Nha Trang is a beach town popular with the Russians. There are direct charter flights from 25 Russian cities (most of which are in Siberia) several times a week, and they book all-inclusive trips in much the same way as the Brits do in the Balearics. Quite a few own timeshares or apartments here, which they rent out to friends and family wishing to escape the winter. This means there is quite the enclave here, to the displeasure of some. Russian tourists do have a manner that is often hard to warm to, seeing as they are less interested in cultural tourism than they are indulgence. I cannot say I blame them - if I were taking a break from manning one of Krasnoyarsk's aluminium smelters in January, my need for temple spotting and sobriety would also be thoroughly undermined. So the water has pasty white bodies bobbing about in it, and bars/clubs blaring obnoxious techno bedeck the promenade.
It does mean that many of the shopfronts and billboards are in Cyrillic before Vietnamese and English. Indeed many vendors here speak only Vietnamese and Russian, but the cross-section of visitors these days is a bit more diverse. especially on the back of the rubel taking a kicking after the recent Ukraine-related sanctions, and increased tourism competition from Egypt.
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| A crocodile or perhaps a caiman being spit-roasted. As you were. |
With that in mind, the best thing we did here was go on a street food tour organised by the Lanterns Restaurant. Lanterns is a great restaurant, and they're a nice crowd who feed the poor and homeless on Mondays, and help out with a couple of local orphanages and schools. Anyhoo, we joined up with a nice German couple with barely-there accents and a lively French dentist lady. Our guide, a lady called Han, thought I was hilarious, as my comedic genius is internationally universal.
As we walked away from the touristy beach area, the shop signs and adverts changed from Russian/English/Vietnamese to all-Vietnamese within two blocks. We were walking about at 5-6pm and so the locals were sitting down for dinner too. We've noticed in Vietnam in general that it is often difficult to tell where business places end and homes begin. Property is bought/rented here often with the intention of starting a business and then living around it. As street food is both good and cheap here, it appears people cook a particular thing in their home/shop front/on a stove on the pavement and then sell it out front.
So there is a sprawl of people sitting on really tiny chairs (which is not particular to Vietnam, by the way, we've seen the tiny toddler chairs everywhere in SE Asia), spread out onto the streets and roads, clustered around food vendors.
The whole thing is messy as hell. We were told by Han that the very best places to eat have the most rubbish on the floor. Some of these places must've been exceptional.
Today's horror food was the pig's intestines; they're the pink tubes on a stick below. They're marinated in something or other that makes them take a bit like Char Sui. They were OK. I know that traditional British sausages use intestines as casings, but isolating any one sausage ingredient for consumption will likely not be very appetising. Anyway, they were OK, and I ate the other skewer as our co-walkers weren't keen (waste not, want not), but I wouldn't pick them off the menu.
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| OK, let's get this right: Top one is Long Non Nuong (Intestines) Bottom one is some manner of mystery meat in leaves. |
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| Sold |
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| Banh Can( Egg & Rice cakes) |
Many of you might not've tried Quail's eggs, because they are relatively fancy in Europe and the US. Here they go into everything, like in the photo above. Why they are so popular as an ingredient I have not a Scooby, as they produce a fraction of the quantity of egg one would find in the chicken version.
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| Banh Canh (Rice Noodle Soup) |
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| Banh Xeo (Seafood Pancakes) - they leave the eggs on the squid and the shells on the prawns. |
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| Banh Tai Vac (Tapioca Shrimp Dumplings) and some spring rolls |
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| Banh Trang Tron (Spicy Stir-fried Rice Paper Salad) |
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| Banh Trang Nuong (BBQ Rice paper with egg) |
The duck horror egg made an appearance again, but we were done with that experience, so our German acquaintance had a go. To be fair, ours was still a bit egg - this was just fetus. Han didn't help matters by pointing out anatomical features.
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| "Es schmeckt wie der Verdammnis." |
Kurzfassung auf Deutsch: Nha Trang ist mit Russen gefüllt, die ihren Urlaub oft dort zu machen. Wir gingen an einem Lebensmittel-Tour, wo ich Schweinedarm aß. Sie waren nicht schlecht.
