6. Rạch Giá
05.09.2023
Okay, time for an update. My bus trip to Rach Gia was superb thanks to the luxurious FUTA bus that didn't cost any more than a normal bus. Foot rest, massage chair like design with separate controls for the reclining of the back rest and lower leg section and LED light that slowly changed colours covering the entire RGB spectrum. Most of the ride was straight – around 60km we were cruising alongside a canal with a neverending stretch of houses directly next to the water. It was like a mega-village on a string. On the other side of the road there were also houses and behind those already rice fields and not much else. Here are some impressions:
I am now in Rach Gia, around 100km away from my last location Can Tho. It is a city at the sea but don't expect white sanded beaches. Instead you get murky brown water and the coastline is reinforced with a stone/concrete wall.
It is a city that is not tailored to foreign tourists at all which is good in my view although it also means that the amount of people speaking English or advertising their product and services in English is much reduced. You can tell that people here aren't used to see faces of Westerners. You get looks from almost everyone and it could easily feel uncomfortable – except 95% of the guys identifying me as a foreigner are excited and happy to see me. There is not a single walk I do without receiving HELLOOOO!s yelled from passing by scooters or from market stalls. I wear sunglasses and a cap but apparently I still stick out like a sore thumb. I always wave and greet back and the more I get used to it, the more proactive I become and greet first if I anticipate their hope to engage in a conversation. In restaurants people on nearby tables are chatting about me. I can feel it but again, it is friendly curiosity instead of racial hostility. And I get treated by everyone very kindly and patiently when the language barrier slows things down or if people sense my confusion and I am being unsure what I am expected to do. I become a bit braver with my photography realising that no one takes offense if a camera is pointed at them. In fact, as I described in my previous post, some people actually want me to take a picture of them.
Rain season is in full swing and it is raining cats and dogs several times per day. We are talking mostly short rain showers but sometimes it lasts for hours – it is very unpredictable. Find of the week was my umbrella which I thought I had lost. It now lives in my mini backpack to be at hand for the next downpour. The first two nights I stayed at the An An Hotel which was okay but I was disappointed to not get a hot shower at the end of my day. Turns out most hotels use solar power to heat up their water and during rain season with its cloudy days that doesn't work so well. A bit unpleasant but cold water in Vietnam is still 20-25 degrees Celsius - so it’s not a big deal.
I was lucky again that there was a market street only 150m away from my hotel where I could stock up my fruit and veggie supplies. However, the next vegetarian restaurant was about 2km away. Vegetarian in Vietnam often means the same as vegan. In a vegetarian restaurant they usually don’t use eggs or other dairy products. For that reason eating out doesn't require much extra communication on my part. I certainly could order a vegan meal in any other restaurant but why going through the hassle of trying to explain what exactly I want/don’t want with the high risk of cross contamination at a restaurant that is more dedicated to serve meat when there are plenty of other places where I can order whatever sounds interesting to me and experience the thrill of surprise when I have no clue what I will get served.
Two days later I relocated to another part of the town thinking it was closer to more restaurants but I was wrong. Now I need to walk 1.5km to the next market street and 1.5km to a bigger vegetarian restaurant that is open everyday, even on National Day which was on the 2nd of September commemorating Ho Chi Minh reading the declaration of independence from the French colonialism at Ba Đình Square in Hanoi in 1945. On National Day almost all shops are closed and many streets are eerily empty.
Rach Gia's urban planning looks like it was meant to allow for huge parades on a several seemingly oversized 4+ lane roads with huge green strips in the inner and outer centres featuring lots of flowers and plant sculptures such as a 30m long dragon made out of bushes. Most of those roads lead to the big parade hugging the coast line with a park strip separating the road from the water. I suspect Rach Gia was supposed to be a flagship model celebrating communism but somehow reality got in the way or the design was simply flawed because the roads are much wider than they really need to be to match the influx of traffic. Also, all the effort they put into making those roads pompous and impressive seems to be wasted as there is nothing in the beach area that attracts droves of people to spend their time and money. Swimming is definitely not recommended. There are not many shops and restaurants along the coast line, the view is just okay and most of the side streets coming off of those ultra-wide roads are still / or again? in a deep sleep with many houses in decay, properties overgrown by grass and palms and some streets are underdeveloped and consist of gravel or sand instead of asphalt. I haven't done my research about the history of the city yet but Rach Gia for me is a prime example of failed ambition. Someone and tried to replicate thriving beach towns in other countries by putting in the infrastructure but then misjudged by thinking this would be the only catalyst needed to let a city boom.
Sorry for the wind noise! ;-)
Having said all that, I don't dislike Rach Gia. I enjoy seeing the town not being overrun by tourism. I like exploring the suburbs around the hotels I am staying at and photographing street life. Those photos are not the eye catchers with WOW factor but an authentic representation of a more or less average Vietnamese city with around 400,000 citizens.
Some more general, random observations:
1. Vietnamese like small dogs as pets, especially the fluffy ones. I have seen them in every city I have been to and compared to Australia or Germany the absence of large breeds is stands out. Also I am surprised that the amount of street dogs and cats I have encountered is relatively low compared to the memories of my time in Thailand and Laos 8-10 years ago. I don't know if that means animals on the streets are actively caught to keep them out of the public's view or if they have an effective neutering initiative in place and take care of all the poor homeless creatures.
2. Drinking water/ tap water: So far I had no issues with the tap water. I was anxious to get ulcers by consuming little amounts of non-boiled water when preparing my meals (washing fruit and veggies) and brushing my teeth but I also have taken precautions to reduce the risk of falling victim to contaminated water by cleaning the mouth with bottled water at the end of my tooth-brushing routine. Of course it is an inconvenience for someone without a bike or car to organise a steady supply of drinking water unless you want to buy it directly from your hotel for a jacked up price. I just emptied a 5 litre bottle that lasts for approximately 2.5 days and now I need to walk over 1 km to the nearest store that sells those 5 litre bottles. The alternative are either 0.5l-1.5l bottles almost every shop sells (for a less cost effective price) or 25l bottles most private homes use. - Carrying a 25kg bottle over a longer distance isn't the work out I voluntarily would sign up for so a 5 litre bottle for 27,000-30,000 Vietnamese Dong (around AUD $1.90 / USD $1.25) is the way to go.
3. Prices: Depending on the area you are in prices obviously vary a lot but here are some guidelines for Vietnam tourists in Summer 2023 (AUD $1.00 = 15.000-16.000 VND):
Water bottle: 1.5l – 7,000-10,000 Dong (AUD $0.40-0.60)
Herbs / salads: 15,000-30,000 Dong /kg (AUD $1.00-2.00)
Fruit and veggies: bananas AUD $1.00-1.50, dragonfruit AUD $0.70-2.50, mango 25k-60k Dong, depending on the type of mango (the hard and sour ones are cheaper), jackfruit and durian 30-70k Dong (AUD $2.00-4.50), depending on buying it with the thick peel or already cut, oranges: 10-20k Dong, pineapple 15-25k Dong, tomatoes, radish and most other veggies 20-40k Dong, carrots 10-15k Dong. Everything that is imported like apples is more expensive: 50-80k Dong. These are open market prices. In convenience stores/supermarkets you will find spotless looking items for 1.5-2x the price unless you go for the specials.
Local city buses: 5-6k (in Saigon), taxi rides with Grab (the equivalent to Uber in Vietnam): appx. 20,000 Dong/km, coaches to other cities 70-250km away are 70-250k unless you are chartering a minivan or something with more comfort.
Dish in a typical local restaurant: 25-45k, 40-100k in more touristy areas and 60-200k for international cuisine dishes. Of course there are always restaurants with much higher prices.
Accommodation: bed in a dormitory 60k-250k, room with aircon and private bathroom: from 180k and above. I found the sweet spot between comfort and affordability to be 250k-300k. For 300k (or about AUD $20.00) you will find a hotel room in any city (outside absolute peak times when there are very limited vacancies).
4. Meat alternatives: Within my first 2.5 weeks in Vietnam I have eaten at least 20 different types of mock meat in miscellaneous shapes and textures: boiled, steamed, stir-fried, baked, shredded, puffed, marinated...as balls, slices, cubes, rectangles, cylinders, strings, alien looking blobs... the only thing I haven't seen yet are pyramids and crystal shapes. The herbs, spices and sauces added to the mock meat give such a variety of tastes that you never have the feeling you are eating the same thing twice. I have no idea what exactly the ingredients are to create those vegan delicacies but tofu, mushrooms, jackfruit, beans and grains are certainly among them. If you are trying to abstain from meat for whatever reasons, Vietnam makes it super easy to not have any withdrawal symptoms because there is so much to try and chances are high you will find something that tickles your gourmet fancy.
Slight change of topic:
5. What makes me happy?
I want to enjoy my life right now but also reap beneficial long-term effects of my journey. One reason for my travel is to get a new perspective on life and to draw inspiration from what I encounter along the way. When I am returning to Australia I might be open to something completely new job-wise or start something I was too afraid to do before or I continue where I left but with a more conscious mindset and appreciation of what I have already.
You might think that I am having a great time here every single day – getting up whenever I want, sleep whenever I want, no workplace to go to on any given day of the week, seeing amazing places and not having anything to worry about – well, that isn't entirely true. Just doing all the basic chores to supply myself takes up already a good portion of my day. Walking kilometres to restaurants or to buy food and water and doing mainly my own laundry which is surprisingly more physically demanding that I thought. Researching new places to stay at, figuring out travel routes and how to get there when you can't read Vietnamese, sitting for many hours on buses, packing and unpacking every few days, only very basic kitchen equipment for meal prep, bad mattresses, noisy aircons, occasionally cigarette smell drafting into my room through a gap under the door and most of the time being all by myself without anyone to talk to. Sure, those are all first world problems but it can still be depressing and exhausting in a hot and humid climate and isn’t necessarily the paradise lifestyle most people dream of. I could throw money at some of those issues but I actually want to keep doing things myself, not only due to OCDs (the one time I let a hotel wash my clothes, they smelled nice, but later I found out that they hadn't been rinsed properly and a lot of dirty water came out of them when I washed them the next time) but also because I think it is important to not pamper myself too much by letting other people do everything for me and using taxis to get to a place around the corner when I could just walk instead. Making my own salads almost every day is time consuming and I might only save a dollar or two compared to eating out but I value the freedom and process of deciding what and how much of which ingredient to use, selecting everything in person (if I could grow the food myself it would be even better of course). And interestingly, this leads me back to my initial question: what makes me happy? After 2.5 weeks in Vietnam I have reflected about the times when I felt most at ease or positively excited, got distracted from any worries on my mind and which activities I do look forward to the most? - Going to the markets, greeting people, being greeted, engaging in unforeseen conversations with locals, photographing everyday life and curiosities and absurdities alike, sitting in my hotel room with all clothes washed and most of my belongings organised, a fridge full of fresh food and internet connection to potentially access/contact any info/person I want/need – that's what caused happiness and emotional balance. Being in the moment while all my basic needs are covered – so I can focus on being creative or helpful to others, that's surprisingly the answer – at least for my current situation. It makes me wonder how I can adapt to reach the same feeling at home in the future. Reduction and becoming more self-sufficient while having a meaningful job/way to make income seems to be the answer.
Great, now that I have come to that life-altering conclusion, I can cut my trip short and fly home, right? Mission accomplished! - Not quite, because if I have such earth-shattering revelations crossing my mind already after less than 3 weeks, I can't wait what my brain will come up with after 3 months! …And I have to test all of my findings over and over again to see if boredom kicks in after a while and the novelty excitement about certain activities subsides over time. I am cautious and sceptical by nature and won't exploit my Eureka moment by instantly becoming a life coach on Instagram telling everyone for a fair subscription price of only $2,999.00/month what to do to reach forever happiness since it worked for me ....sometimes ...for a while. Dang, maybe that IS a viable business model – I just need to throw all my ethics over board and nurture my fixation on monetary gains. :-D
I am going to stay in Rach Gia for another two nights before heading further North-West to Ha Tien, a smaller town that is very close to the Cambodian border. Although I still have plenty of time before my visa runs out I think 25-30 days are enough Vietnam for now. I might come back in a few months to travel in the Northern part or to stay for a while in Saigon again, not at least to satisfy my jackfruit chips addiction – a snack that has replaced vegan chocolate for me that is much harder to find here.
The best jackfruit chips - but also the most expensive ones.
Positive side effect: jackfruit is a – excuse the bad pun - jack of all trades fruit: Jackfruit may be higher in some vitamins and minerals than apples, apricots, bananas, and avocados. It's rich in vitamin C and one of the few fruits that's high in B vitamins. Jackfruit contains folate, niacin, riboflavin, potassium, and magnesium. Research suggests that compounds in the flesh, seeds, and other parts of the plant may potentially treat or prevent several health conditions. It's low in sodium, high in fibre and cholesterol free - Now you know. ;-)
