Cheap & Local in Mui Ne

As you can see, the roads here are full of dirt and dust. Thank goodness for the glass case.

Living in a resort area is hardly uncomfortable, but when it comes to getting meals nearby I’m faced with paying resort area prices. However, whenever I’m in Mui Ne there’s a place I often go that sells to a local crowd. It’s a five-minute drive from my place and never terribly busy, which always surprises me. It’s as simple a setup as you’ll find anywhere, though the owners have recently added a mechanics shop to their place. Mechanics shops and restaurants don’t usually mix well, but I have no problem with it here.

I think that wet spot to the right of the cart is water, not motorbike oil.

As you can see from the photos above, the family sells their homemade dishes from a wheeled glass display case, which they roll into their house for safekeeping during the night and roll back toward the road when they’re open for business. And they’re open for breakfast, which is either bánh mì (sandwiches) and xôi mạnh (sticky rice), as well as lunch, which is always cơm bình dân (common rice dishes).

The bánh mì goes for a mere 15,000 dong ($0.70), even if you get a mix of just about everything you can put into a sandwich. You can’t see it all that well in the photo below, but my bánh mì came with grilled pork, mixed sautéed veggies, fried eggs, cucumber, and a squirt of sauce. It also doesn’t show how one of the two women there used her chopsticks to feed her baby, then to feed herself, then to pick up a strip of grilled pork for my sandwich. Thankfully, the end she picked up had a chunk of bone in it, and it got cut off by a clean (I think) pair of scissors.

Is there such a thing as bánh mì bụi?

Considering that only one or two people make these dishes every day, I’d say their efforts are pretty impressive. They usually sell thin vegetable omelettes, grilled pork, fatty pork, fatty pork with hardboiled eggs, sautéed mixed vegetables, sautéed water spinach, grilled fish, fried fish, and sometimes shrimp. My takeaway meals often consist of rice, mixed veggies, a large slice of omelette, and two strips of grilled pork, or one strip of grilled pork and one small grilled fish, and includes a complementary vegetable soup and a packet of fish sauce with red chilies. It’s not as much as it sounds, but it’s more than enough for lunch. The total cost is the same every time: 20,000 dong ($0.95).

I'll take this over resort restaurant meals any day...

Passersby on motorbikes often stare at me as I stand at the display case, and those standing in line to order, or at one of the two metal tables where you can sit down and eat, often ask me how I can order in Vietnamese. When they ask if I have a Vietnamese wife and I say no, some ask in all seriousness if I have a Vietnamese mother. Which is a compliment out of all proportion with my Vietnamese abilities. In Saigon or Hanoi this would happen less frequently, but since most Westerners here (80% or more are Russians) don’t speak a single word of Vietnamese, I suppose I stand out a little more. All in all, it makes life here a little more interesting.

I’m also told that I should avoid eating in places like this, despite the deal it seems to offer and the fact that it tastes good and seems relatively healthy. People tell me that food on the street is cheap precisely because it uses poor ingredients, especially those that bypass whatever regulators exist in Vietnam (and there aren’t many). It’s hard to know what to do about this situation in Vietnam, as there are so many street food vendors, but there have also been numerous reports about high concentrations of toxic chemicals (used as preservatives and whitening agents) being found in the vast majority of rice noodles. Coffee on the street, I’m told, is often mixed with quinine (and all kinds of other things) to make it bitterer. Sad news for Vietnam, but not something the country can’t overcome with more care and diligence.

I threw this photo in even though it came from another local restaurant. You can often get mixed fruit (to go, in this case) for very little money. This order – two bananas, half a dragon fruit, a thick slice of mango, and two hunks of watermelon) cost me 23,000 dong ($1.09), which is about the same price I've been asked to pay for a bunch of bananas (and the seller wouldn't bargain, which is rather rare).

Back in Vietnam, Back in Mui Ne

I'm back in Mui Ne...

Another long hiatus from the blogosphere may be ending (it’s too soon to say for sure). But for now, at least, a quick update…

After nearly two years in Japan, and very little time for myself, I’m back in Vietnam, in Mui Ne to be exact, with quite a bit more time on my hands. I’ve now been back for a little more than two weeks and I’m trying to see what I can share about the places, people, and food I encounter here. Generally it’s been good, though the gloss and shine of years past seems to have worn off the country, as the economy is doing poorly and people seem less optimistic. Also, a few nights ago, while getting ready to leave a restaurant in the company of friends, a horrific motorbike accident occurred within about 60 feet of where we were sitting. At least one passenger died, and perhaps all three did. One never wants to see such things happen, but it’s especially jarring after just moving back. After inquiring with others about current traffic conditions in Mui Ne, I started hearing numerous stories directly from people who’ve lost loved ones in road accidents here. I’ve already decided that if I continue to feel unsafe on the roads, it will be time to leave Mui Ne and give the Hoi An/Da Nang region a shot. Eventually, though, I’m pretty sure I’ll end up in Saigon again. Even though Saigon’s hospitals aren’t up to international standards, they’re light years ahead of medical care in this part of the country. If one gets sick or injured in Mui Ne, it’s at least a five-hour journey by car to Saigon. And that’s assuming the car doesn’t get into an accident on the way there…

Until I have more time to collect food and travel experiences in Vietnam, I’ll give a quick update on my novel, Lotusland, which is set to come out in April 2015, coinciding with the 40th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War. I’ve been working with an editor on it for the past several months, and about 10 days ago I submitted what should be the final changes, most of which dealt with style issues. I’m now working on developing a promotion strategy and hope to start on it soon – contacting people who will hopefully be interested in my work, and who might be willing to lend a hand in bringing it some good publicity. I’m also getting back, albeit slowly, into the rewrite of a novel I completed several years ago. I hope to have it done and accepted somewhere before my first publication is available.

Here’s a teaser of what I hope will be more blog posts coming from Vietnam. I’ve been hitting some old haunts recently rather than explore new options, though it doesn’t seem like there’s very much new here worth blogging about. If anything, there are more western restaurants in Mui Ne now (and chintzy shops), but I’m not particularly keen on eating in those places. While I can still get meals nearby for less than US$1, they’re harder to come by – impossible to come by in Mui Ne itself, which is a resort area. But even so, one can eat cheaply and well in Mui Ne. And drink some of the world’s best coffee…

Seaside seat at Cay Bang restaurant.

Mì xào haỉ sản at Cay Bang. While the fish is pretty expensive here, this only cost 70,000 dong ($3.30).

An order of garlic-sauteed greens and claypot fish (cà bớp: cobia fish). Price tag: $4.25. In most restaurants, cà bớp is by far the most common fish found on menus. It's a bit depressing, as the skin tends to be thick and rubbery and without that much flavor. Of course, Vietnamese sauces help in the latter regard.

For a hotel restaurant with a view of the beach, this was great. Gà xào xả ớt (sauteed chicken in a chili and lemongrass sauce), boiled mixed veggies, rice, and tea – after VAT and a service charge, still only $7.60. Poshanu Resort.

Cà suốt with a stack of fresh herbs, sesame rice paper, and beer brewed on the premises of Hoa Vien, a Czech-Vietnamese restaurant.

Terrace at The Cliffs. One of the better views in all of Mui Ne.

Cà phê sữa đá in the shade, with a view of the ocean. A perfect place to write.

Recap of Short Return to Vietnam

It’s hard to believe that so much time has passed since my last blog post. I intended to take a short break, but it seems my break has last more than four months! Twitter and Twitpic is much less time-consuming, especially now that I’m back in Japan and working a lot.

At the end of October last year I decided to leave Japan because my job in Akita required far more hours (60-70/week) than were specified in my contract (40-45/week). It was a difficult choice to make, though I knew I’d try to come back at some point. Where did I choose to go? As I’ve done numerous times in the past, I returned to Vietnam, which has always been a great safety net for me.

I intended to live in Saigon for a while, as I thought I’d lined up work and a place to live in District 2. Unfortunately, the job fell through and my prospective landlord sold me a false bill of goods. Rather than move into the apartment I’d placed a $740 deposit on, I backed out immediately after entering the place and finding it completely filled with mud, rotting food, and different furnishings than what I’d been led to believe came with the place. I lost the money and had to start my apartment search all over, but then an old Vietnamese-American friend, and ex-landlord, suggested that I rent his villa in Mui Ne, a beach resort 5 hours north of Saigon. He offered me an incredibly affordable rate with the condition that I volunteer to teach English to the groundskeepers at the private complex where his villa was. Having been to Mui Ne many times in the past, and having seen his villa several times, too, I readily agreed. It made the loss of my deposit, as well as the Vietnamese post office’s confiscation of three boxes of personal belongings that I’d mailed from Akita in October (and still haven’t gotten back as of this writing), easier to swallow.

Ah, Vietnam. There’s always something you force me to deal with…

Near the entrance to the complex of villas where I lived in Mui Ne.

 

The lane where I lived. And no, that's not my shiny SUV.

I hadn’t been to Mui Ne since January 2009, and in the intervening 33 months I couldn’t believe how much had changed. Not only were there far more hotels and restaurants, but the number of Russian tourists had exploded. I’d say that almost 90% of the tourists I came across in Mui Ne were from Russia.

The place where I lived was set off from the main strip, though by motorbike it only took me a few minutes to get there. I would go into town every day for meals, or for coffee, or to shop for fruit or other small items, or to walk along the beach. I didn’t take my camera with me very often, which explains why there’s not a great deal of variety among these photos.

The front gate to the villa where I lived. The scaffolding in front was for the people weatherproofing the shutters.

Second floor guestroom where I stayed.

One of the great things about Mui Ne is that it’s relatively quiet and the traffic is manageable. It used to be quieter and had even less traffic, but despite its rapid development it remains a pleasant break from city life. And where I stayed was incredibly peaceful…most of the time.

When I first arrived at the complex, which has about 120 villas, only about five of them had anyone living or staying in them. This situation, which was great, lasted from November 12th, when I arrived, until December 1st, when the place started to get overrun by Russian tourists. They were generally nice, but they also liked to drink—all day and night, it seemed. There was a group of 30 that stayed for two weeks, and when the sun went down they liked to race their motorbikes around the complex, go swimming (and shouting a lot) in the middle of the night, and break things—which one often came across in the morning, usually around the pool area.

Large kitchen that I mostly used to brew coffee. A favorite place for frogs to gather, though I never figured out why.

Living room full of patio furniture (foreground) waiting to be weatherproofed.

 

Photo of the villa from the fence in the back yard.

This is the distance between my back yard and the complex's pool area.

25-meter pool in background, and a shorter, shallower pool connected to it.

There were also tennis courts...

 

And a badminton court...

 

And a cafe with pool tables at the far end...

 

One of the many frogs I constantly saw inside and outside my place.

View from my bedroom window as evening approached.

I had access to a motorbike (and two bicycles), which was bigger than any two-wheeler I’d ridden before, and which seemed to be missing a top gear—a bad thing when locals followed me home up the unlit road at night.

My motorbike on scrub grass beside the ocean. That scrub grass is now pavement, by the way.

 

My Bonus motorbike...

 

Nguyen Dinh Chieu Street, in Mui Ne. Lazy morning with little traffic to deal with.

 

I have memories of the food in Mui Ne being better than it was during my stay this time, though I can’t complain about the greater range of options. There were far more street food options in Phan Thiet, about a 15-minute motorbike away, but in Mui Ne there wasn’t more much than carts selling sandwiches, boiled corn, and steamed buns, and of course fruit, which was everywhere.

One of my favorite places to eat was Hoa Vien, a Vietnamese-Czech brewery whose restaurant specialized in seafood. (Of course, most places in Mui Ne specialize in seafood.)

Hoa Vien's outdoor seating area and infinity pool beside the sea.

 

One item that Hoa Vien offers, which I’d never had before, was goi ca suot.

Goi ca suot is a dish of small, half-translucent sardines mixed with a peanut-red chili sauce and served with various herbs and rice paper embedded with sesame seeds. A sweet, peanut-based sauce is provided for dipping. This was one of the cheaper items on the menu (less than $5), and with an order of boiled or stir-fried veggies it easily serves two people.

Another place that served incredibly cheap, always satisfying food was Lam Tong.

Lam Tong is NOT fancy.

 

Despite the shoddy service—perhaps the worst in Vietnam—but then what do you expect from a group of teenage boys who would surely rather be out having fun with their friends—I kept coming back here.

But their food is tasty and insanely cheap. This is a huge tomato salad, dish of rice, and lemongrass-and-chili-fried barracuda on sliced cucumbers. Total cost: about $2.

It’s a popular place and can get crowded at night, but if you come at the right time you can enjoy your food with an unimpeded view of the ocean.

The beach from Lam Tong restaurant.

There are surprisingly few cafes in Mui Ne, especially when considering how many cafes one finds pretty much everywhere in Vietnam. Close to Lam Tong was a place called Sankara. There’s a little bit of everything here, including yoga classes, a indoor bar and lounge, an oceanside bar-café, a swimming pool, and open-yurt-like sitting areas.

Passionfruit shake at Sankara.

The coffee here is about $2 per glass, but it’s worth it for the ambience.

Yoga classes are held on the second floor of the main building, under the white tarp.

I used to go to the oceanside restaurant at Victoria Resort most mornings to get my writing done, but once one of the young cooks working there decided that I was to be his best friend and job-hunting helper, I stopped going. The resort is one of the oldest ones in Mui Ne, and also one of the most charming. The lounge area between the restaurant and pool is spectacular in the evening as the sun is going down.

Phan Thiet is worth exploring if you find yourself getting bored with Mui Ne’s limited options. There’s a lot to see, if not a lot to do. Mui Ne is an old fishing village, and Phan Thiet is famous for the fish sauce it produces.

Driving from Mui Ne into Phan Thiet, one comes across plenty of evidence of fishing’s importance to the local people.

I spent three months in Mui Ne before deciding to come back to Japan. I was ready to leave after three months, mostly because I got bored being there on my own, but now that I’m in Snow Country in northern Japan and freezing my tush off, I definitely miss Mui Ne. I’m already making plans to go back, though perhaps not for such a long stay next time.