. |
 |
| Some kind of shellfish. |
 |
| The lobster was more shell than meat. I'd definitely go with the crab. |
 |
| All of the seafood that went into the hotpot, clams, squid, shrimp, crab and more. |
 |
| The broth for the hot pot was amazing. There was also big chunks of fish in it. |
The food at the restaurant is so fresh that you go up and point out what you want and they show on the calculator how much it is. Again we were still learning the money so the prices all looked good to me. Oops!
The food was fantastic. We decided we wanted some fish since we hadn't ordered any and decided to get a seafood hot pot. Because we ordered at the table they didn't show us the price. The cost of the hotpot was about the cost of everything else. We ended up paying over $100 for this meal. In the states, that's an amazing price for what we ate and drank but was jaw dropping for Vietnam. Newbie mistake we won't make again.
Speaking of learning from our mistakes, we asked the cab driver what the cost would be back to the hotel (we snagged a card so we can flash them the address). He held up his hand to say 5. We thought he meant 500,000 dong and got offended. He meant 5,000 dong! Hello, that's how much we overpaid! He took a different road but we figured we were on the other side of the hotel when he dropped us off so we would just walk there. Well, the reason our ride was so cheap was he took us about half the distance we needed to go, we were still a mile away from our hotel! I was bummed I doubled his fare, LOL. We started to walk but we haven't mastered the art of crossing the street yet. Scooters are driven by the majority of the population and crosswalks are few and far between. We basically crossed the street praying for our lives and not looking left or right. All you hear is honking scooters! We made it across, whew! We could have made the walk back but I had to go to the bathroom so we took a cab the rest of the way.
It wasn't late but we hadn't slept in 2 days so we relaxed in our room. It was an exciting and adventurous first day and hey, we learned these lessons so you don't have to. :)
I love to eat and sleep. One thing is more fun to blog about than the other. In between eating and sleeping I love to travel, spend time with my family and talk about myself. :)
5 Mannions Speak :
We packed a lot into one day. Didn't we also try to find SIM cards, too? The coffee tasted like heaven - rich, creamy, slightly sweet, perfect.
I'm glad I didn't forget my blood pressure meds or else I would have had a heart attack crossing the street. Vehicles DO NOT stop for pedestrians. Never make eye contact, just keep walking.
Yeah I forgot to mention the chick who tried to force sim cards to fit into our phones and just kept cutting away. That was scary, but not as scary as crossing the street, LOL.
That food looks CRAZY good!
The food in Vietnam was amazing!
This really was the start of a steep learning curve for us. Turns out we didn't need to hang out at the restaurant for an hour before the hotel opened. They had a door bell to ring. Good to know to look for one in the future if needed. The owners of the hotel were super laid back Russians, but the guy looked Vietnamese. The woman was often in the lobby knitting. They were super nice and super hippy.
The mud baths were fantastic - and it is hard to get sunburned when you are caked in mud! We had lunch (with fresh squeezed fruit juice to order), our fantastic foot massage - and hit the pools. It was at this point I realized I forgot to pack my sunscreen. Thank God Su-hura had brought enough to keep me covered until we could buy more.
In my defense I had given the cab driver half of what he had asked for when I realized he was trying to cheat us. I stopped and checked with Su. One of my favorite memories of the trip is her yelling "Oh Hell No!" from the back seat. Good thing I had Su and Leiha with me - they let me hold the money, but after that I could not pay for anything LOL.
The seafood was really fantastic. I was sad though, because the hot pot was full of ginger. I really tried but it wouldn't go in.
The streets are hectic! This was just the beginning. By the end of the trip we were walking across multiple lanes of traffic in Ho Chi Minh City like pros!
Post a Comment