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Local Petrol Station Cheats Foreigners

08.05.08 We've received repeated reports of the Petrolimex on the hill between Phan Thiet and Mui Ne cheating foreigners going all the way back to it's opening more than 4 years ago. Attendants have been known to play games with the meters and quote charges nearly double the current meter price. As complaints have resurfaced recently we recommend visitors avoid the Petrolimex and instead head to one of the 2 gas stations down the hill in Phan Thiet, just past the Phu Hai bridge. Both have a good reputation for treating customers (local and foreign) with fairness and honesty.

If you feel you've been cheated by any businesses in Mui Ne or Phan Thiet, we invite you to send your complaints so that we can look into the matter.

Mui Ne Gets Published

5.5.09 In June of this year, ThingsAsian Press will release the second book in their series "To Asia With Love." The new edition, "To Vietnam With Love," features personal stories, essays, tips and recommendations by expats and visitors to Vietnam who have put significant time and love into the country, it's people and it's cultural treasures. Five essays have been provided by author Adam Bray (owner of this website), and 4 feature Mui Ne and Phan Thiet, including a walking tour of Phan Thiet, a trip to the White Sand Dunes, reflections on the Forest Restaurant (Rung), and a look at the local people that make Mui ne the memorable place that it is. Other authors have also provided essays about the area, including Marc Moynot on the birdlife of Bao Trang. Visit the promo page here. Later this year, further editions will also be released for other countries, including Thailand, Cambodia and India.

Help Recover a Lost Treasure

Have you seen this journal? It was inside a purse stolen at the sand dunes recently. While the owner accepts she'll probably never see the other contents, this precious journal of her trip through Asia will be of no value to the thief, and we hope another traveler might see it and help us recover it. If you find it, please contact: annstephens@comcast.net.

Local Wins Fun Cup

29.02.08 Nguyen Thanh Dong won first place at the 9th Annual Vietnam Fun Cup, sponsored by Jibes and Full Moon Resort in Mui Ne.

Thirty-eight competitors from 15 countries competed. Proceeds from the contest, which ended last Saturday, will be donated to the orphanage and School for the blind and disables in nearby Ham Tan.

View photos from the even here.

Binh Thuan Province Accused of Plundering
Titanium Resources

06.02.08 After a series of new titanium mining ventures have been announced in Binh Thuan Province, the news agency VietNamNet Bridge has launched a harsh criticism of local residents and officials for mismanaging and overexploiting valuable resources. VietnamNet accuses locals of selling--even smuggling the limited resource for foreign buyers, far below market value--all to make a fast profit. Binh Thuan Province is thought to contain 4% of the world's reserves of titanium. Read the complete article here.

Phan Thiet's Collection
of Traditional Wooden Houses

Thanh Nien is currently running a great story on the antique wooden house collection at Lang Co Mui Ne in Phan Thiet City. The collection presents various architectual styles from around the country, many more than 100 years old. Click here to read more.

Fun Cup 2008 to Benefit Local Orphanage

February 22-23 marks the annual Vietnam Fun Cup, a water sports event sponsored by Jibes and Binh Thuan Province. This year all profits from the event will be donated to the local orphanage. Click here for a schedule and more details.

Tides Sweep Away More Homes in Southwestern Binh Thuan

22.01.08 More than 50 houses in the town of La Gi, Southwest of Phan Thiet, were swept away by abnormally high tides last weekend, leaving hundreds of locals homeless. The waves also threaten about 800 houses stretching nearly one kilometer along Phuoc Loc Ward. No casualties were reported, thanks to early evacuation preparations. In the last two weeks, nearly one hundred homes have been lost.

Residents have noted that the ongoing construction of La Gi Fishing Port, started two years ago, had changed normal sea currents and tide patterns. They say that in the last two years, hundreds of homes have been lost. Earlier this month, tides destroyed over 15 houses in Duc Long Ward, Phan Thiet.

Natural Wonders of the La Nga River

15.01.08 The Saigon Times is running a brief story on natural rock formations along the La Nga River, North Of Phan Thiet. The river borders the Ong Mountain nature preserve in a remote area of the province. Read more about it here.

Earthquake Hits off the Coast

29.11.07 A 4.8-magnitude earthquake struck just off the coast on Wednesday at 10:10pm, local time. No injuries or damage were reported. The quake was felt as far away as Saigon. Similar erthquakes were reported about 2 years ago. Binh Thuan province is somewhat seismically active, with hot springs on both ends of the province, thermal vents off the coast, and backed by dormant volcanoes. Earthquakes are infrequent however, and normally of small scale.

Happy Anniversary Phan Thiet

November 28, 1933, Phan Thiet City was established by the French governor of Indochina.

Hagibis Heading North

23.11.07 Tropical Storm Hagibis appears to be heading North and may no longer head directly for Phan Thiet. Strong winds, rain high waves are still expected for the weekend. Visitors should monitor weather reports for their safety and convenience, as the storm direction and strength may continue to change.

Typhoon Expected to Hit Phan Thiet This Weekend

22.11.07 Vietnam has asked nearby countries to give shelter to thousands of fishermen from tropical storm Hagibis, now moving though the Spratly archipelago in the South China Sea. Nearly 74,000 fishermen were working off Vietnam's coast in the path of the Storm on Wednesday.

Hagibis is expected to land on Phan Thiet (Mui Ne) over the weekend, augmented by an exceptionally large high tide.

It poses a major danger to southern Vietnam, a region rarely struck by typhoons or tropical storms. The southern tip of Vietnam was hit in November, 1997 by Typhoon Linda, with as many as 2,123 people killed or never accounted for.

Living Treasures: The "Butterfly Man"

18.11.07 Nguyen Viet Vui of Phan Thiet was recently recognized as the record-holder for the largest butterfly collection (more than 7,000 specimens) in Vietnam. "Butterflies have a character that mirrors mankind," says 80-year-old Nguyen Viet Vui. "Some like hot weather, some like it cold, some fly low and some are as graceful as women."

His hobby began in adolescence, at about age 18. "While friends were interested in sports and various school subjects, I spent my time wondering about butterflies." After reading books by Henry de Monestrol, the French hunter who wrote "Saigon Geography and Hunting in Vietnam," Vui wanted to learn more. After establishing a friendship with the ageing Frenchman, Vui learned how to press and dry the butterflies, and how to carefully classify them. With this crucial knowledge, Vui also learned to dry tiger, wildcat, stag, deer, fish and birds (some of which still decorate his home), but most of his time and energy went into catching butterflies in the jungles throughout Vietnam. Vui continued gathering specimens and educating himself on endemic and international species throughout the war, despite great risks. He taught himself a number of foreign languages through his scientific study, including French and Russian. Eventually he became the foremost expert on vietnam's butterflies (and the only living person with knowledge of many extinct vietnam species), but few outside of Vietnam have heard of him because he has received so little recognition for his work.

From the time he catches a butterfly to the time he encases it in the final display, it take Vui about 15-20 days of work and waiting. Larger ones take between two and three months. His first step is carefully drawing out the specimen’s intestines with a knife, like chefs do with prawns. "If a buyer can see an incision", Vui explained, "then that butterfly is worthless." Next a substance is injected to stiffen the wings for maximum wingspan. Because of the butterfly’s delicate nature, all contact must be light to avoid crushing it under a heavy hand. A butterfly that is dried and preserved well can be maintained for more than one hundred years.

With no formal retirement in sight, Vui often spends time happily catching butterflies with his grandson – the only family member who’s taken an interest in Vui’s rare profession. Vui can often be seen sitting in front of house on Trung Trac Road along the Ca Ty River in downtown Phan Thiet, where he warmly welcomes visitors who come to see some of his collection. One butterfly in his exhibit, called La cay kho (Kalima inachus inachus), a gift from his old French teacher, is over 100 years old and worth an estimate US$20,000, but Vui refuses to sell it because of its sentimental value. In spite of any attachment Vui might feel toward his specimens, need for daily income keeps him selling the others off whenever possible. The average cost for one of his butterflies in a frame runs from VND40,000 ($2.50) to VND50,000 ($3.10). "I never earn that much though because I must pay around VND20,000 ($1.20) per box to put the dry butterfly in," Vui said. "But holding the national record for collection size is special to me."

Bizarre Foods with a Different Fat, Bald Guy

16.11.07 I’m always curious about what kind of strange things people eat in other countries, and jump at the chance to try new delicacies. Vietnam rises to the occasion and is a cornucopia of the bizarre and still wriggling.

Everybody knows that dog is a favorite of the North. It’s a winter food, believed to keep you extraordinarily warm on cold nights. I’ve eaten dog in a variety of ways, including grilled, stuffed in spring rolls, stir fried, and added to soups. I find that dog meat has a gritty texture and smells like a mixture of wet dog hair and hints of its own feces. I can always smell a dog restaurant when I drive by them in Phan Thiet, where I’m told they are popular with the Catholic community around Christmas time (although I haven’t confirmed this). The sad truth is, most dogs are stolen and were once family pets. I first tried dog in Hanoi, where you can find German shepherds in tiny mesh cages in the back of restaurants, ready to be slowly bludgeoned to death over the course of an hour, in order to tenderize their meat. When dog is “in season” their yelps can be heard across many neighborhoods. Of anything I’ve eaten in Vietnam, I probably regret eating dog the most.

Snakes are a common novelty food, and although their meat is relished, it’s really their blood, bile and still-beating-heart which are most prized, to be mixed with wine and downed in one shot. I’ve always passed on the wine, but I’ve eaten the flesh on several occasions. A friend caught a cobra outside his front door and shared it with me on evening. There is actually very little meat on a cobra, so the skin is eaten as well. I was surprised that fried, it actually tasted a bit like custard. In the village of La Mat, famous for it’s snake restaurants, I tried it in a number of ways, including in soup (both the taste and texture was like crab meat) and spring rolls (tastes like chicken).

Lizards and frogs (best grilled) are standard fare in Phan Thiet. I’d never tried frog until I came to Vietnam, but now I like it a lot. It’s a shame other cultures only eat the legs, as the rest of the body has deliciously tender meat as well. If you ever order a chicken dish in Vietnam, pay attention to the bones. Since chicken is one of the most expensive meats in the market, the cooks often do a bait and switch. The long leg bones with ball sockets on the end are a dead give-away that your “chicken” might not be the kind with feathers. During rainy season my friends all catch toads and boil them up too. They merely cut out the stomach organ and eat the rest—skin, guts and all. I managed a single nibble of a toad’s thigh once, before I gagged.

I watched my friends eat truog vit lon for many months before I found the courage to try it myself. These fertilized duck eggs allowed to partially develop and then they are hard-boiled. You can immediately see a difference in color from the outside—the shells are more opaque, with a slight bluish green hue. Crack the top off, suck out the juice, and then spoon out the colorful morsels with pinches of pickled carrots, garlic, radish, turnip, some mint leaves, and a dash of salt and pepper. The head, feet and some semblance of feathers may be partially formed, but they all have a soft consistency indistinguishable from the rest of the yolk. The remaining egg white tends to be hard and rubbery. While the taste is not altogether terrible, I find it does have a hint of that “I’m something that’s not supposed to be eaten” flavor common to intestines, lungs, kidneys and other cuts of meat I tend to shy away from on party platters.

I’ve lived much of my life near the ocean, but I’d never seen some of the critters commonly eaten in Vietnam before, even in my zoology textbooks.

A friend dropped me off at his brother’s house far in the countryside while he went to run some errands. It wasn’t long before the lady of the house brought out a large platter of steamed crabs and other bottom dwellers, while her husband pulled out a crate of beers. He went next door and brought a few neighbors over as well, to have a little party in honor of my visit. I’d learned to really like crabs lately, and Phan Thiet had no shortage of great crab dishes. These however, were not the standard fare. It was a motley pile of creatures dredged from under the rocks and piles of dead things that they undoubtedly fed upon deep in the bay. They were a menagerie of hairy, slimy, frightening beasts from the next Star Wars movie, covered in seaweed, barnacles and anemones. Some were round like softballs and others long and spindly, more like centipedes; but none were forms I recognized. I was rather concerned about eating the organisms that lay dead before me, but like any good guest, I felt politely obligated to eat whatever I was served by my host. After all, these people lived in a thatched hut and made less money in an entire year than I did in a single month. I couldn’t bear to offend them when they were being so generous, despite their extreme poverty.

Experience had taught me that in Vietnam food nearly always tastes better than it looks. Not so on this occasion. The crabs tasted of every bit of scum and grime they wallowed in at the bottom of the bay. The greenish juices that poured from the first carcass smelled utterly putrid. I had to fight the gag reflex before the meat even touched my tongue. I watched my host gleefully suck the innards from a crab’s spiny carapace, black fluid running down his chin.

I prayed my friend would return and take me away at any minute, but as always happens in these situations, he didn’t return until every last creature had been cracked open and their cadaverous shells sucked clean. When he finally did come through the door and saw the empty shells on the platter, he reached over and smacked my upside the head.

“You very stupid!” he scolded, “I never eat that! Tomorrow you have diarrhea very bad. You very stupid!

I learned the hard way, late that night in the bushes with my pants around my ankles, that sometimes it is indeed socially acceptable in Vietnam to decline food from your host. Just because something might be eaten in a culture, doesn’t mean that it is common or even wise to do so.

NEW: Download & Print Our FREE Guidebook

Adam Bray & MuiNeBeach.net are happy to now offer our FREE guidebook to Binh Thuan Province, including Mui Ne Beach & Phan Thiet City. Click here to download the guidebook in PDF format.

New Orphanage Photos

08.11.07 The Phu Hai Orphanage needs your support! Click here to see the new photos from the orphanage, or click here for information on how to visit. The orphanage is also found on the Phan Thiet map in our new free guidebook.

Resorts Vent Frustrations
Over Environmental Issues

03.11.07 Resort owners gathered at a tourism seminar last week and complained that though the provincial government talks about taking steps to correct environmental issues in resort areas, they have yet to act after several years of discussion. Issues include the need to designate official mooring areas for boats along the beach, the need for toilets and proper rubbish disposal on boats; legitimate wastewater treatment at resorts (currently most pump their waste directly into the sand, in violation of existing regulations). Pollution of the beach is the most common of any complaint from visitors to the area.

Unaddressed however, are issues of unplanned development leading to extensive coastal dune erosion, water shortage, development of landfills for garbage disposal, issues of road safety, maintaining public access to beaches, and protection of endangered species such of sea turtles and local bird life.

Residents Protest Development of Doi Duong Beach

30.10.07 Residents of Phan Thiet have renewed protests about the recent leasing of Doi Duong Beach to a private company. In December 2006, Thuyen and Anh (The Boat and You) Company leased the public beach from the provincial government to build a private park. Construction of the project, which will include a souvenir shop, a massage area, a sports complex, a parking plot and a swimming pool, has already begun. Residents are frustrated with the local government who already allowed the private company to fence the beach.

Five months prior to the lease being granted to Thuyen and Anh Company, the province announced new plans to preserve and reinforce Doi Duong Beach, which pleased local residents. When it was learned however, that the project would not benefit the local community, but rather the private company, locals were outraged. The new project will instead claim all of the public beach previously devoted to swimming areas, parks and popular cafes, enjoyed by locals and tourists for many years. With public beach access disappearing in Phan Thiet and much of Mui Ne, local tourism may suffer as only hotel occupants will have access.

Half of Viet Nam’s Oldest Couple Passes Away

22.10.07 Truong Thi Ba died last Saturday at the age of 100, at 539 Thu Khoa Huan Street, Thanh Hai Ward, Phan Thiet city. Ba, born in 1907, together with her 105-year-old husband Phan Tan Tro, will be officially recognised tomorrow as the only couple in Viet Nam that have lived beyond 100 years. Binh Thuan Province is reportedly home to five elderly people who will receive special recognition for the new over-100-year-old records.

Nine New Records for Binh Thuan Province

20.10.07 The 10th meeting of record makers of Vietnam will be held in Phan Thiet on October 23, when nine new national records will be recognised by the Vietnam Record Book Center. The new records include: the largest area devoted to dragon fruit plantations in Vietnam (4,127ha); the largest number of coastal resorts in Vietnam (78 resorts and hotels); the place with the oldest fish sauce factory in Vietnam; the pagoda with the largest wooden bell in Vietnam; the place with the largest Nghing Ong (Whale worship) festival in Vietnam; sand dunes that change their shape most frequently; the first Vietnamese business to grow Spirulina alga; and the longest blue dragon (49m), at Quan De temple. While a number of the records do seem a bit contrived, establishing the officiality of the claims helps to build credibility in advertizing in the tourism industry and international business.

A Week of Festivities in Binh Thuan Province

19.10.07 Binh Thuan province will be holding a tourism festival October 23-24 in Mui Ne and Phan Thiet to commemorate the solar eclipse 12 years ago which first brought tourists to the area for a glimpse at the phenomenon. The event will feature a food festival, art performances and sport competitions. Details are still sketchy, so visitors me have to do a bit of exploring in order to enjoy the events.

The annual festival in Thay Thim Palace also begins today and will last until October 26. Thay Thim Palace is located at Tan Tien Helmet in La Gi Town, southwest of Phan Thiet along the coast. The festival is held to commemorate a renowned man who was always ready to help people. During the festive the legend is re-enacted on stage for viewers. The festival also includes martial art performances, a food festival and folk game competitions.

Pesticide Company to open in Binh Thuan

15.10.07 The Malaysia-based VM Agrotech company has been permitted by Binh Thuan Province to set up a bio-pesticide manufacturing firm in the province. US$30 million will be invested in the factory with a total output capacity of 2,400 tons of insecticide per year.

Read more: Mui Ne News.

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