338. | Mũi Né and the goulash soup

Every city has something interesting to offer.

You can guess what I got here.

But, let’s go in order.

My arrival

The bus left Đà Lạt very early. It’s not a sleeper bus, so I had some chance to do something during the trip.

Of course, I slept a lot.

We stopped once on the way. That’s when I had the opportunity to discover a small Google Translate translation error.

I didn’t do anything at the stop, just sat next to the bus next to a flower in a meditation pose and enjoyed the sunshine and the music I was listening to.

Then a man squatted next to me. Quite close. I’m used to men expressing their feelings in this country. So I wasn’t surprised when he said with sparkling eyes how handsome I was. In the meantime, he put his hand on my thigh, a little more intimately than we say older members of society usually do.

He asked if I had a problem with being touched. I think the translation went wrong here. I’m quite an extrovert, I have no problem with being touched. So I told him that I had no problem with that. At that point his eyes started to sparkle even more and he suggested that we go to his place then.

I understood exactly what he wanted. I started laughing and told him that I wasn’t going, I was perfectly fine here alone. Maybe the laughter hurt him, but I think it would have been better to pour some water into the glass.

It’s good when people feel free to say what they want. I have nothing to do with that. My job is just to say “no”.

Luckily, I learned this a long time ago, and I’ve had a lot of time to practice recently.

Luckily, I fell asleep on the bus, so I woke up to the fact that I had to get off. Since my place of stay is a little further inland from the main road, it took a lot of confidence to get off in a half-asleep state. And believe me, my accommodation is really where they put me.

It was there.

The accommodation – a slice of home

This current accommodation is a gem.

The yard is like a small Italian cottage. A huge tree gives shade to the entire area. The ground is not concrete or paving stones, but bricks. This gives the whole place a much safer and friendlier feeling.

The room is excellent. Not only is everything in order, but it is furnished like any European room. Small details and useful things all in one. A small air freshener there, a bowl of toothbrushes and toothpaste. Everything is spotlessly clean. The tap is stylish, the sink and mirror are at the right height. The bed does not creak, the lamp in it is super bright.

Shampoo and shower gel are laid out in the sink. I have often experienced that there is a bottle labeled “shampoo” and a bottle labeled “shower gel”, but they all contain the same substance. Well, that is not the case here! Head & Shoulders shampoo(!) and a shower gel with such a coffee scent that I thought I would buy one and carry it around the world, it smells so good.

There is a built-in holder for toiletries under the shower. There is somewhere to put them, you don’t have to pick up toiletries from the floor. In addition, the entire sink is covered with a covering that reveals taste. I love it from the first moment.

There is a living room with an American kitchen. With a kitchen! A watering faucet, a hob, a fridge, a kettle, drawers even on the wall. A hood. Mosaic tiles all over the kitchen counter. Oh my God! I have almost never seen a kitchen like this in the past year…

The living room also has (lacquered) brick cladding, the color of the walls is tasteful. Sofas in the corner. A bookshelf with books. The whole thing is so tasteful. It’s not by chance that I wrote so much about it.

The host lady is very friendly and speaks very good English. When I arrived, she apologized, but they were still sleeping in the room, I couldn’t get in. The bus was very fast, I arrived about 2 hours earlier than the indicated check-in time. I wanted to see the city anyway, so I put down my big backpack and went on my usual exploration tour.

The city

The city has restaurants, shops, and long streets.

I think I’ve listed everything.

And of course the beach. I’ve seen it several times in the past few days. I’ve walked along the shore. But if you’re looking for excitement, this is not the city to choose. Accordingly, I haven’t seen many Westerners in the past few days.

The first day was spent on a long walk. I couldn’t even find a cafe where I could work, so the small Italian courtyard and the excellent American living room remained.

I was completely satisfied with these.

A date

On the second day, I had a Tinder date.

I spent 4.5 hours with a woman after I arrived at the place she suggested in a motorbike taxi.

It doesn’t happen very often to me, but I didn’t talk much for 4.5 hours. You can probably guess who the moderator was.

I learned a lot about how I should live. When will my life be straight if I discover this and that. The basis of the conversation was mainly a lot of thoughts drawn from Hinduism. Some I agreed with, some I knew, but I didn’t have much chance to react.

Two things remained from this date. One, I was surprised by the feelings mentioned in the last post “Conspiracy theories”. I respect and accept other people’s opinions and beliefs. But I don’t need the religious and spiritual decoration that some people put around the world. So next time I won’t give so much time to such a conversation. Especially if it’s not a conversation, but a big teacher-monologue.

I walked home from the school, so I managed to get to know the city for 10 km. At least I enjoyed that.

The other thing I discovered was the Hungarian restaurant.

Pappa Goulash

I was on this date on Tuesday. Tuesday happens to be a holiday at the Hungarian restaurant.

I went back on Wednesday by motorbike taxi, thinking I was going to have goulash soup. And I was talking to the Hungarian owner.

It was half a success that the restaurant was open, but the owner was not there.

I had a hard time ordering. I arrived thinking I was going to have goulash soup. There was so much on the menu that I wanted to eat everything. “Vörösboros marha pörkölt. Paprikás csirke nokedlivel. Túrógombóc. Jókai bableves. Lecsó. Kőrözött…”

In the end, the original plan remained. I got the soup in the small red bowl that is customary in Hungarian cuisine, with beef, carrots and two slices of white bread.

I didn’t miss Hungarian food at all. But I ate it with a very good appetite. It was a real treat after a year. It was just as good as such a soup should be. I could also say that I couldn’t have done it any better. LOL.

We had to stop the motorbike on the way there because there was a downpour. It was at its peak during the meal. My plan was to work at this place. Well, that didn’t work out. The whole place was covered in spite of it. The wind was blowing so hard that everything was constantly covered in water spray. So I just had a coffee and watched the stormy sea. He was 20 meters away from me, I really liked the live show.

Then the owner of the place arrived.

We talked for an hour. I learned that he has lived in Vietnam for 21 years. He has two restaurants, and today (Thursday) I want to visit the other one. (It will be hard to choose…). What really impressed me were the details. Not only the appearance and the food, but the thoroughness with which they work. The bread, for example, was flawless, and I learned that the reason for this is that they bake it. They make their own cottage cheese and sour cream. There’s nothing like that in Asia.

After an hour, we parted ways, happy to have met each other. I wished him good health.

May the sun shine on you!

This is how he said goodbye to me.

I hadn’t even heard this greeting much at home. It was written in my heart…

I officially became a hunter

I decided to walk home that day too. The motorbike took me to the place in the morning on a different road than yesterday. It was exactly the same road as the one I wrote about in the post “Quy Nhơn”.

I had a feeling that there would be a lot of lighters waiting for me here.

I was not wrong! I became richer by 19 small dice today.

On the way, it started raining again. Because of this, I spent some time under the trees along the road. And so, I had to break the lighters, not to mention that I had to pay attention to the road to find them.

It was a nice walk, I really enjoyed this gathering.

Life always shows that what I plan is not the best. Always.

On the way, a very good friend of mine sent me a message:

“I GOT THE JOB!!!”

All I could say to him was, “I’ll make this a little easier.”

We’ve been friends for nearly 30 years. We’ve been there for each other through so many tough times. I know how much and how hard he’s always struggled to get by.

We’ve been talking for the past few weeks as he prepared for a job interview. He trusted and worked. He became uncertain and moved on. It’s going to be a tough task for him. He’s been hired as a manager.

I was so happy about this success. I was so happy that he succeeded that tears really came to my eyes.

Then, as the moment passed, another realization dawned on me.

I’m at home in myself, I know that for sure.

But now I understand that I’m at home in myself and in hearts.

I live in other people’s hearts sometimes. I don’t have to know when or in whom. I’m there, I feel it many times. It’s all that simple. I’m grateful for my life, and for every person who lets me into their heart sometimes.

Friday

I wrote this article on Thursday.

I worked and am getting ready for the Hungarian restaurant.

Tomorrow I will check out a few things that this city usually shows to tourists. My experiences related to this will be posted here soon.

It’s Friday morning. But before the adventures, I have to go back a bit to yesterday.

On the one hand, I missed the Hungarian restaurant. I walked around a lot on Tuesday and Wednesday, I decided I’d rather work until the evening.

I bought my bus ticket and booked my accommodation. The next town I wanted to go to was Vũng Tàu. I’ll skip it. There is no direct flight from here. All I know about the settlement is that it is beautiful, but there is really nothing there. So I decided to go straight to Saigon from here.

This is the end of my 1,800 km trip to Vietnam that lasted 5 weeks. I will be in Saigon until the middle of September, from there I will go to the next country.

“Ninh Binh“, “Phong Nha“, “Huế“, “Da Nang“, “Hoi An“, “Quy Nhơn“, “Tuy Hòa“, “Nha Trang“, “Đà Lạt” and Mũi Né.

10 unforgettable settlements, countless adventures. It was enough. It will be nice to spend a few weeks in one city. I’m not promising myself that I won’t move within the city, but after today’s trip, the next big trip will lead to Cambodia.

The other thing that makes me have to go back a bit to yesterday is a 22-year-old German girl. I got up early, so I was in my bed relatively early (11:00 p.m.). Suddenly someone pulled my curtain. I saw a beautified girl. He apologized but was at a loss. He said that his stomach hurts, he needs to vomit and he doesn’t know what to do.

To be honest, I didn’t even know what to do at this point. However, I could see that he was very upset, so all I could do was calm him down. We talked about this this morning, I apologized for not being able to do more for him, but he was grateful because he said he really needed to calm down.

He is better now, I was happy about that. I told him yesterday that I would be in the room until four in the morning and that he should wake up whenever he needed anything. I wasn’t glad he didn’t wake me up because I wanted to sleep. Good thing we got through the night without a problem.

Four o’clock in the morning

I woke up early. So did one of my roommates. It turned out that the young Swiss guy was also coming for the tour that I woke up for. By the way, the German girl was also going to come for this, but for known reasons she skipped this day.

A real UAZ came to pick us up. I’ve known this car made in the Soviet Union since I was a child. It’s still used in Hungary today, mainly by hunters. It was a great experience to travel in this car.

But that wasn’t the day’s program.

There was a Canadian woman in the car. When she heard that I was Hungarian, she apologized in Hungarian that she didn’t speak Hungarian very well. Her parents are Hungarian, but she only spoke Hungarian with her grandparents. What a coincidence! Hungarian restaurant and a Hungarian descendant within two days.

White Sand Dunes

Our guide took the three of us to the White Sand Dunes. More precisely, to the foot of these, from where they took us up to the top of the sand dune with an ATW. From there we watched the sunrise.

It was beautiful. The whole place was as one imagines a desert to be. Huge sand hills, with sharp edges, a constantly blowing wind. Sand that felt like your feet. Beautiful clouds in the sky, some greenery nearby. With a huge lake behind us, we had everything we needed to paint an imaginary perfect still life.

The wind was blowing so hard that I had to take off my hat. My slippers were so useless in the sand that I had to put them in my bag too. I sat down on the edge of one of the sand dunes, but the wind blew so much sand into my eyes and face that I quickly realized that this was not a good idea. I stood there watching the sunrise. I couldn’t take a video because of the sand and wind, so I can’t show it on “The Miracle is Already Here”. Maybe the pictures will show how amazing this experience was.

After the spectacle, I was taken by ATW to the other side of the hills. Well, it was a real test of the stomach. We went straight down the incredibly steep sand hills, sideways on the hill, with incredible speed and extreme ease. For a moment or two, I felt like my stomach was about to leave my body. It was scary, but it felt really good.

Red Sand Dunes

From here we took the jeep to the red sand dunes, to another part of the city. This was no longer on a lake shore, but by the sea. The blue of the sky, the gray of the sea, the green of the trees and the red of the sand appeared before me in incredible harmony.

We climbed these hills on foot. I walked barefoot, enjoying the touch of the sand. Here I could sit down, nothing hit my face.

I sat, looking at the sea, the many fishing boats, the sky, the small town below us. I like this kind of “meditation”. Sitting and looking. Enjoying the view. Drinking in the view. For me, that’s all that can happen here. The word gratitude came to mind many times while I was sitting there.

A fishing village

From here we went down to the rural part of the city.

We looked at the fishermen. This is where they sell their caught fish. People take their catch to restaurants and fishmongers.

We saw a lot of work in progress, and the smell of fresh and not-so-fresh seafood filled everything. There were a lot of people bustling around the area. We got to see a real wholesale market.

Fairy Stream

The last stop on our tour was the magic stream.

I’m a bit sarcastic about these places.

Someone calls a muddy stream a magic stream and makes tourists walk barefoot in the stream for a while and then come back at the same place. And that’s why they charge an entrance fee. At the beginning of the route, they put a man with a snake around his neck, so that if someone wants a picture of themselves walking in the stream with a giant snake around their neck, they won’t be disappointed.

After 300 meters, the first sign with the inscription “Rest! Cold drinks!” appears, but before that we met the first hat and cap seller on the river bank. At the other end of the path we took in the river, another man with a snake was waiting for us. When we turned back, the same people offered us everything.

So business is business.

But I’m only sarcastic because of the game. Of course, I was happy to walk along this stream. It was an experience to spend an hour in the warm water on the way there and back. The walk was worth it, we saw a lot of interesting rock formations, the journey itself was a game. We spent our last hour together in good company, in a beautiful environment.

It was a nice trip, which we ended with a coffee together.

At 9:30 I was already at my accommodation.

Shower, packing my backpack.

I finished this writing.

I’m working for a couple of hours now.

Then I’ll go to the bus terminal. The second Hungarian restaurant happens to be close by.

Mũi Né already gave me a goulash soup. I think I’ll eat a “paprikás csirke nokedlivel” today.

It’ll be good ammunition for Saigon.