How it happened.
I wasn’t meant to be in Phan Thiet. I booked my accommodation thinking I was going to Phan Rang–Tháp Chàm further north, but after I realised my mistake, I couldn’t bring myself to cancel the booking as I’d had such a lovely conversation with the host as I was making the booking. Quyen was indeed wonderful, bringing me fruit a couple of days a week when she came by to manage the garden. We didn’t always meet. Like many of the residents of Phan Thiet, she was an early riser, which is not my style. In fact the locals were selling their fruit, meat and veg on the street (some of them literally on the street) from 6am., so they were mostly packing up when I went out for breakfast at 10.
That didn’t stop them from chatting with me though and it became a running story that one of the aunties wanted to become my wife.
This friendly ribbing continued throughout my time in the town with locals trying to perfect my chopsticks and spoon technique, helping me to get up and off the small stools at the roadside cafes and correcting the way I said xin chào – the Vietnamese for hello.
A memorable meeting.
I began to find my way around the neighbourhood, the small shop (someone’s front room) that sold the bottled sparkling water I prefer, the breakfast cafes and where I could go for lunch, each place welcomed me with a smile and sometimes a few words of English.
One day as the usual hellos, I got a good morning in perfect English with a twinge of a US accent. I turned back to find out more. Jo was from Louisiana and it was his first trip back to Vietnam, where he was born over 50 years ago. He was brought up around the corner but he moved to the States when he was a one-year old so doesn’t remember anything about the neighbourhood. We didn’t talk much that morning as I was in a hurry to get to my favourite breakfast restaurant before it closed, but hoped I would see him again for a longer chat.
That came towards the end of the stay. One evening when I was on my way to a beach-side bar, my Louisiana acquaintance stopped me and offered me a beer, so of course I said yes and got into a bit of a conversation with Jo and his friends. Seems that he moved from Vietnam with his family because his father was in the military in Southern Vietnam during the war. At the end of the US presence there, the family moved to the States. Jo has been in Vietnam for eight months, exploring the country and has recently made the decision to live in Phan Thiet full time. He is in the middle of a difficult process of getting his partner and belongings moved over from the States, but was excited about the direction his life is taking.
One of his female friends asked if I was married or single … I thought for a moment she might be interested – but it was for her mother, who it seems is 65. I demurred and made my way to the bar.
A bit of a mystery tour.
Although Phan Thiet was a fairly small town and I was in a very locals area, there were plenty of eating and drinking options around me. I enjoyed getting to know them all, for example knowing that the ‘café’ with the yellow stools did a more mixed pho than the ‘café’ with the red stools. Sitting outside at the yellow stools place I noticed that the bus out of town stopped near a road junction and seemed to be heading towards the beach area of Mui Ne about a 30 minute ride away. So one morning I decided to try it myself. I had worked out that the buses passed every 20 minutes so I wouldn’t have to wait long. Once it arrived I said, ‘Mui Ne’ to the conductor and he wrote down what he needed (30,000 dong / less than £1) and I sat back to enjoy the ride.
Of course I had no idea where I was going, but just followed Google Maps until it showed me that the road was getting close to the sea.
I got off in what seemed like a likely spot, plenty of cafes and souvenir shops – but very few people around and I soon understood why. For some reason the temperature was far higher here than in the town and I had to run for cover almost immediately which was not so easy as virtually all the cafes I had spotted from the bus window were closed. I did find one that seemed open, but no-one was there to serve me, so I just sat and gathered my thoughts and then tried to walk down to the beach. Again not easy.
Most of the beach facing side of the street was covered by hotels and resorts and access to the beach was for patrons only. Eventually though I did find a little alleyway which opened out into a road and walked down to a virtually deserted beach. A stall selling coconuts was open for a refreshing drink (at an exorbitant price) and I didn’t spend much time there – it was coming up to midday and the heat was rising. I’m not much of a beach person and I didn’t want to die of sunstroke there, so I walked back into the town and waited a while for a bus back – hoping it would pick me up randomly on the road … it did.
This time the logistics of getting back were more difficult as I didn’t know the name of my drop-off point. In the end I decided to say I was going to Phan Thiet centre and was charged a bit more for my trouble – 36,000 dong or just over £1. Then where to get off? I tried to make sense of where my junction was from Google Maps and thought I had nailed it, but by the time I had indicated to the conductor that I wanted off the bus, we had travelled some distance. I crossed the road and realised that I was really unsure which way to go. Google Maps was having difficulty finding me and there were no landmarks that I recognised. In the end I decided to get a Grab (the local ride hailing app) back to my lodgings and after a few minutes one arrived. I was embarrassed. The ride took less than two minutes. I was probably dropped off closer to my place than when I got on, I just didn’t realise it.
Another brief trip and time to leave.
My second journey of trust occurred just before I was leaving the town, when I went to take some photos of the fishing boats further up the river. A man on a boat gestured for me to come on board and not knowing what might happen, I did so. He took me out on a little tour of the harbour area, and I got to see and smell the fish being unloaded from boats a little further down the quay. The trip only took five minutes or so and he didn’t want any money for it, but it was a highlight for this normally inland-living ‘boy.’
And all too soon it was over. My host brought me the most succulent mangoes I have ever tasted, and the neighbourhood cat who had always been very shy came and stretched out on my porch as I had a final coffee in the dark. The next morning it was an early bus journey up to the town of Da Lat for a very different sort of experience.
Phan Thiet shouldn’t have happened, but it has been etched on my memory in the most delightful way. It’s somewhere I will recommend to anyone who wants to visit small-town Vietnam.
