-
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.…
-
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…
-
Viet Nam the fourth: Day 8 Da Nang
Viet Nam: beautiful one day, invisible the next. Well, if you head into the hills anyway. The regular reader may recall our experience on the last trip when we summitted the highest point in VN, Mt Fan Xi Pan, where we found ourselves well and truly in the clouds, ensuring the view was John Major grey all around. Today’s adventure was the Sun World Ba Na Hills resort, about 40 minutes out of Da Nang, location of another of Vietnam’s world record cable cars, and the often stunning Golden Bridge. After a decent breakfast at the hotel we summoned a Grab and headed out. Our driver was lovely, warming to…
-
Viet Nam the fourth: Day 7 Da Nang
A day of exploring the strange wonderland that is Da Nang. After an okay hotel breakfast we took a stroll, the first stop being the Da Nang Cathedral, otherwise known as the pink church. Why is it pink, I don’t know. A quick google didn’t tell me either. It did tell me that the church is around 100 years old, built by the French, and on top of the cross is a chicken weather vane, so the locals also call it the chicken church. Around the walls are a number of images depicting JC in action, and if you thought that western churches had whitewashed his image, in these he…
-
Viet Nam the fourth: Day 6 Quy Nhon – Da Nang
We said goodbye to our slightly unusual, partly deserted hotel early in order to catch the 7.07am train to Da Nang. I’m sure the hotel means well, but with various oddities in the room design, few of its additional facilities being open, and staff who were very friendly but didn’t really know how to recommend places to go to around town, it wasn’t quite all that 4 star. Its final goodbye involved a poor staff member having to try to go to our room three times to check the minibar, as the swipe cards weren’t working, while our car waited outside. They did manage to sort it but it was…
-
Viet Nam the fourth: Day 5 Quy Nhon
Happy New Calendar Year. It’s a good thing that the Vietnamese seem to be happy celebrating every new year, be it calendar, Chinese lunar, or their own lunar (which may or may not coincide with Chinese lunar) as around 1140pm on New Year’s Eve the heavens opened up and it rained a bit for at least the next hour. Fortunately we were safely tucked up in bed, but I wonder how the outdoor concert fared. We did see some of the fireworks from out window. It’s now 2024, crazy. The only resolutions you’ll see here are to travel more, eat more, walk more, and try to judge the world less…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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,…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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!).…
