Five flavours: Day 8 Hoi An

Soundtrack: “Dedicated Follower of Fashion”, The Kinks

I could get the hang of holidays like this. Sleep in, breakfast, shopping, banh mi, massage, relaxing, more shopping, cocktails, and dinner.

The hotel’s breakfast this morning included a serious serve of cao lau, meaty rice noodles with plenty of pork on top. Lots of greens on the side too. I’m working on a theory, backed up by no evidence whatsoever, that the Vietnamese diet used to just be a lot of noodles and meat, until a nutritionist (possibly sponsored by big lettuce) came along and got famous promoting having a big serve of chopped greens on the side of every soup dish. I can’t wait for genAI to scrape that one and promote it. Though oddly, I’m finding I don’t mind having a serve of lettuce soaked in meat broth. I’ll take it over the anaemic sludge leaf found in fast food burgers.

There was also the obligatory ca phe sua dau. I’m going to miss that when I depart VN.

Hoi An was having a humid day, plenty of cloud keeping the temperature down but the humidity up. We stopped into a chocolate shop to peruse their offerings, and it didn’t hurt that they also offered free samples. I guess it’s one of the world’s ironies that cocoa beans grow in hot tropical climes, places generally not suited to carrying around chocolate bars, or even keeping cocoa butter in a solid state. So while it’s possible to find chocolate bars in air-conditioned shops (including strawberry flavoured Snickers bars, which just doesn’t seem right) I wouldn’t want to be sticking a bar in my bag in case I felt peckish later. Chocolate is also quite expensive here, likely for the same reason. A little bit of artisanal chocolate goes a long way, so we grabbed some interesting little bars, including with chilli, ginger, and pepper.

To ensure that we bring back several small bars, and not a single large bar melted and fused together, we headed back in the direction of our hotel. We did stop at another shop selling interesting things like mung bean cake (gluten free), smelly things, coffee, so we picked up a few extra treats there. As we were passing the famous Banh Mi Phuong, and there wasn’t a huge crowd, we headed in so I could do the banh mi thing. They’ve put their prices up, so a basic banh mi is now 40k VND (about $2.25 AUD) still cheaper than you’d ever get in Australia. I suspect there’s also a little shrinkflation going on as well, as my banh mi was a little thin on fillings compared to previous visits. They are still delicious, the joy of crunchy bread, pork and vegetable filling, a sandwich of beauty.

Back at the hotel to drop off our shopping, I tried a new Vietnamese phrase “tôi no vô bụng rồi” which, when pronounced correctly, is a humorous way to say that I was full of food. Sadly I didn’t pronounce it correctly to our hotel staff, so got a perplexed look until I showed her, she then laughed and told me how to say it properly. Then it was time for a massage at our local favourite place. One of the things I love is how they wash our feet in warm water infused with slices of lime and chunks of lemongrass. This time L talked me into having a 90 minute massage, and it was very relaxing indeed, I didn’t quite fall asleep but was fairly close. In previous years they’d provide a mango smoothie at the end of the massage, but this time they’ve been giving us a huge slice of mango. I don’t know what they are fertilising their mango trees with, but there are some huge fruit around these parts.

The ancient town was very quiet at 3pm, it was amazing, we just enjoyed strolling along streets that at other times have been thick with tourists. We had a late lunch at a fairly up-market cafe we’d visited on another visit, though sadly they’ve dropped the ball a little. Part of the attraction was they used to have a menu that highlighted gluten free offerings, and had gf white roses (local specialty) and other choices. Nowadays the meu is an ipad with pictures, and no dietary information. The staff similarly don’t seem to have much awareness either. I ordered the white roses, and L ordered some dumplings that looked from the picture to be rice paper, however the food looked nothing like the pics. White roses are parcels of prawn and pork, wrapped in rice flour rolls, steamed, and shaped like a rose, hence the name. They had some interesting syrup flavours with soda water, so I had a cranberry and sage. It was sweet cranberry syrup, and a lingering hint of sage. Quite delicious. We did have to spend some time fending off street sellers that seemed to operate around the back area with impunity — there are signs on tables saying not to buy from them, but no staff seemed to be moving them on.

Then it was back to Be Be 2 for the bitter sweet final fitting. The clothes all look wonderful and fit well. They kindly offered to have them delivered to our hotel so we didn’t have to carry them back (we did order quite a lot). Then we said our goodbyes, the staff there are great, it’s awesome to have a place that we go to every couple of years and be recognised and welcomed like regulars. For all that we love Hoi An, I do find the expectation that we’re first time tourists a little tiring: we know how to eat banh xeo, we know how a lot of thigs around town work, so we just nod and smile politely as they all get explained again. At Be Be 2 there’s none of that, it’s straight to talking about family and life and what clothes we want. So it’s a little sad to have to say goodbye.

Last shopping stop was at Yaly, our other tailors, for a final fitting for L. My shirts were already wrapped and once L’s clothes are done these too will get dropped off at our hotel. We’re gonna need a bigger hotel room I think.

Between shopping and our hotel was the Market Bar and happy hour, so how could we not stop in for a fishbowl gin and tonic or two. My first was with lemongrass and star anise, and that’s a beautiful combination. My second was gin infused with strawberry, basil, and pepper, and it was okay but the basil was of the thai variety and it really stole the show. The other flavours weren’t really there.

Dinner was down on the river front, as I’d found a place that offered seafood banh xeo, which sounded great. I went for a tasting plate of 3 local favourites: white roses, banh xeo, and fried wantons. Hoi An does their wantons differently, they are kept mostly flat, and then you add the sauce on top. Delicious, but I would have been happy with a little more filling. The roses were tasty delicate parcels .The banh xeo were good and crunchy, with an added twist of slices of pineapple. Hawaiian banh xeo anyone? We followed this with wonderful rolls of beef wrapped in betel leaf. For desert I had icecream with bananas that had been flamed with alcohol and drizzled with a honey sauce, while L had mango that had a similar treatment. A good meal.

As we ate, we watched the brightly lit tourist boats chugging along, partly with a suspicion of impending doom. While the boats are generally brightly lit in the middle, there rarely have lights to show where the bow and stern are. They are also driven from the stern, so the captain has to steer while looking into a light show. Add to this there only seems to be a vague convention as to which side of the river they should all keep to, while most seem to keep right, not all do. And if all this wasn’t exciting enough, there are occasional boats zooming through that have no lights at all. Fortunately there weren’t any collisions this evening — especially as, hypothetically speaking of course, no one appeared to be wearing any life jackets. While we did see a boat with flashing blue and red lights, it was just another tour boat.

The other horror came drifting across the river. Karaoke. Many people do karaoke well, and many Asians take great pride in their performances, they invented it afterall. I’ve seen small groups almost sitting to attention as they delicately pay homage to their favourite songs. I’ve seen western barbarians absolutely destroy pop and rock classics in the name of karaoke, I ashamedly admit I have contributed to this affront to a noble artform. However, the sounds that came from across the Thu Bon River this evening were possibly the worst performances in the history of karaoke that I haven’t been partly responsible for. I’m no trained musician, I can play CDs, but I think that some of the noises I heard tonight were new notes being invented. Children on airplanes struggling with the pressure changes are more melodic that what we heard. Some of the singers would make an average Collingwood supporter belching the club theme through missing teeth seem like Pavarotti. It sounded like a child was given a turn and they were by no means the worst. It’s amazing the volume this was being projected, as if every speaker was turned up to 11 and facing away from whatever venue this was happening at. There are sounds that human voices should not make, many of these are on Phil Collins records, but others were let loose on Hoi An tonight.

With full bellies and pained ears we headed back to the hotel, where a cheerful staff greeted us from behind a large pile of Be Be bags with our names on them.

Tomorrow’s out last full day in Hoi An, where there will be last foods, massages, souvenir shopping, and maybe even some time blocking traffic and getting the right shots for our instagrams.