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Five flavours: Day 9 Hoi An
Soundtrack: “Fame”, David Bowie Tôi no vô bụng rồi. Sitting on the bed after a wonderful evening eating (and drinking) our way around Viet Nam, all within a few hundred steps of our hotel. So very full indeed. Breakfast was banh mi, and I’m happy to say that our hotel does one of the best banh mi around. Having had the famous (thanks Anthony Bourdain) Banh Mi Phuong yesterday, I’d honestly say that I thought this morning’s was better. The bread was as crunchy, and the fillings, pork, egg, greens, pate, were just a little better, plumper, and more balanced. After a few days here we’re feeling the hotel loves…
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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.…
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Five flavours: Day 7 Hoi An
Soundtrack: “Fashion”, David Bowie A quiet day in Hoi An. We started with the hotel breakfast, not a huge buffet but a small menu freshly prepared to order. We started with some yogurt and fresh fruit: watermelon, pineapple, dragon fruit and banana. I think that this hotel, and many hotels in Hoi An, get a lot of western tourists wanting western food, as when I was asked for my coffee order and I replied ca phe sua da, our server’s eyes lit up. I went for a banh mi for breakfast, the delicious crunchy bread, nicely filled with pork, scrambled egg, vegetables, herbs, and a little spicy sauce. I happily…
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Five flavours: Day 6 Hoi An
Soundtrack: The Hoi An Memories show music Today started way too early, as I’d booked us into a tour of My Son Sanctuary and surrounds. There were two choices, the 5am start to beat the heat, or the 7.30am, so I went with the 5am. FYI My Son is pronounced “mee son”. Our guide had the indecency of being on time. I’d managed to quickly drink a can of coffee so I was vaguely conscious for the drive through Hoi An picking up the rest of the tour. Then is was about an hour out to My Son via the local twisting roads. For part of this our guide gave…
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Five flavours: Day 5 Hue to Hoi An
Soundtrack: “Sharp Dressed Man”, ZZ Top This should be a short post today, as we didn’t really do much. I don’t really plan these posts, just open up the laptop and words fall onto the screen, so there’s no guarantee that I won’t end up with several thousand words about today. Though I really do doubt it. Last breakfast of Hue hotel soup and assorted buffet bits. If only I had the time, energy and skill, I could really get used to that Hue soup for breakfast, the meaty stock, lots of lemongrass flavour, and a hint of chilli. I won’t be surprised if I do lots of cooking with…
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Viet Nam the fourth: Day 12 Hoi An – transit
A fairly quiet day really, as the plan was that I’d get picked up around 4pm at the hotel for my flight to HCMC then home. I’m writing this at Da Nang airport, after my flight was due to depart, as VietJet have been sending me updates all day telling me my flight is delayed. In theory I’ve got about an hour until I board, in practice who knows. It turn out that while VietJet are cheap, they aren’t actually that good. Despite booking a two stop ticket, I’ve been told that they can’t check my bag through to destination, so at HCMC I get to pick up my case,…
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Viet Nam the fourth: Day 11 Hoi An
My last full day in Hoi An, and also L’s birthday. After breakfast we went to pick up our laundry, things sure are fierce along laundry street. once we’d got our clothes we walked the length of the street, and no less than two other locals, looking at our bag (and assuming it contained dirty clothes) gestured for us to come to them for laundry. Once they realised we were carrying a bag of clean clothes they went back into the shadows, watching, planning, scheming. If not today or tomorrow, some day soon laundry wars are coming to Hoi An. We checked out a different massage place this morning, one…
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Viet Nam the fourth: Day 10 Hoi An
Coffee. Viet Nam is one of the world’s largest producers of these wonderful beans, though they rarely get recognised for this as the majority is robusta, not the better marketed arabica variety. I’m not even sure many self-proclaimed coffee snobs know much about robusta beans, as these tend to form the backbone of the instant coffee market. Kind of like grain whisky, it’s the bulk of all of the popular scotch blends, but only a big whisky nerd could name any of the grain distilleries. Robusta beans are higher in caffeine, generally more bitter, lower in sugar, higher in anti-oxidants, and are more resistant to disease so need less pesticides.…
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Viet Nam the fourth: Day 9 Da Nang – Hoi An
The historic village of Hoi An sits about 25km south of Da Nang. Even 10 years ago, there as a definite undeveloped space between the two. These days, the coast south of Da Nang is full of new resorts, and resorts under construction, so it’s hard to say where Da Nang ends and Hoi An begins. If you want something made, go to Hoi An: clothes, shoes, glasses, jewellery, you name it, they can probably find someone who makes it. Las time we were here, not long after VN opened up post-covid, it felt like we were almost the only western tourists, many shops were closed, and street vendors made…
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Vietnam the third: day 16, Hoi An – Singapore
Was a little sad to say goodbye to Vietnam: for all the heat, chaos, hawking, and haggling, it’s now elevated to a home away from home, a place where there is much good food, friendly people, and a general good time to be had. It’s also proof that a country can bounce back from being screwed over by the US and make something for itself (now if only the US could do the same). The Vietnamese seem to generally be a proud people, who can both hold onto traditions and also adapt with the times — many of the businesses we shopped at also have strong online presences, and will…
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Vietnam the third: day 15, Hoi An
As our last full day in Vietnam draws to a close, I’m sipping freshly squeezed sugarcane juice, nibbling on a banana pancake, and throwing words at the screen in a bid to entertain my reader. Our day kicked off with a cooking class at Goian Homestay/Restaurant/Cooking School/Evil Villain Lair for all I know, with the incredibly friendly Vinh. She dragged us around the local market, pointing out all manner of fruit and herbs, we were familiar with many, but there were some that we hadn’t encountered before, including one that tasted quite fishy (I’ve got a feeling I had some of this with some banh xeo earlier in the week,…
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Vietnam the third: day 14, Hoi An
Still in Hoi An, today was even slower paced than previous. We did pretty much all of our final fittings, and picked up orders today. I now have a new pair of shoes, and many new shirts. Our extra batch of custom gifts, ordered at 25% lower than the lowest price, came through, strangely enough (or not really strangely at all, in the way things work around here). We dropped off and later picked up a load of laundry: the laundry woman had previously also hit us up to try to get us to shop at a specific place, which we didn’t, so there was a brief moment when we…
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Vietnam the third: day 13, Hoi An
See yesterday’s post: same same but different. More clothes fittings, getting some of our more elaborate garments finetuned — there’s just something about the mandarin collar on my jacket that means it won’t sit level, hopefully a button adjustment will fix. Foodwise, I got to go back to Banh Mi Phuong, the other heavyweight banh mi joint in Hoi An, with all the good press, endorsements from Anthony Bourdain, etc blah blah. Last time we were here, I rated Phuong over Madam Khanh, as the filling was fresher, greener, and overall just had the edge. Sadly if today is anything to go by, the quality at Phuong has dipped a…
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Vietnam the third: day 12, Hoi An
Today certainly had marked similarities to the last couple of days: shopping, eating, sweating. A chunk of the day we spent outside was doing various fittings. Trying on shirts and pants and jackets and shoes and dresses (L for the last two). All of our clothes are looking pretty good, some are even finished. I had one of those moments when I had an idea, an interesting customised pressie for a few folks back home, so I presented this to one of the shops. They thought they could do it, but at a bit of expense (I mean we like the folks these will be for, just not that much!).…
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Vietnam the third: day 11, Hoi An
Today was pretty much a repeat of yesterday: shop eat rest shop massage eat. It’s a tough life. Hoi An turned on another typical hot season day, high 30s but somehow feeling a little less hot than yesterday. After breakfast at the hotel we headed to a Be Be, as visited on the last trip where I got an amazing jacket that I haven’t had much opportunity to wear. This time the plan was for a slightly less elaborate, but still amazing jacket, that I might be able to wear more often. Hopefully in a few days I’ll be able to post a pic of me in it. To accessorise,…
