Two months in Vietnam, part three: Nha Trang

In Mũi Né I was in the middle of nowhere, but in Nha Trang I am in a big city (more than half a million people). My small 21st-floor apartment is right on the main beach, and I can watch the sea from my bed. The view is spectacular and very relaxing.

The city is full of hotels and tourists. I've seen many people from China, South Korea, and Russia, and have also heard Italian, French, and Spanish spoken on the streets. While the beach is the main attraction, there are a few other points of interest as well.

I visited the Long Son Pagoda, a Buddhist temple not far from my apartment. If you climb the 193 steps to the top of the hill, you can see a 24-meter-tall white statue of Buddha, and a good view of the city. I also drank some nuoc mia (sugarcane juice) up there.

There's an important distinction to be made about statues of Buddha. In the Western world, many people mistakenly use the name Buddha for two different kinds of statues. The historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama (around 5th century BCE), was an Indian prince who renounced his privileged life to pursue spiritual liberation. He tried fasting as a tool to reach enlightenment, but realized it weakened his mind. So he settled on a moderate diet. Therefore, those statues of a fat guy do not represent him. That is another person, nicknamed Budai (meaning "cloth sack," referring to the bag he carried during his wanderings), a semi-legendary Chinese monk from much later (around the 10th century), usually depicted with a large belly (symbolizing abundance) and often smiling.

One day, I went for a walk to the north (about 4 km), along the beach and then across the Cai River, and reached Po Nagar, a temple built around the 8th century. It consists of a few brick towers, the main one being 25 meters tall. They are dedicated to the goddess Yan Po Nagar, the main deity of the Chams, the people who lived here at the time.

On another day, I went for a walk to the south (about 5 km), along the beach, and reached the Bao Tang Hai Duong Hoc (Museum of Oceanography). It's a humble museum, but it has a few interesting live specimens, like small sharks and large turtles.

The same thing that happened in Mũi Né also happened here: having a home office with an ocean view made me very productive. I had some excellent afternoons, clickiting and clackiting on my laptop.

And the food?

Many people call Nha Trang the seafood capital of Vietnam. You can eat many types of seafood there, including lobster, several kinds of shrimp, crabs, squid, snails, clams, mussels, grouper, mackerel, sailfish, lizardfish, red snapper, and several others. All very affordable too. The most expensive restaurant I went to was a premium seafood buffet, all-you-can-eat and all-you-can-drink style, where I paid twenty-two dollars for a real feast. My other meals were usually under ten dollars.

Then there's the coffee. Vietnam is the second largest producer of coffee, behind Brazil and ahead of Colombia and Indonesia. Brazil and Vietnam together produce over 50% of the world's coffee. And you can see it reflected in the local culture, with thousands of coffee shops everywhere, from shoddy street-corner carts to lavish cafes in shopping malls. You can drink ca phe den (black coffee), bac xiu (white coffee, with milk), ca phe sua da (iced condensed milk coffee), and even ca phe muoi (salt coffee) or ca phe cot dua (coffee blended with condensed milk and coconut milk). The one I had been wanting to try was the ca phe trung (egg coffee). I didn't find it anywhere in Ho Chi Minh City, but it's very popular in Nha Trang. It's very strong coffee mixed with egg yolks, sugar, and condensed milk. Very interesting flavor.

I never thought you could produce wine in a place like Vietnam. Too hot for growing grapes. But there's a region near Nha Trang called Da Lat, 1,500 meters above sea level, with a cool, spring-like climate year-round, where you can actually grow wine grapes. So, when I found a bottle of Vang Da Lat Export wine at the market, I bought it. It's a very unusual blend of Cardinal and Syrah grapes, plus a minor quantity of mulberry. First, Cardinal is a table grape, not a wine grape. Second, mulberry is not even a grape. I was expecting something very sweet and very fruity, but it was quite the opposite. It's not an excellent wine I'd want to buy again, but it was quite drinkable while eating roasted cashews and watching the Bien Dong at night (that's the Vietnamese term for the South China Sea).

And after Nha Trang?

Tomorrow I will move to Da Nang, a bit further north. I'll tell you about that soon.