Immediately after I exited Saigon’s international airport I was barraged by cab drivers. I was supposed to go to Quy Nhon, a city in central Vietnam, by train, but the earliest ticket I could book was in four more days. I have been warned by blogs that trains in Vietnam can be easily fully-booked, but my contact in Quy Nhon told me that I could book a plane ticket on the same day. I wanted to experience what it’s like to travel on a sleeper train and lazily stare by the train window for hours, watching scenes from the countryside.
Fat chance.
Given my limited budget - I'm here because of a travel grant, after all - a bus ride - a half-day bus ride, the notoriously dangerous bus rides of Vietnam - seemed to be my only option. Then I checked ticket prices in Vietnam Airlines, without the slightest expectation that I can afford one, and was surprised that the tickets were relatively cheap, just a few thousand dongs pricier than the train ticket*. In the Philippines, tickets to local destinations booked on the same day costs an arm and a leg and can be more expensive than tickets to international flights. All the while, as I browsed my phone for options, this persistent cab driver was sitting next to me, repeatedly offering to take me to some place with Pho. Finally, I told him I have another flight to “chuy non” (because q sounds ch, right? As in Chinese.)
He didn’t seem to get my message so I showed him a map of Quy Nhon.
“Oh, ween yon,” I heard him say. So that’s how you probably pronounce Quy Nhon. That’s the point when he finally gave up on me and left. Either he pronounced it wrong, or southern Vietnamese do not pronounce the q, or my ears have gone bad, but it turns out that kwin-yon is the more accurate pronunciation.
Quy Nhon, hardly reaches the radar of many Filipinos travelling abroad. I myself would not have gone there if not for a math conference I attended through a travel grant from an organization called CIMPA (thank you CIMPA 😭). Information about Quy Nhon is relatively scarce compared to Vietnam’s poster destinations like Saigon, but those who have been there tout Quy Nhon as Vietnam’s next biggest thing.
Since I haven’t travelled in a while I decided to allot two extra days before the conference so I can travel around Quy Nhon. And I, being the perennial city boy who hates city life, fell completely in love with the city.
It’s a beach city, as other blogs wrote, as it is bordered on the east by kilometers upon kilometers of coastline, the longest I have ever seen. Patches of desert lies inland, along with forests of pine trees.
The coastline descends on a gradual slope which makes it safe for swimming. Even so, lifeguards are stationed at regular intervals, and people can only swim within the area bounded by buoys and flags. With the beach being almost omnipresent, locals can just take a dip whenever they want. It’s not really unusual to find barefooted half-naked men and women in swimsuits, soaking wet, crossing the streets and taking the hotel elevators. Swimming in the beach is pretty much a part of their daily lives.
At night the beach life continues. Much of the coast in the city proper lies next to a well-manicured park were locals hangout. Itinerant vendor sell street food. Families, barkadas, officemates gather in their respective groups, some sitting around a picnic mat, most in tiny monobloc chairs, eating pho or drinking beer (or where those tea in clear glasses?) The relaxed and laidback communal atmosphere is pervasive. Imagine Manila Bay full of people doing all sorts of things, minus the stench and garbage, plus coarse light brown sand.
And the food? It’s as good as all the food in Vietnam.
On one weekend the conference organizers arranged a tour of Quy Nhon. We visited Ky Co beach, went snorkelling in Bai Dua at climbed hundreds of steps to Cham Towers, an ancient complex of Hindu Temples. The trip was arranged with a tour group, so I unfortunately cannot give you details on how to get to them DIY.
I did however, visit Nhon Hai, a fishing commune in the same province as Quy Nhon, but that's for another blog post. On one free day we visited a cafe cum souvenir shop. It was a visit we did not expect, since we simply planned to drink coffee and buy souvenirs. It turned out the cafe is maintained by a charitable organization for people with special needs called Nguyen Nga Center. They serve cheap but good coffee and fruit shakes and is staffed by the center's students, who also gave us an impromptu performance of classical Vietnamese music. If you can't catch Cham Towers which is around 10km from Quy Nhon proper, there's an identical Hindu tower in a park just next to the center.
*train 47 USD, plane 1275000 VND.
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