4. Saigon Life + 2 Days Mũi Né
Day 5-10 (23.08.-27.08.2023):
Apparently I didn't even make it through the first week with my daily reports. In a way it is good it happened so early, so there are no big regrets that after months of being super disciplined I couldn't keep it up. Actually weekly summaries might be better anyway: I can condense all the info into smaller bites that are likely interesting than what I ate and drank every day.
After a last day at my hotel in district 10, a final market haul and a last visit at the cheap restaurant around the corner serving vegan food, I travelled to the city centre and bought a ticket to Mui Ne for the next day. I couldn't find the right bus stop for going back to district 10 and ended up walking the 5km to my hotel. My struggle is your benefit since I took photos on my way back.
Mui Ne is a beach town 200km East of Saigon, especially popular by Russians meaning many restaurant menus, spas and hotels display their offerings in Russian next to Vietnamese and English. The reason I travelled there was to meet up with an old friend from China I hadn't seen in person for over 8 years. She decided to spent her holidays with her husband in Vietnam while being 6 months pregnant.
The 2 days in Mui Ne weren't that exciting. My friend and her hubby did a couple of trips on their rented motorbike while I preferred to walk around on foot and not having to do touristy activities. We played a board game in the evening, shared some food, went to a massage place and travelled back to Saigon together. That’s not what I thought how it would go but now I have decided to revert to my original travel itinerary idea to explore the Mekong Delta and then head over to Cambodia. Anyway, Mui Ne wasn't time wasted because whenever I can see the ocean after a longer period of time, I get excited and the sight and sound of open sea is mentally soothing. However, I realised that I am not a fan of sleeper buses and that carrying luggage from hotel rooms to bus stops and then again to hotels, unpacking it and repacking it after 1-2 days is not the relaxing style of travel I had in mind for my journey. My conclusion is to stay for at least 4-5 days at my future accommodations.
Hotel Room in Mui Ne
Breaking with that rule immediately I am now staying in Saigon again likely for a maximum of 3-4 days (this time in the city centre but tucked away from the main road in one of the many super small side alleys). It is basically my district 10 routine all over again: finding vegan restaurants, a fruit and veggie market, exploring all the little alleys by day and night and spending the rest of the time in my room shortlisting hotels I might want to book, researching bus ticket prices, etc. . Of course there is much more to it but I think my images tell the story much quicker and with more impact than I am capable of if I restrict myself to decently compressed weekly summaries. One culinary highlight I like to point out, though, was eating at a place called Filthy Vegan. It is on the first floor and the entrance downstairs surely doesn't look like there would be a restaurant upstairs. The place is run by a friendly Irish guy called Kieron who offers the best fast food dishes of half a dozen nationalities in a healthier, home-made, vegan version. Pizza, tacos, burritos, burgers, English breakfast, spaghetti...everything with a nice twist. He has a rescue kitten that behaved more like a dog loving belly rubs and simply being adorable. And if that wasn't awesome enough, a page full of desserts made it impossible to resist and I went for Magnum ice cream with peach filling and the next time for double chocolate. Technically they weren’t Magnum ice cream because he created his own, healthier version of it and also there is no official peach flavour. Both flavours were superbly delicious. Especially the double chocolate one was heavy for its size and a big calorie bomb – loved it.
I chatted with Kieron for quite a bit and to my surprise he mentioned that further down the road there is a board game cafe. Dang, Saigon just shot up in my ranking as a desirable city to live in. My non-recommendation clearly goes to the nearby Bui Vien Walking Street. At night time it is remotely comparable to Soy Cowboy and/or Khao San Road in Bangkok, Thailand. Super loud music, bright neon signs, dancing girls and boys on platforms in beer bars, pushy restaurant staff shoving their menu into your face while trying to usher you into their establishment and of course spas with girls shouting: massaaaaage, massaaaaage! It was a nice photo opportunity for 15min but that's as long as I could tolerate this kind of environment. At daytime the street isn't fenced off and is open for motor bikes. The contrast between the vibrant, decadent night life and the clean up the next day getting ready for the same spectacle all over again was for me the most interesting thing about Bui Vien Walking Street.
