Quy Nhơn

It was a chilly, misty morning in Da Lat when Dominik and I headed downstairs for breakfast at our hotel. The hotel was family-run, and the owner served us a plate of homemade beef stew with fried eggs and an entire baguette as we discussed and planned out our day.

The original plan was to stop along the coast in Nha Trang (like they did in Top Gear), but after looking at the map and consulting Alex, our driver, we realized that the city was just around two hours from here, and that we'd be looking at a super long drive the next day to make up for it.

Instead, we decided to press on to Quy Nhon, a city that none of us knew much about except for the fact that it was about halfway between Nha Trang and Hoi An, our next destination.

Quy Nhon turned out to be a fairly quiet seaside town (guidebooks described it as Nha Trang twenty years ago). We checked into our very nice hotel and set out to find some lunch. We didn't really plan to do anything in town except spend the night, but when we learned about the city's most popular delicacy, Dominik insisted that we go out to find a restaurant that served it.

Gỏi Sứa is a type of "salad" made from chilled jellyfish that is especially popular in the country's coastal regions, where fresh jellyfish is readily available. It sounds unusual... and it is! The jellyfish has no flavor at all. It's really just a texture, crispy, springy, and slightly chewy, rather than a taste.

The jellyfish is blanched and tossed in a tangy, spicy chili sauce and topped with shredded green mango, raw garlic and shallots, and tiny round eggplants.

It was by far the strangest dish that we had in Vietnam, and I can't say that I was especially wild about it. I also ordered a side dish of seafood fried rice, and I'm glad that I did.

The sun rises very early in Vietnam. Dominik and I were up at dawn, and met at the rooftop pool and bar to see the view before decided to take a walk down to the beach.

It wasn't even 6:00 yet, but there were hundreds of people out and about doing tai chi on the beach, swimming, and setting up their chairs and umbrellas for the day.

I liked what I saw of Quy Nhon. There isn't much to do in town, but our hotel was nice (the hotel breakfast buffet was the best one we had on our entire trip!) and it was a decent place to stop and rest before our first long day on the road.

Around 8:00 Alex pulled up in front of our hotel and helped us load our suitcases into the car. Then, we were off, cruising along the coastal highway north towards Hoi An.