Hitchhiking in Vietnam: Mũi Dinh Beach
19th of September, 2024.
When I wake up, the neighbour offers for me to make some instant noodles for breakfast. Great! I am starving! And it will be god to keep me going until lunch time! I leave the beach around 8 a.m. but I wish I had left earlier, so the sun would not be so strong.
The sea again looks absolutely gorgeous! The walk to the beach is not that far and it’s amazing! I just love the scenery! Once I get to the beach I am actually surprised that there’s nobody here. To be completely honest, the beach looks nicer from the road than from down here but it still totally worth it coming. I had no plans for swimming, if you do, that’s a great place to do it alone, quietly, and having the whole beach just for yourself! There’s also nothing here. It used to be a kind of port or something, because you can see old structures for that, but now there’s nothing really here. It’s so weird!
I want to go to the lighthouse too but I hesitate at first. Do I have the time for it? Yeah, fuck it, let’s do it. It’s not a super long walk but it’s all the way up. The views of the beach are amazing though! At certain point the path gets divided, the one to the right goes straight to the lighthouse, and the one up, to the left, to a view point. I take the left one accidentally but the views up there are also amazing! I can see the lighthouse down there, about 50 metres or so, and I know that it will take some good 15 minutes if I go back by walking to the path, so I decide to go down the mountain (laugh), but only because I can see it is doable. And it is! I get inside the building grounds too, because it’s shorter and easier then going all the way down to the entrance. No, I was not breaking in as I would ended up inside the grounds anyway, either via the entrance or jumping the wall. Shush!
The lighthouse is nice, I guess. After the view point it seems just like another view. It is nice going up the lighthouse though, as you can, even though it’s a small one.
There are some people living here and I ask them for some water, thanks Loki! Then I also decide to ask for a lift down, when one of them is going by motorbike. Wow! It is a crazy adventure! Remember I told you the way up here is all the way up? Yeah, going down now, in a motorbike, through this super bumpy and inclined path feels like madness! Unfortunately, the guy is going only to the beach, to pick up someone arriving in a tractor. Laugh. I start walking back, and when the tractor reaches me, the driver offers me a lift. It’s only a few hundred metres until I have to take my path back to the beach, while the truck will take the main road, but I accept anyway.
Back to the beach, I grab The Hulk and make my way to the village. I am hungry again, so I decide to ask for hot water in some noodles soup stand, and make the two instant noodles which were given to me last night, by that lovely fisherman family.
Before that, I ask to fill up my bottle in a grocery shop, but the lady insist on giving me a small bottle of water. Two, actually, and the second one is a sparkling water. Nice!
At the food stand, they sell lots of food and also some juice. There are a few young girls around, and the sister of the owner offer me some orange juice. I don’t know why but I refuse. Why, Loki, why? I just always feel that I am being nice and polite, like not letting them going through the trouble of buy me something. But if they are offering, shouldn’t I just accept it?
After eating my instant noodles, the sister offers help again, but this time by giving me a lift to the village. I could ask her to give me a lift all the way to the highway but I still need to make a proper sign to Dalat, so we stop at the village.
The highway to Dalat is quite empty, so after no cars stopping for a while, I decide that it’s better if I try to get any small truck just to the next intersection. And I am glad I did that because soon enough a small truck stops and the young man takes me all the way to the busier highway to Dalat.
Realizing that most likely not many people will be going to Dalat from here, and trying to get at least to a town called Phan Rang, from where I can easily get a lift to Dalat, I quickly change my sign and write Phan Rang. Soon enough, a very nice senior man stops for me. He is very interested on helping me, I can feel it. He calls a friend who can speak English and after explaining everything to her, she tells me that it’s not a good idea going to Dalat now, as not many people will take the road at this time because it will be dark soon, and the road is too dangerous to drive after dark. I decide to agree with them and ask for the man to drop me off in a pagoda. But first, he wants to buy me some food. As I tell him I am vegetarian, he stops in a supermarket and buys me two breads which resemble a lot croissants but round; and two super fluffy cakes, like the highest level of chiffon cake.
The pagoda where he drops me off is either under restoration or being built, and I really cannot figure out. The few parts you can see actually look great! A very senior monk is the only one staying there, and by the time I arrive, one worker is doing some work on what will be the ceiling or second floor. The monk allow me to stay, of course, and show me a room, under construction, where I can spend the night. I rather camp outside, under some lovely trees. It will be fresher during the night and it looks way nicer than the room under construction.
The monk gives me some oranges, which are nice, and after taking a shower and washing my clothes, I eat one of my breads and one of the cakes. I cannot explain in words how delicious and fluffy the cake is. Absolutely fantastic!
Next morning I leave early.
10 Years Around the World 