-
Viet Nam the fourth: Day 4 Quy Nhon
It’s new year’s eve, and from the 15th floor of the Odin Hotel we can clearly hear what sounds like the strains of a passionate karaoke singer, while out the window the Grand Hyams Hotel is one big light show. The streets of Quy Nhon are full of families on scooters, but its not the same dense throng we saw in Ha Noi a few years ago. We didn’t hotel breakfast this morning (generally L will go the hotel breakfast as she’s more likely to get gluten free options this way), instead heading out into the streets to find something. We didn’t have to go far to find a little…
-
Viet Nam the fourth: Day 3 – HCMC to Quy Nhon
I neglected to mention that there was also dessert on last night’s food and scooter tour, wonderful milk puddings, basically pannacotta/creme caramel (something else the Vietnamese kept when they sent the French packing) in three flavours: matcha, cream cheese, and caramel. Quite delicious. Started with a decent breakfast at the hotel, noting that their banh canh is quite different to the one last night, and is more like pho ga but with prawns, quail eggs, and banh canh noodles. Sadly, the very delicious meat on a lemongrass skewer wasn’t present, and not because we ate all of them yesterday. We took a wander down the street, noting that yesterday’s lunch…
-
Viet Nam the fourth: Day 2 – HCMC
Another fine day in Ho Chi Minh City. We checked out the hotel breakfast, it was pretty good, plenty of local options and no baked beans nor scrambled eggs to be seen. Highlight were definitely the chicken mince skewers that were wrapped around lemongrass stalks. L and I took in the sights of old Saigon, including the Notre Dame cathedral (almost invisible behind what must be almost all of the metal scaffolding in VN and draped in christmas lights), the much photographed post office, and a look at the Independence Palace from the outside. Then we headed back to the hotel via the bustling Ben Thanh market, where we managed…
-
Viet Nam the fourth: Day 1 – HCMC
And we’re back to South Seas Asia, Viet Nam again. A quick 12 day jaunt for me (L has a few extra days at the end as she doesn’t need to go straight back to work) for food, shopping, and generally soaking in the VN vibe. The day started, as these trips generally do, with the damn early Singapore Airlines flight out of Perth. Our various alarms were squawking at 3.30am, mine being the traditional friendly posh English voice quoting Henry Rollins, “Smile, you’re travelling”. Sadly works every time. Fortunately the packing was done, as a trip like this can be done fairly lightly (enough linen shirts and underwear for…
