DEAR GOBO: Vung Tau

The Lonely Planet Vietnam issue describes Vung Tau as "a commercialized beach resort on a peninsula jutting into the South China Sea. The business of oil drilling here means the azure horizon is marred by frequent oil tankers and the population flecked with joy-seeking expats. The beaches here aren't Vietnam's best, nor is the water pristine due to pollution from oil drilling, but Vung Tau is an easy, fast beach foray out of HCMC. Beach goers looking for a tropical-holiday feel might do better making the three-hour (FIVE hour)trip to beautiful Mui Ne Beach."

Not a ringing endorsement.

Nevertheless, Steven and I headed out for the weekend to Saigon's nearest beach getaway.

There are two ways to get to Vung Tau, for those of us without our own means of transportation: by bus (two hours for two dollars) or by hydrofoil (rapid-ferry - one hour and fifteen minutes for ten dollars). We decided to splurge.

At 10:00 on Saturday morning, Steven and I were calling out last minute items and rushing out the door to catch our 10:30 a.m. ferry. We commissioned our two xe om drivers, who argued a moment about where exactly it was we were going before taking off down the street. Once down by the river, it became apparent that they didn't know where the pier was, as they indicated that they would off near where they thought it was. Steven and I started back down the street in the direction they had pointed and made it to the ticket booth and onto the ferry just before it pulled away from the pier.

The ride to Vung Tau was comfortable and uneventful and we arrived an hour and 15 minutes later.

The ferry pier at Vung Tau is a sight it itself, looking quite out of place with its strange modern design, looking somewhat like enormous metal slices of bread placed on blocks of varying heights (I hope I have a picture of that one - much too hard to describe in words). After leaving the ferry, Steven and I decided to walk around the other side of the peninsula where our hotel was and refused numerous offers from xe om and taxi drivers before we finally found ourselves alone on the wide tiled sidewalk along the seawall. With the South China Sea to our right and rows of small attractive hotels, punctuated with the occasional Vietnamese/Chinese temple to our left, we took in the sights under a beating South Vietnamese sun. After about 10 minutes of walking, relief came in the form of a row of bushes shaped into an enormous dragon draping the sidewalk in it's shade. When we found ourselves between two of Vung Tau's few attractions, the an enormous sculpture of Jesus on a hill and an island temple, only accessible in low tides, we decided to make our way down to the beach.

Steven went first, climbing down a hillside covered with boulders and millions of smaller red and blue pebbles, with confidence, in improper footwear; while I followed, gingerly, wondering where I had left my sure footing, as I struggled with my awkward beach bag, threatening to fly around from its place tucked behind my arm and hurl me down the hill. When I finally made it to the ground, I found Steven, doubled over, his head inches from the ground by his feet. Thinking, something awful had happened while I was preoccupied with my descent, I rushed over to him, only to hear him say, "Careful! You'll squash them!" It was only then that I noticed that the ground was covered with millions (maybe billions?) of tiny little balls of sand, placed outside tiny little holes, made by tiny little crabs. We'd never seen so many crabs in our lives in one place. They were everywhere.

As we headed toward the larger beach, I gave up the impossible task of trying to avoid squashing all of the little sand balls and let Steven convince me that the crabs "run into their holes when they see your foot coming." All of the single rooms were full at the first hotel; the second was too fancy for me and the third was completely booked. At the forth, we found a great room with a/c, tv, a stocked mini-fridge and a balcony with a view of the beach for $18. We showered, changed and went for lunch at a local Vietnamese restaurant before settling into our 20,000 vnd chairs ($1.50) on the beach.

Contrary to all of the negative reports, we found Vung Tau to be clean and picturesque. The beach wasn't completely devoid of litter, but it wasn't horrible and the water appeared clean enough to swim in (or so I deduced from my seat under our umbrella, not having brought an extra change of clothes and forgetting that the Vietnamese swim fully dressed). Steven enjoyed a swim in the rough water while I read in the shade.

After the beach, we went back to the hotel to see about renting a motorbike. Because Vung Tau gets very few foreign tourists, it doesn't seem to be a priority for those working in the tourist industry to speak anything but Vietnamese or, as Steven decided after the receptionist at our hotel couldn't understand when we asked her for her name in Vietnamese, even Vietnamese. Finally, after lots of gesturing and pointing in my phrase book, we managed to arrange to rent a motorbike at a rate of $11 for one day.

We headed out on our bike just before dark and rode along the oceanside road towards the more northern beaches. We had dinner at a local seafood restaurant there and then headed back into Vung Tau to dog track where we lost two bets in quick succession. We headed back out and spent the rest of the evening riding around Vung Tau and up and down the beach checking out the evening nightlife. Riding along the seaside road under the starry sky, I was reminded again why I like living overseas.

The next day, we left the hotel early and after a fruitless search for breakfast - apparently anything called a cafe or a coffee shop only serves cafe or coffee - and decided to forgo breakfast entirely and climb up the hill to the huge Jesus statue before going back to the hotel to check out. We drove over the the park, left the bike in the bike lot and followed the other visitors up about 15 flights of stairs to the top, where the journey continued, for people in appropriate attire, myself not included, to the top of the statue where you could take pictures looking over Jesus's shoulder. While Steven climbed to the top, I wandered around near the base, appreciating the craftsmanship of the sculpture and wondering about the seemingly incongruous placement of the two enormous, relatively modern looking, cannons that flanked the Jesus sculpture on each side.

Back down the stairs, we rode back to the hotel where we checked out, left our bag at the counter and stopped for lunch at a restaurant with the worst Indian food on the planet. After lunch, I took over and practiced my "in-town" driving and my roundabout navigation and then headed back to the beach for another swim/read in the shade.

At 4:30, we were on the ferry back to Saigon, with much more pleasant memories of Vung Tau than the expectations we had brought with us the previous day.