Dirty Dirty Boy

Last weekend I took a trip outside of Saigon to Binh Chau hot springs. Isabelle, Catherine, Kirsty, Daniel and I took the hydrofoil boat from Saigon early(ish) Saturday morning to Vung Tau. The boat was a rather unpleasant affair, dirty and crowded, with overbooked seats and cockroaches as fellow passengers, but we made the best of it with a game of Monopoly (on my phone). Even getting off was a chore, as they turned off the air conditioning (and therefore the fresh air source) before we were off the boat, and it was quite stifling.

Once off the boat however, the trip definitely took a turn for the better. We rented a trio of motorbikes and took off along the coast road towards our final destination. The roads here are claimed to be the "best in Vietnam" and without a lot of experiences to compare them, I'm still going to say that that is a pretty supportable claim, as the roads really were quite nice and a pleasure to ride on.


Several hours of driving later we arrived at Binh Chau hot springs, our objective for the day. First step is to soak in hot spring water for a while, but it is pumped into a bathtub/jacuzzi like thing. Next step is to smear handfuls of thick dark mud all over your body:












This you let dry, but not without taking loads of silly pictures:

After everything is dry, you jump back in the hot spring bath to "wash it all off" but it just doesn't come off and you end up finding bits of mud on you for days to come.

After this, we got back on the road to Vung Tau, but stopped in a little inn about 30 minutes back from the hot springs. We had a good meal at a restaurant on the seaside, and then back to the hotel room for a great night of drinking games and generally good times before passing out. Some of the fun here was the neighbor coming by at 9:30pm on a Saturday night telling us to be quiet because he was trying to sleep. Of course we "tried" to be quiet, but 15 beers definition of quiet is different from Vietnamese dude's definition. To be fair, he got his revenge when he was up partying with his own mates at 4am. Different strokes for different folks.

Next morning we had some breakfast then headed back to Vung Tau to return the bikes and take the boat back to Saigon. On arrival however, we discovered there were no tickets left for that day. We negotiated a taxi to take us back to Saigon instead, and it only cost a few more dollars than the boat would have. Twice as long too, but in general comfortable enough, and everyone pretty much slept the whole trip back.

All in all it was a great experience, with some wonderful friends to share it with.