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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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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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Day 25: Aachen, Koln, Transit
After totally crashing last night, I slept in bits and pieces, waking several times, just feeling like the hotel room was too warm. Once my brain was sort of alert, I figured I should probably look at booking trains to get me to Frankfurt flughafen, now I had an idea of times. I still don’t totally understand the DB online booking system, from what I could tell, I could pick the train with the lowest fare, then in the booking options make it a flexible ticket possibly for any train today, and only pay a few euro more, so I could get a 40 euro ticket, and for an extra…
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Day 24: Aachen
Where I become an accidental pilgrim, and walk a lot. Woke still quite tired, but with my hotel room facing east the morning sun was warming it up (there is an aircon in the room, but it is more noise than cool) so it was time to go walking. Found an interesting and popular place, Leni Loves Coffee I think it translated to (or Leni Lives Coffee, my German isn’t too good), probably the first cafe in Germany I’ve seen that does an iced coffee, so after one of those and a breakfast of smoked salmon, poached eggs, avocado, and hollandaise sauce on bread (not toasted, strangely) I felt a…
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Day 23: Amsterdam, Aachen, Landgraaf
We can just call this Bruce Springsteen day really. Started in Amsterdam, checked out, and it was a simple single tram to the central station. Grabbed a muffin and a coffee, thinking that would work for breakfast while there would be something on the train to Aachen. Nope, no food to be found, just seats, not even a great amount of luggage space so once the train started filling up I had to be reminded that suitcases can go in the space between seat backs. I tried not to look too enviously at the older lady who had packed a sandwich, so apparently it’s a real thing, and the KLM…
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Day 21: Edinburgh, Amsterdam
Apologies dear reader, I’m checking in late for this one, for reasons that will be explained. Kicked off my last morning in Edinburgh doing some final shopping, picking up bits and pieces, and figured I should go for one last full Scottish breakfast before heading to the continent. Found a nearby place called the Ginger Coo Cafe, sadly, but they did provide a decent amount of food. Then it was pack the last few bits and head for the airport tram. I retired my toiletries case in Edinburgh. It has served me well since at least 2009, maybe even 2005, but was quite large and I’m travelling with just essentials…
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Day 20: Edinburgh
Last full day in Edinburgh, so spent almost 17,000 steps making the most of it. First stop of the day was the tram down to Haymarket, basically the closest laundromat. They apparently do pick up laundry from my hotel, which reception failed to advise me late night when I asked them where the nearest laundromat was, and they also do free delivery to my hotel so at least I could arrange that. But they only take cash, which had me wandering down the road, first to the post office, but my card wasn’t compatible, and then to a cashpoint a bit further down. I did manage to get a set…
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Day 18: Fort William, Edinburgh
Welcome to day 18, basically where the Scotland part of this trip starts to wind down, with Edinburgh being the last stop. It kicked off again with waking a little too early, even with the hill the room got bright quite early. Snoozed until it was time to pack and do all the showering things, before heading down to one last attempt by the bnb host to feed me until I exploded. I went with the porridge this morning, because have you really been in Scotland if you haven’t had porridge? Then came the usual cooked goodness and fruit and yogurt, enough to see us through the morning. There was…
