Vung Tau: a touch of Europe in Vietnam

It is a small quiet oil town located in South Vietnam at the tip of a small peninsula. The name VungTau means anchorage, it was known as a swamp town for the ship stops during 14th and 15th centuries. 140 km sq has around 250 000 inhabitants, some of them is fisherman, work in oil industry, and also some Russian community who have been there for a log time ago. They work for the joint operating Oil Company.
VungTau is also wellknown for the tourism, with its extensive and beautiful 2 beaches, called front beach, where people go for seightseeing and back beach, where people go for swimming. It also has a huge statue of Jesus Christ, standing on top of the hill, overlooking the front beach. The statue made of white rock, with some room and stairway to top, a park and stair way was built to the statue.
We took a ferry from Saigon and took us around 2 hours for the trip, around 130km. The ferries are operated by 2 companies and cost us around 75000 vnd per person (around 5USD) and run back and forth 3-4 times during the day.
It was cloudy and raining a bit on the way, I as so sleepy but couldn’t sleep during the ride. We arrived in front beach around 11 am and the office drivers picked us up and dropped us to the staff house. Novi went to the office and left me alone. My plan is to go to see the statue of Jesus and maybe ride the bike around the city.
So, without wasting too much time, I went to the direction of the statue, there were almost no people or vehicles wandering around the street, very different condition compares to Saigon, which is too crowded with people and mostly with motorbikes.
The streets were huge, empty, well built. It reminds me of infrastructure in intercity highway in Europe, just if the weather is not this tropical-hot weather, maybe I will mistaken it as a small town in Europe. The trees and parks were so well maintained, as well as the beach that is very clean. But again, almost nobody around, maybe because of the hot weather and on weekday. I walked and walked along the beach, it was a bit uphill. Then I went inside the park of the statue and found that ahead of me, pile of stairways lead to the statue. So I walked and rested and walked again. The wind was blowing not too much, but very relieving for a hot day like this. Several times, there were couples that climb up, teasing each other, and none of them, even the girls, who showed a tiredness climbing the stairs. I was wondering how strong those Vietnamese ladies. Some small groups of tourists’ form of middle aged men and women, which I guessed that they came either from Hong Kong or South Korea.
The stair way was decorated in some points by some sculpture of angels and churches characters as Mary and Joseph. There are some small parks for resting with some chair, overlooking the beach. Decorated and bordered by bougainvillea and other flower plants.
Finally I reach the statue, which is a moderate sized room, inside there is a seller of church’s accessories. I went up and up through a circled stairway. As I climbed up and up, I feel scared, a bit silly since I know that the stair is safe and there were some children who even run down and up fast. But my anxiety of height made me suffered. But I push myself to keep climbing and finally, after being cramped up with 3 other tourists who seemed confused whether they want to stay up or go down, I managed to come out of the shoulder. From this point we can see to the beach and sea or to see back to the town. There was 1 old guy who asked me to take a picture of him, which turned out to be rather difficult, since the space for both of us is very limited. I tried to take his picture with some part of statue and the beach, so that the picture will not reveal only him with the sky as the background. I showed to him the result to see if he pleased with my effort, but no expression could I read from his face. I hoped he understood that I already tried my best.

After a while I decided to go down, which is, again because my fear of height, made it a bit difficult task. I went down very slowly, and sometimes need to stop and take a breath. There was another old man behind me, and seemed that he was a bit upset since this silly girl took ages to go down. I am sorry grandpa, but I can’t do any better than this.

Arrived back at the leg, then I went out and met another stairway to back to the street and walking back again along the beach. I met a group of people taking a scene for a movie, my guess. There was a cute guy, driving a cool car very slowly and each time, the other person shouted at him to stop and asked him to repeat the driving. So complicated.

I arrived back to the staff house, after meeting a fruit seller and bought a half-raw mango, which tastes so nice for this hot weather. I managed to open the gate and enter the park, but my unlucky thing that I couldn’t get the main door opened; I knocked and knocked, but nobody around. So I waited and went to the back door, but no avail.
After sometime, I became impatient and decided to walk out again; the entire plan to bike was destroyed. I walked to the other direction, which apparently should lead me to the town center, but instead I was turning back to the beachside. The sun was very hot and burning, seemed that I am the only person who was crazy enough to walk under the sun, without any clear destination. I stopped in one small stall and fetch myself a (More precisely – half) Vietnamese sandwich, filled with ham, which tasted very very delicious.
After a while, I decided to go back, feel that I will not find anything interesting ahead and the sun was too hot.
I went back expecting somebody is already in the house, but still none’s around. I waited and waited, sat in the chair of the gazebo. I slept and woke up again, and felt asleep again.

Finnaly I heard a sound of the main gate was opened, I was so thrilled, finally, somebody’s coming!. I rushed to the gate and met a guy, then without any explanation I shouted at him “ could you please open the door for me?”
He was so startled and confused, which after I knew him, he told me that he was surprised and thought that I was a crazy-lost person who has broken into the house.
But he still opened the door for me, so I can enter the house, fresh myself. He is Novi’s friend at the office who stays in the same house. After that I didn’t have any interest to go out of the house again, instead I watch the movie.
In the evening, Novi asked me to go for the dinner with her colleagues in a seafood restaurant called bamboo.
There were around 20 people there, the place was nice, it was outdoor venue, unluckily it was raining in the middle of the dinner, and so we have to move inside.
The people were friendly, just similar as my colleagues back in balikpapan. They talked and teased each other, and I merely the spectator since I am the new guy and barely know them.
The food was great, they served usual Vietnamese spring roll which we have to make it our self, contains the deep fried fish, boiled crab, snail, a type of clamp, vegetables and cold beer. They taught me to cheer in Vietnamese..”mot, hai, bai” which literally means one-two-three.
Then we went back home after the dinner finished with fresh fruits course.

In the morning, it was raining heavily; I planned to go back to Saigon with a 10 am ferry. So I fetched a taxi, which deliver me to the ferry port. From there, I bought the ticket, the ferry was not full with passengers, and barely a quarter of the seats are occupied. I slept during the trip and finally arrived back to Saigon. The very different town compared to VungTau. VungTau with all the scenic and quiet landscape, where you hardly saw other people around. The houses was so well built. The greenery area is well maintained and a lot. The road was huge and good. The hilly part was ample and beautiful, and not mentioning the extensive beaches it has. I heard also that it is famous for golfing.

Quite a close escape out of the hectic town on weekend.