New friendships

November 23rd - December 15th, 2023

In Hanoi we met Alex again, whom we had met in Tam Coc. Shortly before, she met Elena, also a German solo traveler, in a café, so there were now four of us traveling. The following day we went on a guided tour of the My Son Sanctuary, an ancient temple town from the Cham culture, influenced by Indian culture and built with Hindu beliefs. We were told that this complex was founded in the 2nd - 3rd century and that the towers that are still standing and were not bombed during the Vietnam War were dedicated to Shiva. There really isn't much left of the whole complex. The remains of 71 red-colored sandstone temples were declared a World Heritage Site in 1999. For visual understanding, one could also say that it is similar to Angkor Wat, but this temple complex was only built in the 12th century.

On this trip we also met the solo traveler Martin from near Cologne. Another one more in our gang. We spent a lot of time together over the next few days and learned to make a new Vietnamese coffee every day. Coconut coffee, salt coffee, egg coffee. Everything is so delicious and now we have all the recipes in our luggage for those who stayed at home. Since everyone is not averse to vegetarian food, we attended a vegetarian cooking class together. There were delicious mini spring rolls, coconut vegetable soup with tofu, banana flower salad with mushrooms and tofu chicken, Vietnamese rice pancakes and tofu cookies with tomato sugo. We had a lot of fun strolling through the market with our chef to buy the ingredients we needed and try out new fruits we hadn't seen before. We were able to learn so much while preparing it. It was an all-round successful day with Linh and her fabulous recipes. About two weeks before we arrived in Hoi An, the old town was massively flooded, which probably happens at least once a year. On our penultimate day it was under water again, but not that bad. You had to trudge through knee-high brown water again and again, so everyone had to buy flip flops before their sneakers could never get dry again. The bad weather passed and we drove over the Hai Van Pass together again in our gang: Flo with Alex in the back, Elena with Tine and Martin alone, because he said goodbye on the other side as he continued on to Hué. A day later, Elena, Flo and I also left Hoi An and so did Alex, who was still waiting for her custom-made silk dresses, but they already had plans to meet again. The three of us took the night bus further south to Nha Trang. Yes, and buses of all sizes are also used as package delivery services. Boxes are loaded and unloaded outside of the usual stops, even on buses that are still moving. Sometimes there is a cage with chickens or baby dogs in the seat next to you, or there are huge bags of frozen fish in the hold with your backpack, which unfortunately starts to melt down there. Tine usually doesn't get upset so quickly, she can handle a lot, but she almost puked into her backpack when she took a smell sample to find out where that smell in our hotel room was coming from. Yes, and so it happened that we had to have all of our laundry washed in the hotel. Luckily the backpack didn't take on too much smell because it was stored in the backpack pocket. We spent the day drinking coffee in the hotel room since we had nothing left to wear.

The next three days of sea felt good, frolicking in the big waves, enjoying the sun on the sandy beach and of course a back massage every evening, mhhhh what a terrible life. I think we will also remember this one evening: in Vietnam, in a city with a “somewhat” Russian touch, an Italian restaurant in a maritime style. Nothing matched, but the pizza was terrific.

Once again on the night bus, we arrived in Ho Chi Minh City two hours early, after 8 hours and therefore at 5 a.m., the poor hostel receptionist we rang for. Spaced out, we were allowed to check in to our capsule hotel earlier to catch up on a few more hours of sleep. We had a good night's sleep and celebrated our reunion because Alex had also arrived in HCMC. First go and drink egg coffee and let the city take its effect on you. Unfortunately we had to say goodbye to Elena, whose annual vacation was coming to an end. The three of us drove around Saigon on the famous red city sightseeing buses and then visited the War Remnant Museum. Nothing for weak nerves. You get a very detailed visual insight into the atrocities committed by the Americans, so much so that you visit the hallway several times to take a breath and be able to think clearly. You won't be able to get these images out of your head so quickly.

Somehow this city didn't appeal to us and didn't touch us, so we left earlier and, following a recommendation, went to the Ecoco Homestay in the middle of nowhere in the Mekong Delta. Away from any mass tourism, you sleep either in two-man tents or in small dorms, showers and toilets are open-air round huts and the employed cooks conjure up delicious dishes at lunch and dinner that all travelers enjoyed together at a large table. The owner of this accommodation offers a Mekong boat trip with her brother. Of course we took part in this too. We bobbed on a Mekong arm, collected coconuts that had fallen into the water, Flo and Alex successfully caught two fish with a net, we bought a few shrimp from a passing fisherman, which of course couldn't die yet, so water was put into the canoe. We climbed on their little island, e.g. T. also with a little help up a coconut palm to pick our own coconut. We opened it ourselves with a machete so that we could then drink it and then of course cut it in half and eat the pulp out. This makes coconut taste a little better :-) We crossed the larger arm of the river with a ferry boat just to be able to see the wonderful sunset better. After that, Flo still had to find and dig up manjok and papaya still had to be harvested. But first, take off your clothes and slide through the mud into the Mekong to get the coconut palm bark off your sweaty sunscreen skin. Ahhhh, that felt good. Tine actually didn't want to go into this dirty broth, but we learned that the river has to be so "dirty" because there are nutrients in the bottom mud that the coconut palms need. If the river were to become clearer, that would be a sign that the coconut palms would soon no longer be doing well, which has already happened.

In the meantime, our tour guide wrapped huge torches out of palm branches and lit a campfire. In the dark we ate shrimp and fish fried on sticks and charcoal-grilled manjok. For dessert we had fire-roasted coconut. So everything we had collected together that day. With giant torches in hand, on a pitch-black river, past trees covered in fireflies, we drove back to the accommodation. What a crazy day. The next day it was time to say goodbye to Alex, who continued her journey in New Zealand.

We both thought back and forth for a long time about what to do next. Tine read that there is good snorkeling on Phu Quoc, a Vietnamese island just before the Cambodian border. So let's go. The flight was booked quickly, but which hotel? After two days, Flo wrote to the airline asking whether we could cancel free of charge. We finally came to an agreement. A small beachfront bungalow, terraced house resort with pool for budget on the border. For the first time booking.com pictures matched reality. In words: it was a dream, so on the second day we extended our stay from five nights to eight. Fall asleep and wake up with the sound of the sea. When you wake up, immediately put on your bathing suits and first swim lengths in the pool or let yourself drift in the sea with the morning shallow waves, then enjoy a small, balanced breakfast at the edge of the sea in the small attached restaurant and then do nothing for the time being. In the late afternoon we went back into the sea armed with snorkeling equipment to watch fish and marvel at corals. It wasn't colorful, as the Vietnamese sometimes treat their environment very unpleasantly, but it was still a daily highlight, so we decided against a guided snorkeling tour.

There was very little going on in this great spot with mini-private beach access. Only one other young couple lived next to us and we went on a day trip to Starfish Beach with them. We had already been told about an adventurous trip to this beach. And that was it at all times. Gravel roads and hard-packed sandy ground alternated, always with very deep washouts caused by rain streams. When we arrived at the beach, they immediately wanted to sell us a boat tour to the said section of beach. We preferred to walk. Partly along the super-fine sandy beach, where small starfish precursors and their “skeletons” were lying around. You can't find much reading about this on the Internet, but Tine would have been very interested... And when we waded thigh-deep through the shallow, turquoise water several times, we saw them: endless, huge red-colored starfish. When we arrived at the main beach, we just shook our heads at the tourists who were putting starfish on their heads, shoulders and backs to pose as a great vacation photo model. We first treated ourselves to a cold drink and enjoyed the little spot in the shade a little away. Afterwards we put on our snorkeling equipment and visited the starfish underwater, simply overwhelming. Until now we only knew these small, thin starfish from the North Sea. We discovered a lot of sea urchins and we also found three “nemoid fish”. The route home ran through the jungle with monkeys sitting on the side of the road and was even more adventurous than the journey there. This also involved stretches with lots of loose sand sections, even deeper washouts and were absolutely strenuous for the head. In the evening, when we arrived at the hotel, we treated ourselves to a pool beer and Flo tried out street food with the other two. On the other days we just enjoyed a vacation from the vacation. Don't plan anything (except a day to move on), do nothing and just enjoy life.