Weekend away to Vũng Tàu

Two weeks of staying in the city and it was time for us to leave again to get some fresh air and escape the hustle and bustle. This time we decided on the small peninsula town of Vũng Tàu, just two hours south of Ho Chi Minh City.

There are a few ways of getting to Vũng Tàu from HCMC; the good old bus or a boat taxi, each offering multiple times with various companies. The Bus costs around 80,000 VND and lasts around 2 – 2.5 hours and the boat is 250,000 with a similar travel time. We read online that the boat was an “experience” so decided to go that extra mile and pay extra.

Jumped into super market to stock up on alcohol. We decided on a bottle of Wall Street whisky (A sweet blend of Scotch Whisky and Vietnamese Spirit…) and not one, but two bottles of gin. Three bottles of alcohol between eight people, and it was only 3pm.

The town is beautiful, tree-lined promenades with lanterns and sculptures with peoples rollerblading and skateboarding, it reminded me a lot of the South of France! Such a change from the city. We went to the ‘Front Beach’ in order to be able to see the sunset.

We got onto the beach and headed into the water. From afar the water looked blue and refreshing, but instead we were greeted with lukewarm, murky water. We were surrounded by plant debris and the odd empty packet of noodles. None of us cared however as it was so nice to be in the water. We decided to get started on the booze and were pacing round the bottle of Wall Street, taking turns to sip on the strong content.

You’d think that our fellow Vietnamese pals in the water would disapprovingly tut in disgust and the rowdy foreigners but we were welcomed with smiles, “hellos”, “what’s your name?". They found it amusing! It was probably the highlight of the trip – getting drunk off whisky wae pals in the middle of the sea at 6pm!

By 7 pm we were all steaming! We thought it was best to get some food in us before we got back on it for the evening. Back at the hostel we washed the dirty sea residue off of us and set out to find a restaurant. After walking around the streets for 20 mins we finally settled for a restaurant that was full of Vietnamese locals; that’s when you know the food is good, and won’t give you food poisoning. We ordered our food along with a few beers, all was running smoothly until we found ourselves waiting over an hour for our (simple) chicken and rice to arrive. By this moment certain members of the group were getting more drunk and more irritated. I felt like we all wolfed down our food in a matter of minutes. We were so eager to leave the restaurant.

All paid up, we set back for the hostel, poured out our pre drinks and sat round one of the benches outside to play our traditional British/American drinking games. Ten thirty hit and it was time for us to head out. By this point we decreased in numbers as a few stragglers opted for bed instead of a dance.

As we got up to the room to greet our drop-outs who hit the hay early, we were followed by the hostel cat. It was friendly and clean, but I was uncomfortable with it being in our room. I soon forgot about it and fell back asleep only to be woken up a couple of hours later with some claws to the foot. Why me? I hate cats, and it wasn’t disturbing anyone else. I let it out and went back to sleep.

In the morning, we all thought it best to go for a full English breakfast. The check-out was at 12 so we decided to leave all of our luggage at the hostel. Vung Tau is actually full of older westerners so it was easy enough to find. Our host however at the ‘New’ was not expecting a group of eight tourists at 10 am! He was the only staff member so he had to prepare and cook 8 meals all by himself. So breakfast ended up lasting about two hours, not dissimilar to our meal the previous evening. But it was nice in the end, and we were stuffed with British tea and coffee!

We jumped in a Grab car to the other beach of Vũng Tàu – 'Back Beach'. It stretched a long way but it as lovely! Again, the water wasn’t the crystal clear blue that you find in the Caribbean but we were happy to be in the dun and water nonetheless. Of course we chose to go to the beach at the hottest time of day between 12-3 so naturally we all got burnt, right in time for class on Monday. It was such a relaxing day, sitting on deck chairs, coconuts in hand – a much needed change from the city!

We stopped off for dinner at a restaurant called ‘Matilda’s’ which had an extensive range of food and drinks, from pizza, to burgers, to Eggs Benedict, to noodles and even more Vietnamese food. We were all satisfied. A jump back to the hostel to pick up our things and we got a bus to pick us up at the Gecko Hostel and took us all the way back to District 1 in HCMC for just 80,000VND. The driver was crazy and the roads were bumpy but we made it home. After, of course, a quick pit stop in Sancho's on Biu Vien for a couple of Margaritas to end the holiday.

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