Sa Dec

In Sa Dec we stayed at a very small place -- really, the only size place there is in Sa Dec -- called Minh Diem (pronounced ming dim). This was our cheapest room, at $12/night. That makes me laugh so hard. We've come to know that the more expensive a hotel or restaurant or meal is, the less likely it is to be great, and that cheaper places and meals are more likely to be exactly what we want. Still, this was excessively cheap even for us. We'd planned to stay two nights, but when we saw the hotel, we decided to stay only one night and add a night to Chau Doc. It was OK, with a great air conditioner; too great, actually, because we froze during the night. The hard bed only had a thin covering that barely covered the top of the bed, so if either of us turned over, we pulled the cover off the other. The little family who owns or operates the place was very sweet, with only the tiniest tiniest bit of English. Still, we didn't come to Sa Dec for the hotel, we came to return to some of the places we'd seen in 2011, when we stopped there during our wonderful Mekong "cruise," and walked through the market and to the local sights with sweet, sweet Mr. Wong. So we dropped our stuff off and headed to the river.

In Sa Dec, the main thing to see, apparently, is the former home of Marguerite Duras, known here as the woman who wrote (and lived) "The Lover," a book I didn't read and a movie we tried to watch but bailed on within the first 20 minutes. We'd seen it the last time, along with the "ancient house," and didn't feel a need to dive into either place again, although we did pass them in our wanderings. But it was the riverfront we sought, and the market. We always want the markets, and at this point we can recognize the differences between them, and even sometimes identify their locations when a photo shuffles up from our thousands and thousands of photos of our travels. As soon as we found the market, we remembered it all. Oh yes, I remember this, Mr. Wong explained the difference between river rats and crabs and those that live in the rice fields when they flood. Oh yes, I remember this, all the variety of clams and cockles (called baby clams on menus). Oh yes, I remember walking here. Oh yes, I know the photo Marc took of me and Mr. Wong. Oh yes. It's so wonderful to know a place and return to it.

Since Marc almost exclusively caters to what I need and want when we travel, I pushed for us to have the kind of dinner that he wanted for a change. It isn't at all that I don't want to eat street food (I do!), or grab something from some guy with a cart, but it is that I get a terrible sensory overload and sometimes get overwhelmed in the markets, with the crowds of people trying to get their shopping done and the motorcycles coming in all directions in the already crowded aisles, and the loud conversations, and the occasional vendor shouting about her pineapple, or whatever. But in this market, the connection between the big market and the night market was open and breezy, and along a quieter sidewalk. Marc wanted to get some chicken from a guy who was selling chicken and fetal duck eggs, rotating on spits over a charcoal fire. I think the people there were amused by us; they stood and sat and watched us eat, and we didn't feel uncomfortable at all but I was aware of them. The chicken was just great, but we satisfied ourselves with a couple of pieces and then wandered off in search of the next bit of dinner.

So the thing about Vietnam, at least in places south of Hoi An, is that restaurants are super hard to spot. They often look like they're in a garage, or maybe that's someone's home and they're just feeding family, or it's a woman cooking something on the sidewalk and there are those low tables and stools, blue plastic or red, and we just have no idea what they're cooking (which doesn't bother us, we often don't really know what we've ordered). The cafes are very easy to spot, and there are even more of them in Vietnam than there are Starbucks in the US. Instead of one on every corner, they line the blocks. But they only sell coffee and tea, no food at all. And inside, the chairs are arranged in rows, as if in a movie theater. There are tables on the sidewalk too, set up for long, lingering conversations, just like in Paris. I do love that this is a coffee culture, but boy I wish the cafes also sold a piece of bread or something.

So we wandered, trying to recognize a place to eat, and never could find anything. It was late in the afternoon, and the main intersection at the big market and the riverfront market was filled with motorcycles coming in all directions (standard Vietnam), so at that point we just stopped at a spring roll stand and Marc got four spring rolls for us. He paid for them and reached for the bag, and the woman was nearly upset, because she hadn't yet made the dipping sauce for them. She filled a conical plastic bag and off we went. We also got a bag of sweet bready things, a couple dusted with powdered sugar and a couple just deep friend dough. We'd done what we came to lovely Sa Dec to do, and just like in Can Tho the women smiled very hard at me and held my gaze, and I felt held and seen by them. We weren't in Sa Dec for long, and we didn't really see a whole lot, but it felt like a complete and circle-closing visit to me. The tour groups haven't really found this place yet, and I'm not sure they really will, because it's a small town off the main connecting highways, and who even really remembers Marguerite Duras, or pines to see her home? As we entered the market, we did see one very small group of Western people (so many Germans here, for some reason; the French and Americans are not surprising, but I have been surprised by the number of Germans, and even a group of Israelis).

Before we left town the next morning, we wanted to find breakfast in the market. Marc dashed out early to fetch coffee for me, and apparently there was a great deal of effort to understand each other. He said everyone who worked in the cafe came over and there was a lot of gesturing and helpful smiling, and eventually he got two cups of coffee to take away. Our translation app is great, but you have to know exactly how they refer to something (take away? to go?) to get the translation. After my coffee, off we went and BOY did we find a great breakfast! We didn't really know what we were getting, and I was content to watch Marc enjoy his breakfast, but once I saw what he got -- and once he saw what he got -- we asked for another one, for me. And we learned a new word: com (with kind of O that my keyboard doesn't have) means rice. The dish was a bed of rice and vegetables and pickled vegetables with a fried egg on top. Even though the egg wasn't very hot, and the yolk seemed cooked, when we cut it, the yolk ran into the rice and YUMMMMMM. We got a small bowl of soup and we still don't know exactly what the larger thing was (a piece of meat? a simmered vegetable? a section of banana blossom? even after we ate it we don't know) and the standard accompaniments, including a towering plate of greens and bean sprouts and various condiments. Oh my goodness it was delicious. I've saved the word for 'delicious' in my phone and always show it to the people who serve us, as we pay, and they always smile a huge smile. I've asked them every time to help me learn how to pronounce it (it's thom ngong, with diacritical marks of course), and I can get the 'thom' but not the 'ngong.' It starts way back in the mouth, tongue pressed against the soft palate, and I just can't get that diphthong right but they're always kind.

We wanted some fruit to go with our yummy breakfast, so Marc found a stall with watermelons. Usually we can get the fruit sliced and bagged, so he approached the woman and made his chop-chop hand movements, slicing this way and that and pointing to the watermelon, but she was as glaring and unyielding as everyone else has been warm and helpful. We think she could've understood us but just refused -- and maybe this just isn't the way they sell watermelon. We wanted half of the small watermelon, and finally Marc just grabbed the giant and *very* sharp knife, and she glared at him as he cut it (and his thumb). He cut the watermelon into chunks and put them in a plastic bag, his thumb bleeding pretty badly, and she had no idea what to do with us. What was she going to do with the other half, now? We paid, we think, for the whole watermelon and walked off with her glare burning into us. OK. So we met a grumpy, unfriendly Vietnamese woman, it was about time.

We checked out and hopped in our cab for the 60-mile trip to Chau Doc, which ended up taking 3.5 hours. We hit a huge jam, which turned out to be the very long line waiting to board the ferry to cross the river. The river crossing itself took only a few minutes, but the wait was terrible. A large, beautiful bridge is being constructed and looked like it was in the final stages, so I guess the ferry will soon be obsolete at this junction, and I imagine everyone will be glad.