...Chang-chang-chaaaaaang...

I am writing this update with a heavy stomach. Vanya and I just finished dinner at Lan Tong Quan, a restaurant that has quickly overwhelmed its competitors in its bid to become our favorite restaurant in Mui Ne. It has delivered a stunning defeat: we have eaten at this restaurant four times in the last two days. Tonight it was garlic bread and freshly squeezed juice, split entrees of batter-fried squid and fried lemon red-snapper, a complimentary fried banana for dessert, and finally, a plate of mango for dessert-dessert. All washed down with Saigon Xahn, an obviously local lager. You'll notice that the word "fried" appeared three times in that last sentence, which is why, very shortly after completion of this update, I am going to to lay down.

We are in the small fishing village/beach town of Mui Ne after a truncated visit to Nah Trang, a beach resort town north of here by 5 hours. We arrived in Nah Trang after another 8 hours south-bound on the Reunification Express, a leisurely train ride that, due to a burgeoning cold/sinus infection, was more unpleasant for me than Vanya (obviously it is never nice to be sick, but there is something altogether ungodly about this process when in semi-tropical heat. Things just feel more wrong than normal, fevers are too hot. I am beginning to understand why colonial officials die so often).

Nah Trang was a disappointment. Vanya actually disliked Nah Trang less than I did, but we both were happy to leave earlier than we had planned. In short, it was an ugly beach resort town. In long, it reminded me of the hyper-developed-yet-poorly-planned Mexican tourist enclaves I have visited before, catering to club-goers and serving over-priced drinks. The buildings were mostly cement blocks, there was garbage all over the sidewalks with rats scurrying in and out, crime levels are high relative to the rest of Vietnam, harassment of foreigners is worse, and we had a couple of miserable experiences at local restaurants (Mui Ne, by comparison, has excellent restaurants).

I will relate the worst of our restaurant experiences. Having decided to try a new Vietnamese dish -- bo bun, a beef-noodle soup -- we sat down at a small street stall/cafe that served the dish. After wolfing down most of my dish (it didn't taste bad), Vanya pointed out that, even in the low light, her beef was obviously discolored. It was a two-tone beef, discolored most likely from lack of refrigeration. It was a few minutes after this that we watched a large rat scurry under one of the pantries inside the kitchen. More upsetting, I think, than the rat, itself, was that the woman who owned the small cafe also saw this rat scurry under the pantry and was completely unpreoccupied with it. She looked at me and gave a polite smile, then continued eating her dinner. It was at this point that Vanya and I both decided that, all things considered, we might as well eat the unexpected centerpiece that came floating in the middle of our beef stew and that we had previously ignored: a rectangular block of congealed pigs blood (we asked). At this particular cafe it was similar in size and consistency to an average block of tofu, and grayish-purple. I ate about half of it. At the end of our meal, the woman/owner/chef took our leftover side-dish of bean sprouts and greens dumped them back in with the "fresh" bean sprouts and greens. All in all, this meal was unsatisfactory.

I am aware of the fact that I am painting an altogether nasty picture of Nah Trang. This is unfair to the city, because it's not all bad and I think I was particularly inclined to dislike it: we have a limited time-frame and I hated to waste even a part of it there, I was sick and therefore not in a position to really see the town, our hotel may have been out of the central district, etc. And the city really does have redeeming qualities to it. We spent two full days in Nah Trang and did enjoy parts of it. One full day was spent reclining and reading under palapas on a partially privatized beach-front, sipping fruit juice and eating ice cream. The second day was spent on a snorkeling day-trip to some outlying islands, with visibility of around 50 feet, many fish, and a white and black spotted eel-snake. But, as I have explained, there were reasons that we left the city early.

That said, Mui Ne has redeemed the frustrations of Nah Trang. Mui Ne is not really a city, or even a town for that matter; it is as a 14 mile beach, with small areas of development along with a few undeveloped tracts. The South China Sea is to our east, there is one main road, and to the west the road are miles and miles of sand dunes. Our first day in town, we rented a Honda motor-scooter and made for Fairy Springs, a walkable river (ankle deep) that serves as a trail to hike into the dunes. Our tour guide was an knowledgeable 12 year old Vietnamese boy who spoke english and tracked us down after we incorrectly started up a path that ran alongside the river. "River ok, river ok." I had never seen sand dunes prior to this, and where there are cross-sections cut by the river the stratified sands show a variety of sand-types and colors. The hike ended at a waterfall, which was nice -- it is really, really hot in Mui Ne. Almost too hot. Vanya and I are both taking doxycycline as an anti-malarial drug, which has the unfortunate effect of making us both more sensitive to sunlight. Whereas Vanya has still been tanning nicely, I have been turning into a leopard by applying sunscreen incorrectly.

Anyway, after the hike we hopped back on the motor-scooter and headed about ten miles out of town on a winding, coastal highway that was virtually empty of traffic. There were rolling dunes that gradually changed color throughout the drive -- red to yellow to gray -- and, incongruously, large herds of cows and goats that periodically blocked the road. What are you doing here? I thought to myself. You are in the desert and you are lost... On the way back into town we stopped off at one of the red dunes to try our hand at the much-hyped sand-sledding. It was as fun as sand-sledding could be, but marred by the fact that we were literally attacked by young Vietnamese kids trying to rent us their sleds for prices that we would "decide later, decide later." I chose the sled from the cutest little girl I could find... and then I met Chang. Chang was a young boy who was upset that I had not chosen his sled, and spent the rest of the trip calling me "f***ing stupid" and yelling to me that he was going to make my motor-scooter "dangerous" and that, in a variety of ways, I was "going to die." This continued our entire trip. All the other kids were really, really nice, but Chang has a lot to learn about customer service. At the end of the day, however, I reigned victorious over him. As soon as we arrived back at the rental shop I told on him. He tried to hide behind his friends, but I tracked him down and pointed him out to the owner of the rental shop. Busted.

Today Vanya and I tried wind-surfing for the first time, and we did as first-timers do. We fell a lot, got back up, fell again, were stung by some nasty jelly-fish (as a side note, I detest jelly-fish. They are despicable creatures. I only wish they tasted better, so that they might suffer the same fate as everything else from the sea that tastes good), and toward the end of our lesson, we sort of wind-surfed. Like all board-sports wind-surfing is frustrating and exhausting to learn, with the additional difficulty of having to switch from a normal to "goofy" stance when on different tacks. But it was a lot of fun, and we may do it again. One of the more enjoyable things about Mui Ne is that it is a wind-surfing and kite-surfing mecca of southeast asia. Over the course of the day -- roughly 10 AM to 3 PM -- the wind develops from a light breeze to 20-25 mph. This happens every day, on cue. The kite-surfers are amazing. Over the next five years I will become a kite-surfer, I am resolute about this (as resolute as I can be for a sport that costs a cool couple thousand to break into). The last two evenings we have watched the day turn to dusk while sitting on the beach, cradling Saigon beers, ooh-ing and ahh-ing as the kite-surfers and wind-surfers do spectacular tricks that often result in truly spectacular crashes. This is our routine in Mui Ne.

Next stop is Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) and the Mekong Delta.

P.S. As it is late October, there is something that I have had on my mind and for which I would appreciate feedback. The question: what should my costume be for trick-or-treating in Cambodia? Please keep in mind that nobody in Cambodia celebrates Halloween. Nor will anyone understand when I knock on their door with a mask on, yelling "TRICK-OR-TREAT!" and asking for candy. I cannot emphasize enough how scary this will be -- for me, as well as them -- as there are going to be enormous cultural gaps to overcome; Halloween is complicated. And the costume can't be too elaborate, since I'm probably not going to get very much candy, anyway.