After our breakfast at a coffeeshop, Linh drove us 40km north of Tuy Hoa on her moto to a really cool and unique place. It’s called Rock Dish reef in english and it resembles the Giant’s causeway in northern Ireland. It’s a small area right on the coast created by volcanic activity over 200 million years ago. The lava was kind of forzen upon eruption in the sea water and turned into hexagonal columns. I’ve never seen anything like it and really liked it. It was very busy with Vietnamese people. I was the only foriegner there and got a lot of looks and even some people talking to me, asking my name and where I was from. Linh summed it up best I think, she said I was a ‘superstar’ here! This turned out to be the case nearly everywhere we went the next few days.

The Rock Dish reef is not in the Lonely Planet guidebook and I’m sure very few travelers have been here. It was a great surprise from Linh and nice place to see on my 35th birthday.  Linh is 30 years old and like most Asian women is very tiny. She is at least 25cm shorter than me and about 22kg less than me in weight but I have to say she is an experienced moto driver and handles the insane traffic here smartly and safely. The are no rules or reason to the traffic here and Linh offers me to drive the moto a few times but I don’t feel comfortable driving the both of us around. In a quieter place I would, but don’t want to take any chances here.  I must clarify too, when I say motorcycle. They are more like a big scooter with 4 gears and 100cc engines, with no clutch, so very easy to drive.

We drove back to Tuy Hoa, I showered and then we went to Linh’s for dinner. Her mother is an amazing cook and the food was always tasty and there was always so much to eat. They opened up a bottle of local Vietnamese brandy. This stuff was absolutely awesome! The taste was sweet and it was not too strong. I’m not sure of the actualy percent but even after drinking quite a few small glasses, I wasn’t too buzzed. I could drink this all night. It’s one of the best alcoholic drinks I’ve ever tasted. Whenever Linh offered it to me at her house with dinner, I could never refuse.

That night after dinner, the lights went out and Linh, her sister and mother came into the room with singing Happy Birthday to me. They had a cake with candles and everything! It was very kind,sweet and thoughtful of them. They actually had 2 cakes! I couldn’t believe it. One was a traditional dessert cake, the other was more like a European dessert, like baclava or something like that, I’m not good at describing food. It was really thoughtful of them. Linh’s mother even gave me a small handmade souvenir of a little dog made with beads that she put together herself. It was a really fun birthday