first off we had pho at a place called pho 2000. (clinton ate here on his visit to vietnam.) it's a bit more expensive ($1.33 USD) than the other places i've had pho, but the broth here was by far the most amazing and tasty that i've had anywhere. the basil was a bit of a let down (not as flavorfull as i'd like) and all the meat was pre-cooked (i prefer having rare beef), but still it was a super tasty bowl of pho.
another great place we went to was hoavien. man after a month of travel this place was a godsend. they brew all their own beer and they have a really really yummy dark lager on tap. they also have a unique system of serving it that i've never seen before. aside from ordering different sized glasses (i had two half liter glasses, each only $1.66 USD) you can order one to five liters of beer. then they fill a 3 foot tall thick glass cylinder with a brass base that has a beer spout on it and bring it to your table so you and your friends can refill your own glasses at will. while here we also snacked on deep fried cheese served with boiled potatoes, sliced tomatoes, and sour cream.... mmmm....
after drinking at hoavener we got dinner at bo tung xeo (where we had a tasty beef dish that we grilled at our table) and commenced to do a small pub crawl
that didn't go as planned. one of the bars on the crawl we couldn't find, another really really sucked, and we ended up spending all our time at sheridans irish pub. it's a really small joint but it has a good irish pub feel and some really good beers on tap. apparently it's been around for over 12 years. there was also a large band of locals playing and singing classic irish and americana songs, and doing a suprisingly good job at it. needless to say, we went home pretty happy from here.
Documenting (occasionally) the ramblings and ravings of Edward Pilatowicz since May 2004
July 9, 2005
July 8, 2005
one night in Mui Ne
mui ne is a small beach town and we arrived there yesterday, by bus, around 2pm in the pissing rain.
once we quickly checked into a place, we went for a walk on the beach. we ended up going to jibes where i rented a surfboard for half an hour while ronda sipped some drinks. the waves were really small when i started and the rain and wind only got heavier untill it was all blown out and i gave up.
after that we wandered around mui ne to look for some dinner. mui ne is basically a long beach, with a bunch of small hotels spread out on it. past the hotels is a single road that parallels the beach, and past that are a few resturants and not much else. we walked around till we found sheridans irish pub, which turned out to be a bad hotel bar blasting vietnamese pop music, so we left there quickly. we ended up having a decent dinner at the forest resturant. mui ne is not known for its food.
we called it an early night and got up the next morning to get some ocean time before leaving. the rain had passed during the night, but the waves weren't any good for surfing so i just played around for an hour in the water trying to body surf. all i managed to do was get tossed around and get a sunburn. after that we cleaned up and hopped on another tourist bus heading to saigon at around 2pm.
once we quickly checked into a place, we went for a walk on the beach. we ended up going to jibes where i rented a surfboard for half an hour while ronda sipped some drinks. the waves were really small when i started and the rain and wind only got heavier untill it was all blown out and i gave up.
after that we wandered around mui ne to look for some dinner. mui ne is basically a long beach, with a bunch of small hotels spread out on it. past the hotels is a single road that parallels the beach, and past that are a few resturants and not much else. we walked around till we found sheridans irish pub, which turned out to be a bad hotel bar blasting vietnamese pop music, so we left there quickly. we ended up having a decent dinner at the forest resturant. mui ne is not known for its food.
we called it an early night and got up the next morning to get some ocean time before leaving. the rain had passed during the night, but the waves weren't any good for surfing so i just played around for an hour in the water trying to body surf. all i managed to do was get tossed around and get a sunburn. after that we cleaned up and hopped on another tourist bus heading to saigon at around 2pm.
July 7, 2005
drinking in dalat
we've had some really good and really bad drinking here.
first the bad... we asked around and managed to find a bia hoi. they served a locally brewed lager beer for which i can't remember the name. well, regardless of it's real name me and ronda nicknamed it bia ass. the reason is that it smelled like sewer. literally. i was really excited when we found the place and i immediatly ordered a pitcher of beer. we got it and started drinking, and then we realized that it smelled really really bad. at first i thought that the cup and/or pitcher had been washed in sewer water. (not an uncommon practice.) or even that a joke had been played on us by the staff. but the staff was not laughing and the serving ware was not being washed in the gutter. we ended up leaving the rest of the pitcher on the table and going to dinner with the hope that we wouldn't be sick. then the next day, we were on a day trip and went to a small resturant. i ordered a beer with lunch, and low and behold, they brought out a bottle of the same beer. this time i smelled my glass first and realized that it was just the beer that was stinky. it was funny because the beer tasted fine. (most lagers don't have much of a taste in my opinion anyway.) but the damn thing still smelled like rotting shit, which makes it a bit hard to drink.
now onto the good drinking. there's a bar called saigon nite in dalat, and if you're in town you should drop by. the drinks are resonably priced (not bia hoi prices, but resonable) and the owner rocks. i got my ass kicked repeatedly at connect four. i was trying really hard to win and he wasn't even paying attention. i lost about 95 games and tied about 5. (he was actually a few pieces short of a complete connect 4 set and this really helped me tie a few games.) we also played a bunch of connect five, which is completly unlike connect four, and i fared a little better at this. while i was busy getting my ass kicked, ronda discovered his guest book in which many people warned of his "mad connect four skills." a really friendly guy in a pretty low key bar. we stopped by there three times for night caps and ass woopins.
first the bad... we asked around and managed to find a bia hoi. they served a locally brewed lager beer for which i can't remember the name. well, regardless of it's real name me and ronda nicknamed it bia ass. the reason is that it smelled like sewer. literally. i was really excited when we found the place and i immediatly ordered a pitcher of beer. we got it and started drinking, and then we realized that it smelled really really bad. at first i thought that the cup and/or pitcher had been washed in sewer water. (not an uncommon practice.) or even that a joke had been played on us by the staff. but the staff was not laughing and the serving ware was not being washed in the gutter. we ended up leaving the rest of the pitcher on the table and going to dinner with the hope that we wouldn't be sick. then the next day, we were on a day trip and went to a small resturant. i ordered a beer with lunch, and low and behold, they brought out a bottle of the same beer. this time i smelled my glass first and realized that it was just the beer that was stinky. it was funny because the beer tasted fine. (most lagers don't have much of a taste in my opinion anyway.) but the damn thing still smelled like rotting shit, which makes it a bit hard to drink.
now onto the good drinking. there's a bar called saigon nite in dalat, and if you're in town you should drop by. the drinks are resonably priced (not bia hoi prices, but resonable) and the owner rocks. i got my ass kicked repeatedly at connect four. i was trying really hard to win and he wasn't even paying attention. i lost about 95 games and tied about 5. (he was actually a few pieces short of a complete connect 4 set and this really helped me tie a few games.) we also played a bunch of connect five, which is completly unlike connect four, and i fared a little better at this. while i was busy getting my ass kicked, ronda discovered his guest book in which many people warned of his "mad connect four skills." a really friendly guy in a pretty low key bar. we stopped by there three times for night caps and ass woopins.
eating in dalat
dalat has been great for food.
when we got there we went to the central market, which had indoor, outdoor, and covered sections. the upstairs of the indoor section was all food stalls, and here i had some ok pho. (but not great.) eventually, i found some really good pho at a little place on the walk from our hotel to the market. it was great shop and i went there once a day. the pho was really good. all the right spices, and a mixture of raw and cooked beef. interestingly enough, the pho resturant also had really tasty coffee. unlike other places, here when they served the coffee, they also provided a plastic glass of hot water that you could place your coffee glass into to keep it warm.
this was also the first place i found some banh mi that i really liked. the rolls were fresh and light and i had them filled with some butter, cilantro, shredded carrot and some white stuff (also shreadded and i'm not sure what it was) cooked pork or chicked, and pork crack (i'm not sure what the stuff is really named, but this is the nick name my roomate gave it, it's pork that has been made into a really light, almost crystaline, hair like structure.) this was finished off with some really spicy chili sauce. the banh mi were different from the ones back home in that the amount of fillings was really small and the rolls were very light, so i would usually eat at least two during the day. but this was ok since they were only about $0.25 USD a piece. the banh mi shops where also pastry shops that had both sweet and savory pastries that we also picked up. ronda really liked the small, light angel food cake pastries that were an excellent coffee snack.
lastly we decided to splurge and go to the most expensive resturant in dalat that we knww of, Le Rabelais in the sophitel hotel. we had the place to ourselves most the night with our own personal piano player (who i assumed was actually tape until i saw him at the end of the night.) there were two fixed menu's for the evening, ronda got the one for $19 USD and i got the one for $32. the reason i got the more expensive one was because it had cheese course. the cheese course was a bit of a sad joke. i had some tasteless brie, a piece of a slice of roquefort from a plastic container, some munster, some boursin, and (the best cheese on the plate) some ok reblochon. i felt a small tremor when the served it to me... i think it was caused by every dead frenchman in the world rolling over in their graves. but the cheese plate aside the dinner wasn't all horrible. the deserts and apetizers were just ok, and the main courses were actually pretty good. i had duck (and it was served pratically rare) with lots of fresh vegetables, mashed potates, and an interesting pepper sauce. ronda had some pork in a mustard sauce with veggies and potatoes as well. dalat is known for growing vegetables and the ones we got were great. a nice variety, very fresh, and not over prepared.
when we got there we went to the central market, which had indoor, outdoor, and covered sections. the upstairs of the indoor section was all food stalls, and here i had some ok pho. (but not great.) eventually, i found some really good pho at a little place on the walk from our hotel to the market. it was great shop and i went there once a day. the pho was really good. all the right spices, and a mixture of raw and cooked beef. interestingly enough, the pho resturant also had really tasty coffee. unlike other places, here when they served the coffee, they also provided a plastic glass of hot water that you could place your coffee glass into to keep it warm.
this was also the first place i found some banh mi that i really liked. the rolls were fresh and light and i had them filled with some butter, cilantro, shredded carrot and some white stuff (also shreadded and i'm not sure what it was) cooked pork or chicked, and pork crack (i'm not sure what the stuff is really named, but this is the nick name my roomate gave it, it's pork that has been made into a really light, almost crystaline, hair like structure.) this was finished off with some really spicy chili sauce. the banh mi were different from the ones back home in that the amount of fillings was really small and the rolls were very light, so i would usually eat at least two during the day. but this was ok since they were only about $0.25 USD a piece. the banh mi shops where also pastry shops that had both sweet and savory pastries that we also picked up. ronda really liked the small, light angel food cake pastries that were an excellent coffee snack.
lastly we decided to splurge and go to the most expensive resturant in dalat that we knww of, Le Rabelais in the sophitel hotel. we had the place to ourselves most the night with our own personal piano player (who i assumed was actually tape until i saw him at the end of the night.) there were two fixed menu's for the evening, ronda got the one for $19 USD and i got the one for $32. the reason i got the more expensive one was because it had cheese course. the cheese course was a bit of a sad joke. i had some tasteless brie, a piece of a slice of roquefort from a plastic container, some munster, some boursin, and (the best cheese on the plate) some ok reblochon. i felt a small tremor when the served it to me... i think it was caused by every dead frenchman in the world rolling over in their graves. but the cheese plate aside the dinner wasn't all horrible. the deserts and apetizers were just ok, and the main courses were actually pretty good. i had duck (and it was served pratically rare) with lots of fresh vegetables, mashed potates, and an interesting pepper sauce. ronda had some pork in a mustard sauce with veggies and potatoes as well. dalat is known for growing vegetables and the ones we got were great. a nice variety, very fresh, and not over prepared.
July 6, 2005
around dalat
today we took a motorbike daytrip tour outside dalat.
we got a couple drivers, recommended by the woman who runs our hotel, who spoke really good english to take us to some of the villigaes outside dalat.
by far, the most interesting part of the trip was seeing how silk is produced. starting at a farm where they raise larva up to the cucoon stage and then sell them to a factory where they take apart the cucoons and spin them into silk threads.
past that, we got to see two really nice waterfalls. one of them we had to hike to, and of course the hike was on the same slippery clay as our previous hikes, so of course i bailed really good and smeared brown clay all over my rear end. needless to say, it looked like i soiled my pants horribly and i was getting good laughs from random strangers for the rest of the day.
we also went to a mushroom farm where we saw how they grew wood ear mushrooms for market.
the ride back got interesting because we managed to kill two bikes. ronda's driver had a chinese motor bike. these bikes are known for being cheap, in all sensed of the word. well, as it happens, the bike overheated while climbing back up the mountain to dalat. so our drivers flagged some random stranger down and got him to take ronda. this was going fine until his rear tire blew out. after that, my driver took ronda back to our hotel while i started to hoof it back. after a short while, the driver with the chinese bike caught up with me (since he had gotten a bottle of water which he used to cool down his bike) and gave me a ride back to the hotel.
another interesting thing i learned here is that the goverment doesn't allow anyone to have bikes bigger than 150cc. only the police can have bigger bikes. earlier i was suprised by how small some of the bikes i've seen here are. (i think the smallest i've seen here is 50cc, which is unbelievably tiny.)
we got a couple drivers, recommended by the woman who runs our hotel, who spoke really good english to take us to some of the villigaes outside dalat.
by far, the most interesting part of the trip was seeing how silk is produced. starting at a farm where they raise larva up to the cucoon stage and then sell them to a factory where they take apart the cucoons and spin them into silk threads.
past that, we got to see two really nice waterfalls. one of them we had to hike to, and of course the hike was on the same slippery clay as our previous hikes, so of course i bailed really good and smeared brown clay all over my rear end. needless to say, it looked like i soiled my pants horribly and i was getting good laughs from random strangers for the rest of the day.
we also went to a mushroom farm where we saw how they grew wood ear mushrooms for market.
the ride back got interesting because we managed to kill two bikes. ronda's driver had a chinese motor bike. these bikes are known for being cheap, in all sensed of the word. well, as it happens, the bike overheated while climbing back up the mountain to dalat. so our drivers flagged some random stranger down and got him to take ronda. this was going fine until his rear tire blew out. after that, my driver took ronda back to our hotel while i started to hoof it back. after a short while, the driver with the chinese bike caught up with me (since he had gotten a bottle of water which he used to cool down his bike) and gave me a ride back to the hotel.
another interesting thing i learned here is that the goverment doesn't allow anyone to have bikes bigger than 150cc. only the police can have bigger bikes. earlier i was suprised by how small some of the bikes i've seen here are. (i think the smallest i've seen here is 50cc, which is unbelievably tiny.)
July 4, 2005
hiking around dalat
we just finished a two day hiking, one night "camping" trip around dalat
it was an organized tour done via phat tire ventures. the hike we did was called jungle fever. it was a two day, one night hike that went through some varried terrain. we went through pine forests, jungle, and pushed our way through lots of tall ferns and reeds.
one of the difficult parts of the hike was that when you weren't in the jungle the trail you were hiking on was mostly hard damp clay, so there was a lot of slipping going on. i took a couple really good bails and a lot of close calls.
to make a bad situation worse, it also seems that they are compleatly unfamiliar with the concept of switchbacks here, so when there was a serious hill to climb you would simply go strait up it on the slippery clay trail. good luck. for the second day they gave us walking sticks since they could see we were struggeling.
another interesting thing we learned was that there are leecehs in the jungles. they're not like leeches i'm familiar with from movies and novels. they look like little worms, about an inch long, and pretty narrow. (about 1/16 of an inch.) they gave us some extra large "socks" to protect us from the leeches. we put these new "socks" over our hiking socks and into our boots. they came up to our knees and after putting them on we smeared the exposed outside of these "socks" with some ointment that would stop the leeches from crawling up past the top of the "socks."
the night was supposed to be spent "camping", and it was... kinda. we spent the night in a tent, on a concrete slab, under a large thatch umbrella. we were staying at a lakeside "resort" where there were lots of concrete slabs for people to sleep on. each of the slabs was protected by a large thatch umbrella, which was handy since it was raining most the night. the resort also had a large central building with no walls, just a really big thatch roof, that served as a dining area. we had dinner and breakfast here. they also (thank god) had a small store where we could buy over priced canned beer.
lastly, the resort had a bunch of "pets." their "pets" were a couple elephants which you could pay to ride. instead me and ronda bought a couple bunches of bananas and fed them instead. i've never been that close to an animal that big. the larger of the two was almost twice as tall as me. it was pretty cool. they also had a couple cages with monkeys in them that looked pretty sad. we tried to feed the monkeys bananas only to discover they weren't interested and all they really wanted was grass. they had already eaten all the grass they could reach so ronda went around ripping up grass else where and feeding it to them. the last entry to the "pets" collection was a couple horses that ronda of course said "hi" too.
we also had a pretty good hiking guide that spoke resonable english. we spent a good bit of time talking to him about vietnam and we had some good conversations.
we got done with the hike just in time since it started ito rain really heavily on our drive back to dalat. needless to say we were quite tired afterwards. (we spent the day before the hike biking around dalat, which is a pretty hilly town, so we were already tired and sore when we got started.)
it was an organized tour done via phat tire ventures. the hike we did was called jungle fever. it was a two day, one night hike that went through some varried terrain. we went through pine forests, jungle, and pushed our way through lots of tall ferns and reeds.
one of the difficult parts of the hike was that when you weren't in the jungle the trail you were hiking on was mostly hard damp clay, so there was a lot of slipping going on. i took a couple really good bails and a lot of close calls.
to make a bad situation worse, it also seems that they are compleatly unfamiliar with the concept of switchbacks here, so when there was a serious hill to climb you would simply go strait up it on the slippery clay trail. good luck. for the second day they gave us walking sticks since they could see we were struggeling.
another interesting thing we learned was that there are leecehs in the jungles. they're not like leeches i'm familiar with from movies and novels. they look like little worms, about an inch long, and pretty narrow. (about 1/16 of an inch.) they gave us some extra large "socks" to protect us from the leeches. we put these new "socks" over our hiking socks and into our boots. they came up to our knees and after putting them on we smeared the exposed outside of these "socks" with some ointment that would stop the leeches from crawling up past the top of the "socks."
the night was supposed to be spent "camping", and it was... kinda. we spent the night in a tent, on a concrete slab, under a large thatch umbrella. we were staying at a lakeside "resort" where there were lots of concrete slabs for people to sleep on. each of the slabs was protected by a large thatch umbrella, which was handy since it was raining most the night. the resort also had a large central building with no walls, just a really big thatch roof, that served as a dining area. we had dinner and breakfast here. they also (thank god) had a small store where we could buy over priced canned beer.
lastly, the resort had a bunch of "pets." their "pets" were a couple elephants which you could pay to ride. instead me and ronda bought a couple bunches of bananas and fed them instead. i've never been that close to an animal that big. the larger of the two was almost twice as tall as me. it was pretty cool. they also had a couple cages with monkeys in them that looked pretty sad. we tried to feed the monkeys bananas only to discover they weren't interested and all they really wanted was grass. they had already eaten all the grass they could reach so ronda went around ripping up grass else where and feeding it to them. the last entry to the "pets" collection was a couple horses that ronda of course said "hi" too.
we also had a pretty good hiking guide that spoke resonable english. we spent a good bit of time talking to him about vietnam and we had some good conversations.
we got done with the hike just in time since it started ito rain really heavily on our drive back to dalat. needless to say we were quite tired afterwards. (we spent the day before the hike biking around dalat, which is a pretty hilly town, so we were already tired and sore when we got started.)
July 1, 2005
night in Nha Trang
so we spent last night in nha trang
nha trang is a big beach town and we weren't really planning on spending much time there. we got in around 7pm after almost 12 hours on the bus.
during the bus ride i managed to finish reading the gulag. a very imformative, well researched, and well written book that i really enjoyed. it took me a while to finish since i started reading the book on this trip. i learned a lot about russian history that i never new before.
once in nha trang we tried to go to an italian resturant recommended in our guide book only to find it no longer existed, so instead we went to another italian chain resturant called "good morning vietnam." (they have one of these resturants in each of the major towns in vietnam.) the pizza was actually much better than what i was expecting.
we then headed back to our hotel, drank a couple beers, and passed out early since we were waking up at 6am this morning to catch the bus to Dalat. in all we spent about 12 hours in town. in the morning when we were getting ready to leave we chatted with someone else at our hotel who was also going to dalat and he reconed we'd spent about enough time in nha trang.
nha trang is a big beach town and we weren't really planning on spending much time there. we got in around 7pm after almost 12 hours on the bus.
during the bus ride i managed to finish reading the gulag. a very imformative, well researched, and well written book that i really enjoyed. it took me a while to finish since i started reading the book on this trip. i learned a lot about russian history that i never new before.
once in nha trang we tried to go to an italian resturant recommended in our guide book only to find it no longer existed, so instead we went to another italian chain resturant called "good morning vietnam." (they have one of these resturants in each of the major towns in vietnam.) the pizza was actually much better than what i was expecting.
we then headed back to our hotel, drank a couple beers, and passed out early since we were waking up at 6am this morning to catch the bus to Dalat. in all we spent about 12 hours in town. in the morning when we were getting ready to leave we chatted with someone else at our hotel who was also going to dalat and he reconed we'd spent about enough time in nha trang.
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