Phan Thiet is more than just a beach; There are culture and tradition all around.
On the bus from Ho Chi Minh City to Phan Thiet I got talking to some young tourists from Australia. This was their second trip Mui Ne in Phan Thiet, they told me, and this time they had decided to spend all of their holiday doing water sports. “I hope that every day in Mui Ne is windy,” one laughed.
Surfing and windsurfing
Mui Ne is famous for its beautiful beach, magic sand suns and charming resorts and in recent years has become a Mecca for kiteboarding and windsurfing. Mui Ne’s weather is great for water sports, with the strongest and most consistent onshore winds and the lowest rainfall in Vietnam. Every day seems perfect.
Pascal Lefebre, a Frenchman who has lived and worked in Mui Ne over 20 years, is a faithful followers of water sports. He was one of the first persons to bring kiteboarding and windsurfing to Mui Ne, when he opened his water sport club, Jibe’s Beach, in 2000. The wind at Mui Ne, he said, come from just the right direction for kiteboarding and windsurfing. To promote Mui Ne as a great destination for water sports his club has also worked with the local department of tourism to hold annual international water sports competitions that attract professionals and amateurs from all over the world.
On sunny, windy days Mui Ne is full of colourful kites. On the beachfront of the resort where stayed I saw a lovely scene, of a foreign couple leaving their baby at the resort’s daycare centre then heading out through the waves to kitesurf. Every half hour or so they came back and kissed their baby.
There are now many water sport clubs and training schools opened by foreigners in Mui Ne. It’s easy to find a short course from a few hours to a full day, to learn kite set up, wind theory, launching and landing, safety, self-rescue and other skills. It’s them time to go and experience for yourself the sea, sun and wind of Mui Ne.
Ancient beauty
I also visited Poshanu Cham Tower in Phan Thiet, on a sunny morning when there were not too many others about. It was interesting to walk slowly to the top of the hill where the towers sit in a tranquil space and ponder the more than 1,200 years since the Cham people of the ancient Champa Kingdom built the towers in the late 8th century to worship their princess Poshanu ( a daughter of the Champa King Parachanh who taught the Cham people how to plant wet rice and cotton and help them to build irrigation works) as well as the Shiva Genie, who is greatly respected by the Cham people.
I walked around the ancient towers, which are constructed in the manner of Hoa Lai artistic architecture. Poshanu Towers are among the oldest Champa towers to be left largely undamaged. Despite their small size, Poshanu architecture was the works of talented artists and is a great combination between classical architectural techniques and the decorative art loved by the Champa people.
The only person I met was the towers’ security guard, whose hometown is in northern Vietnam. He saw me come alone and volunteered to be my guide. He told me about the towers’ history and how they were before they were restored, and showed me bricks both ancient and new. He was the best guard I’ve ever met, and has lived at the towers for more 20 years since they were first restored in 1994. His deep love for the ancient towers was clear.
If you are fortunate enough to be in Phan Thiet during the Cham people’s traditional Kate Festival (usually held annually in late September and early October), you can enjoy the wonderful atmosphere of traditional Cham dance, music and folk games, make Cham pottery and witness a colourful traditional ceremony.
Fish sauce village
The familiar smell in the air when you come to Phan Thiet is nuoc mam (fish sauce); a common ingredient in Vietnamese cuisine. Phan Thiet is famous nationwide for its quality nuoc mam made under traditional methods for hundreds of years.
My motorbike driver took me to a small village on Huynh Thuc Khang Street in Mui Ne, where many familieshave made nuoc mam for generations. I visited Mrs Muoi Tiep’s family. At the age of over 75, she looked healthy and agile, and she welcomed me with a happy smile. She has made nuoc mam for more 40 years, since she got married. She pointed to a young man arranging fish sauce bottles on shelves, saying he was a grandson continuing the family tradition. I was very interested to see her fish sauce ‘garden’. On huge sand dunes behind her house were hundreds of large ceramic jars arranged in straight lines shining under the morning sunlight. The tightly-covered jars contained salted fish, which are usually kept for a year until the salted fish is extracted and raw fish sauce remains.
Before leaving I bought some “Muoi Tiep” fish sauce as souvenirs of Phan Thiet. But an even better gift was seeing Mrs Muoi Tiep’s love for her traditional craft. “As long as Vietnamese families use nuoc mam,” she said with pleasure in her eyes, “people in Phan Thiet will continue to make it”.
Text: Thanh Van
Photo: Thanh Van & collected
