TRAVELLING NORTH

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We stopped for a couple of days at the Takalau Resort in the beach resort area of Phan Thiet (fan-teet) and Mui Ne. As we’d just managed to drag ourselves out of the resort on Phu Quoc Island, we needed a respite from a single day in chaotic Ho Chi Minh City. (Yeah, right …) Actually, the resort and these two towns showed us the real impact of European tourism on a “normal” Vietnamese town. We thought we were taking the easy, luxury way when we asked the hotel to have a driver meet us at the train station, but the guest relations lady, a Frenchwoman, was surprised that we had actually taken the Vietnamese train. When asked, she said that their guests arrive via luxury bus, and she herself had never taken the train though she’d lived in Vietnam for many years. However, enough tourists are coming to this area that the government has started trains to and from HCMC to the Phan Thiet station, renaming the other station, just to keep everyone confused.

Mui Ne, where we ate the first night, is a boiling pot of Euro-tourists: monstrous resorts, an ATV track under construction, souvenir shops and liquor stores everywhere. And smokers everywhere, making us realize how nice it is in the US since smoking in public has been banned most places. Phan Thiet, on the other hand, is a fishing town of about 100,000 people. The harbor is crowded with dozens of beautiful blue-painted fishing boats and there’s a street along the harbor crowded with outdoor seafood restaurants. You walk up, point to your unfortunate dinner swimming around in the tank, and have a seat in a tiny plastic chair – if you’re lucky, since the other option is a tiny plastic stool. (Remember President Obama sitting on a little stool with Anthony Bourdain in Hanoi?) As always, the owner had us sit in the front row so any stray westerner would know it was safe to eat in his restaurant. It works – Europeans saw us, slowed, checked out the place, and sat.

The Takalau resort is built on land owned for years by a Vietnamese woman. It’s well maintained, with seven swimming pools, a tiny “gym”, a tiny spa, good food and a friendly, helpful staff. Since it’s on the east side of the country, the sea (called the East Sea by the Vietnamese and the South China Sea by the rest of the world) is aggressive enough that the beach is only about 10 feet wide. We relaxed and explored nearby Taku Mountain, which has the largest reclining Buddha statue in Asia. Beautiful!

We proceeded north to the next city that Tom chose, Quy Nhon (don’t ask me how to pronounce it – I never got it right). This town received the ultimate Tom compliment: “I could live here.” The place was heavily damaged in the war and has been rebuilt with a “boardwalk” and beautifully manicured parks along miles of pristine beach. There are some hotels, but the beach is public, unlike in Mui Ne.



Since the guidebooks give Quy Nhon short shrift due to its lack of pagodas, casinos or other attractions, we saw few westerners except for those attending an international environmental protection conference at our hotel. We were back to the odd feeling of being exotic animals escaped from the zoo. People look twice, kids love you, young people are fascinated, and old people like us (haha!) want to talk. We saw the same thing that Linwood Stevenson noted: there are NO men our age, just poor (really poor) old women selling peanuts for a few cents on the street. We lost almost 50,000 troops, while Vietnam lost well over a million people. We met a man who lived with a “GI” when he was 12 and a young woman who showed us a photo of her father in uniform from when he worked with the USMC. What happened to these people when we left? No one talks about it. We’re now visiting our friends in Hoi An (more on that later), having passed through Danang, where Tom was stationed for six months. If you remember what it looked like, with its miles of white beaches, forget it. We were amazed at the development in 2008; since then, the whole beach has been seized by huge international resorts. I saw Sheraton, Hyatt, Crown Plaza, Pullman … as well as many places built with Chinese money (according to our driver). The Vietnamese people now must ride miles to get to their own beaches.

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Photos

Danang's Dragon Bridge
What a great idea!

Danang's Aircraft Bunkers
Tom was stationed here in 1972-3, for six months. At that time, there were beautiful white beaches across the road, but no one was allowed to go there. Now, the road is a highway, and the beaches are hidden behind luxury resorts.

More Hangers
This was a USMC air base.

Danang
I took this photo for the people who might remember Danang as it was in the early 1970s.

Dragonfruit
Huge trucks haul this beautiful fruit to China through the crazy traffic on Highway1A.

TanSonNaht Airport
Along the taxiway at the airport, for those who might remember ...

Taku Mountain
The largest reclining statue of the Buddha in Asia.

Quy Nhon
After the craziness of MuiNe, this clean but deserted beach was welcome.

Traveling by Train
Tom booked "soft sleeper" berths on every train, as they were quieter and more comfortable than seats.

Comments

[Jim DeBernardi]

That update was the best of the best.....
Really interesting observations about the forgotten people of war and the changing seascape of Da Nang. Thanks so much for your blog posts. I wish you would compile all your posts into a book someday. Miss you guys.....