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Second night in Nha Trang, filling a trolley at Lotte Mart

Filmed Wed 19 Aug 2026, 20:04

Second night in Nha Trang, filling a trolley at Lotte Mart

The fridge in the new place had a bottle of water in it and nothing else. That was the whole reason for going out. Second night in Nha Trang, a little after eight, and I rolled the scooter past the guard hut at the gate of the complex with no real plan beyond finding the big supermarket and coming back with food.

Eddie in a cap looking up under a tree at night, an apartment block lit behind him
Just after eight, outside the complex, deciding which way the supermarket was. I chose wrong.

For the first twenty minutes or so I did not find it. I went the wrong way out of the parking lot, through a side street with no lights on and a black car parked half on the pavement, then along a wide new road where the shophouses were all finished and all empty. Not one lit window. Street lamps every few metres and nobody under them. It looked like a street that was built for a city that had not arrived yet. I turned around at the end of it and came back along the ring road with a couple ahead of me on one bike, the passenger in a yellow helmet, and followed them until the lights got thicker again.

Empty new road at night lined with dark, unoccupied shophouses under street lamps
A row of finished shophouses with no one in them. Every lamp on, every window dark.
Two people on a scooter ahead on a dark road, passenger in a yellow helmet, unfinished building on the right
I followed this bike back toward the lights. The building on the right was still bare concrete.

The store

It was Lotte Mart. I only knew for certain at the checkout, where the logo was printed on the little card stand by the screen, but I had guessed from the red on everything and the Korean on the meat labels. I was inside by half past eight and the cold air hit my arms straight away. After the ride that was the best part of the first minute.

Eddie in a beige cap looking up inside a supermarket with red signs above
Inside by half past eight. The face of a man who has just felt air conditioning after a ride.

I did the thing I always do in a foreign supermarket, which is walk every aisle once without a trolley to see what is there. The meat counter had a wagyu section with Korean writing on the shelf strip. The steak was priced at 179,000 dong a tray and the sliced stuff next to it at 66,900. I did not buy either. Sliced pork belly for hot pot was on a promotion sign for 125,000 a bag, marked down from 139,000, and I stood in front of it for a while before deciding I did not own a pan yet.

Supermarket fridge with trays of wagyu beef under a red shelf strip in Korean
The wagyu shelf. Steak at 179,000 dong a tray. Looked, did not touch.

The sausage fridge was full of the local brand in red packaging, frankfurters at 30,900 on a promo tag, and a family pack at 45,900. I took one of the red packs because they are easy and I know what they taste like.

Fridge shelves of packaged frankfurters and sausages with promotion tags
Frankfurters on promotion at 30,900 dong. One red pack went into the trolley.

Then the Korean shelf. There was a whole column of Samdasoo, the water from Jeju, at 11,900 a bottle or 238,000 for a slab of twenty, with an imported product sticker on the tag. I laughed at that. I have carried that water in my hands most of my life and never once thought of it as imported. I put a bottle in the trolley anyway. Next to it, seaweed snacks in a green pack at 33,500 for a small bag, printed in Vietnamese with Korean on the back. Rice in yellow bags with a sea god on the front, stacked at eye level. I did not need rice yet. The local water was cheaper by a lot, so I went back and got that too.

Green pack of seasoned seaweed on a shelf with a price tag below
Seasoned seaweed, 33,500 dong for a small bag. Vietnamese on the front, Korean on the back.
Yellow bags of Neptune fragrant rice stacked on a supermarket display
Rice at eye level. Not tonight, the fridge came first.

What ended up in the trolley

By the time I stopped, the basket looked like the shopping of someone who has just moved and does not have a kitchen sorted. A tray of eggs. A box of Choco Pie with ten inside. Two big bottles of water and one small one. A small carton of Meiji milk, the lactose free one. A bottle of orange juice. A round watermelon in a red net that I picked because it was the smallest one on the pile. Some onions, carrots and potatoes, weighed at the counter and stuck with labels. A can or two of cola. Curry blocks. And the sausages.

Shopping trolley seen from above with eggs, a Choco Pie box, water bottles, a watermelon in a net and a small milk carton
The trolley before the checkout. The watermelon was the smallest on the pile and still just under three kilos.

The checkout screen listed all of it and the total came to 639,800 dong, which is a little more than the fridge cost me in thought and a lot less than I expected. The watermelon alone was 115,231 of that, priced by weight. It weighed just under three kilos on the scale. The cashier packed it into paper bags with handles, which I looked at and thought, those are going to be a problem.

Getting it home on the scooter

They were a problem. Paper bags do not like scooter hooks. I hung the two heaviest from the hook under the seat, put the watermelon on the floorboard between my feet, and held the eggs on my lap with one hand for the first stretch until I trusted the bags enough to use both hands. The ride back was slower than the ride out. Every speed bump I took at walking pace and listened for the sound of something splitting. Nothing did. The watermelon rolled forward on the first corner and I caught it with my ankle and after that I rode with my knees together like someone on a horse for the first time.

The roads were emptier by then. The long road with the empty shophouses was still empty. The guard at the gate lifted the barrier without looking up. I carried everything up in two trips, put the eggs in the fridge next to the one bottle that had been there, and stood in the door of the fridge for a moment with the light on my face, because it was finally full and because it was cold. Then I ate two of the Choco Pies standing at the counter, which is not dinner, but it was close enough for the second night.