Another transit day yesterday from Hoi An to Ho Chi Min City. (I was going to write ‘formerly Saigon’ but that’s not true. The names are interchangeable and both are commonly used).
Ho Chi Min City is very different to Hanoi. Hanoi has a thousand years oc history, with narrow streets and the atmosphere of a huge bustling market.
Ho Chi Min on the other hand, is only two hundred years old and it’s an ultra modern western city. You could be in any major capital with malls, car showrooms, lots of glitz and, surprisingly, many stores already decked out for Christmas. Ho Ho Ho.
We quickly checked into the hotel and then it was time to die. Probably.
Ho Chi Min might be more modern than Hanoi but the traffic if anything is even more insane. And we’d booked to do an evening food tour – on the back of Vespas!
It took ten minutes to sign the disclaimers : If they crash, it’s our fault, if we die, it’s our fault, if the drivers are negligent in any way whatsoever, even if they drive us deliberately through a burning bus into shark infested water – you’ve guessed it – it’s our fault.
Then we were off, swarming around cars and pedestrians through the streets of Ho Chi Min along with the hundreds of other scooters, clinging on for dear life.
For about two minutes.
We quickly realised that it may look like a free for all mayhem when actually, it’s a free for all all mayhem.
Scary at first
However, then we realised it was great fun as they’re all actually great drivers.
Then we got to enjoy it
I think there’s just three rules in their Highway Code.
Never stop
Never look sideways or behind
Don’t crash.
It’s so much simpler than our Highway Code and it works so much better. No blocks, no jams, no accidents. Just keep going, as quickly as possible, on any side of the road, in any direction, even on the pavement, until you arrive at your destination.
The first stop was at a bar where we had a beer, then another bar – Lychee martinis, then another – Singapore sling,
The cure for bile terror.,
…..after which we didn’t really care anymore 🥴.
How to say ‘Cheers!’ In Vietnamese
Then onto the local street food stalls. There really no point eating at fancy shmancy restaurants here when the street food is so good.
One stall, an outdoor pancake house (that you’d take one look at and steer clear of in Europe), was in the Michelin guide and deservedly so. Fresh rice pancakes (rice flour water & turmeric) filled with beanspouts and other fresh vegetables, rolled in fresh herbs and dipped in the local sauce doesn’t sound anything special but it was.
Excellent pancakes
A few more tadty courses at more food stalls…
….then on to a couple more bars with local singers who would all be in with shout of winning Vietnam’s got talent, and then back on the scooters for the last time.
It was so much fun we didn’t want the night to end but we returned to our hotel and Brigitte immediately started googling ‘Vespas for sale’ back home.
Strange things:
I think there’s something in the water here – each day my hands seem to be growing larger.
Going to bed, bug day of yours tomorrow..
Oh, and don’t forget to vote on the fruit quiz, it’s on yesterdays blog, results tomorrow!
For a few days before I travel long-haul, I go to bed a little earlier or later, depending on which direction I’m travelling, and then it never really bothers me. However we’re now into day 10 and I have been wide awake every single morning at 4.28am. (Yes, exactly).
That’s around 10/11pm in Europe, around the time I’m usually thinking about bed, so I have no idea why? It makes no sense but it does give me time to write the blog. Suggestions on a postcard please…
We had the morning off today so we went to the beach to see if the typhoon was on its way.
The waves were huge and came right in so we couldn’t sit on the sand but there was a nice beach house to spend a few hours in and drink coconut coffee. (See later)
We’ve been lucky so far. It’s not much of a typhoon to be honest. A bit rainy but nothing too bad and it’s still high twenties so perfect for walking.
Whenever I travel it’s the cultural differences that I’d never considered that fascinate me.
We’ve travelled through many areas now in different towns and cities in Vietnam and each street has a mixture of houses. Yes, they are all completely different architecturally (there seems to be no building regulations about conformity or style) but what I found interesting was the mix of properties.
Most properties on a street are the same width, quite narrow, maybe 10 metres wide because the frontage determines the land price. However, you’ll see a property with a newly-rendered white boundary wall decorated with ornate wrought iron, behind which is a beautiful two-story house with modern windows, a balcony, a tiled roof with a nice car parked in the small front area, obviously well cared for.
Next to it however, usually physically touching, is a single story ‘shack’, barely upright with corrugated roof, a tarpaulin for shade, open frontage, strewn with possessions such as cooking pots and plastic containers with an old scooter and its spares strewn around, looking quite run down, and this mix continues down street after street.
It took me a while before I formed a theory which An, our guide and fruit ambassador, confirmed. It’s about upward mobility, or the lack of the need for it.
In Europe, as people acquire more money they ‘better themselves’ by moving up to a larger home in what they consider a nicer area. We take it for granted don’t we? But do we do it for ourselves or to demonstrate our success and status?
Here, people are more likely to stay in the place their families have always lived, as they value their family, their community and friends so they prefer to stay in the same place, often living in the same home for generations. If they become more successful they don’t move away, they just literally improve their lot, and consequently, their community, which seems a nice way to live.
Confession
We had no idea what to expect in Vietnam food-wise so, a few months ago, I decided to research and book some nice restaurants in the places we were visiting if we had nothing planned in the evening.
It really, really annoys me that anything online now requires so much unnecessary information about you.
Surely they only need your surname, date, time and the number of people to book a table.
Nope, they now require your Title, (His excellency), Full address, (there’s never enough space for mine), Credit card details, (and, after you’ve entered it – ‘sorry we dont take American Express’ 😡). Then, Inside or outside table? (Is it going to rain?), Are you allergic to anything? (I always put snake-bites), Seating preferences? (comfy-chair please), If we are busy would you mind sharing a table? (Not a bl**dy chance), Preferred method of resuscitation should you start to choke? (Heimlich) Seats facing or side by side (seriously?). It’s really, really, really annoying.
They also all asked ‘Are you celebrating anything’ and, at the time when I booked in September, we were. It was Brigitte’s birthday, so I wrote this fact on every booking. It was the truth.
So last night, some two and a half months later……..
I’ll keep you informed how her future celebrations go!
Talking of food, I saw an unusual item on the menu a few days ago – ‘Flying fish eggs’. I assume they just take off from the kitchen and land on your table, thereby reducing the number of waiters they need to employ, It’s incredible what they have here!
Ooh, and my new favourite drink. I told you about egg coffee in an earlier post but it’s now been blown out of the water by coconut coffee. Think upside-down Affogato. Served cold. It’s really good coffee, topped with frozen coconut milk and toasted coconut pieces. It’s the future!
The future!
I’ve had so many of them that I thought I’d add the count at the top of the blog along with days and massages but I don’t want to bury you in statistics.
(Did you know that Vietnam is the largest provider of instant/processed coffee to Europe and the second largest coffee exporter in the world overall, second to only Brazil? You do now.
Fruit quiz
I can see that there were 73 visitors to this blog yesterday and not one person got the fruit quiz.
The answer was obviously an egg fruit because it’s shaped like an egg and it’s yellow inside.
Maybe the quiz has just run its natural course and it’s just losing popularity?
Strange things #1
The birds here are very unusual
Strange things #2
This man shrinks human heads by pickling them in rice wine and kimchi.
I think we’ll miss Torremolinos Hoi An.
We both love it here because, although it’s at times a horrible tourist trap heaving with bodies, it’s still friendly and everyone is well-behaved. No drunks, the street vendors are all polite and amusing and no-one is yelling or staggering around drunk.
It’s just a really nice atmosphere, quaint with interesting side streets, unusual stores selling interesting local crafts and nice restaurants all illuminated with thousands of lanterns.
Just four of my 200 lantern photos!
We asked An to show us the old city and at the same time we spent a couple of hours sating Brigitte’s shopping addiction before saying goodbye to An 😫 and going for Brigitte’s birthday dinner #1.
Probably a no-news day tomorrow as we’re travelling from Hoi An to Ho Chi Min City for the next leg of our tour.
I knew we had a tour today but for the life of me I couldn’t remember what, where or why but, as is so often is the case, they turn out to be the best days.
We were met by An, our guide for Hoi An (Hoi An An 😀) and whisked away in the hotels finest limo…
and dropped off at our trusty steeds for the day.
I’ve ridden two pedal bikes in the last twenty years and both of them were in the last 5 days.
We rode through the local countryside, passing buffalo…
…rice fields and shrimp farms to visit an organic farm, taking in the scenery along the way.
Two words sum up the ride.
‘Sore’ and ‘Buttocks’.
But apart from discomfort due to inadequate padding de mon derrière it was a really lovely ride.
The local community farm we visited has a number of farmers who each cultivate their own plots.
It’s the typical communist collective farm that we were taught about in school where they all pool resources to feed themselves and the community.
They grow a wide variety of crops, mainly the myriad of fragrant herbs that flavour Vietnamese cooking. Lemon grass, different varieties of mint, basil, turmeric amongst others. Sweet potatoes and even loofahs.
Armed and ready to exfoliate
It’s all organic and they are taught how to apply natural pest control such as infusing ginger or garlic or chillies in alcohol which they let mature, dilute with water and spray on their crops as natural pesticides.
I’m definitely going to try this on my Slug problem back home and, even if my lettuces still get eaten, Brigitte will have garlic and wine infused snails ready for the barbecue.
An incredible lady called Mrs Sáu ( 6 ) Miễn who is well into her seventies and works the farm every day was the farmer who proudly showed us around her farm which is her livelihood.
Mrs Sáu ( 6 ) Miễn and her son
I asked An about her name and apparently she was a sixth child and it’s common to be called by that number.
Afternoon green tea with sweet potato. No clotted cream.Hard at work on the farm
Be careful what you wish for
If you remember the fruit quiz on day 3, it was a Betal fruit and I mentioned it’s used for chewing and believed to be good for weight loss so this is a note for you Lynn as you asked me to bring some back for you.
It’s chewed as a natural toothpaste. They sprinkle some finely ground clamshell onto a leaf …..
… then it’s cleverly folded up into a tiny parcel using the leaf stalk to hold it all together…
….add a slice of the Betal fruit and chew it.
After doing this for many years, you end up with a fine set of teeth like Mrs Sáu ( 6 ) Miễn.
We thought she had really bad teeth but, if you look closely, she has really good teeth, no dental decay whatsoever, but chewing the betal fruit has dyed them black.
I’m sending a kilo to you now Lynn, let us know how you get on!
After our visit we all climbed into a traditional basket boat
and the incredible Mrs Sáu ( 6 ) Miễn, then single-handedly rowed us at least a kilometre down the river, against the current, to a local restaurant.
The basket boats (we call them coracles. Remember the one at Shrewsbury town’s football ground that was used to get the ball out of the river in the ’70’s? Look it up) were introduced as a tax avoidance scheme.
When the French invaded in the 1850’s they imposed a tax on boats. To get around it the enterprising Vietnamese started making small round boats but insisted that they were just large bamboo baskets and therefore not liable for tax – and it worked!
Mrs Sáu ( 6 ) Miễn waves goodbye and returns to the farm
At the restaurant we had a cooking demonstration so we are now fully qualified in Vietnamese cuisine.
Then, four foot massages later, we were on our way back to the hotel.
I must say thank you to An, our amazing guide today and also hello, or ‘Xin chào An’, as she is the first Vietnamese subscriber to my blog.
Firstly, I am appointing her as the blog’s official fruit ambassador as she showed us so many unusual fruits that I have to call our travel agent to extend the holiday so I can fit them all in the fruit quiz.
Secondly, An dispelled more of my unfounded prejudices about Vietnam and communism. I had assumed, (because of my British education) that Vietnamese women were subservient, male dominated and restricted, with fewer opportunities than men.
An assured me that I am wrong, and she is a prime example. A single mother by choice, she started and runs her own business, and is obviously a very intelligent and determined independent lady. She says that women in general are treated equally here and there is no limit to how successful they can become if they have ambition.
I have to admit my anti-communist preconceptions are taking a bit of a beating as far as Vietnam is concerned.
Having worked on the farm I thought I’d try my hands at a bit of street selling last night
I bought some fruit from the lady and this morning I was eating some when Brigitte woke up. She asked what I was eating. I said “Rambutan” she looked horrified. She thought I’d said Orangutan 🤣
Fruit quiz
No winners, so I keep the points today. It was a rose apple. Very nutritious and you can also eat the leaves and bark. Chew-Woof! Chew-Woof!
Today’s mystery fruit courtesy of An, our new fruit ambassador…
It may have been my fault. I definitely said nothing but I may have thought that the Buddah at the Citidel needed to lose a few pounds, purely for health reasons, and I think it upset him because last night Buddah cried and it got very wet.
The rooms at our hotel, the Ancient Hue Gardens, has very beautiful traditional garden houses but the roofs are made of clay tiles. At first I couldn’t understand why Brigitte was having a shower at 4am, then I realised it was the torrential rain pelting the clay and coming through the porous tiles into the room.
As I said in my prologue post, we were fortunate to miss Typhoon Yagi.
Unfortunately Typhoon Man-Yi has just hit the Philippines and it’s now on its way here, so it seems we could be in for some bad weather for a few days.
Fingers crossed the typhoon will calm a bit before it gets here as we have a very nice pool on the roof in our hotel in Hoi An where we just arrived and we’d like to use it before it blows away.
Roof pool please stay
I just went to explore said pool and, on the way back, I made the classic mistake of opening the wrong door and ended up in a broom cupboard! Luckily I think no-one noticed.
Philosophical question: If you walk into a broom cupboard and there’s no-one there to see it, are you still a plonker?
Hoi An is around 240km (150 miles) south of Hue and I recently requested a diversion to Da Nang as I’d heard it was an interesting city.
Rather than the motorway, we took the The Hai Van Pass, a 165km winding scenic route on the East Coast of Vietnam, connecting Hue to Da Nang. Great for motorbikes so I gently leaned into the corners for nostalgia.
This pass was used as a military post in the past as it was a strategic and physical border between the kingdoms of Champa and Dai Viet from 1306 and north and south during the Vietnam war.
Asleep at the battlementsThey sell helpful maps so you know where to tread carefully
We then stopped at a beautiful bay which seems to exist solely as a photo opportunity with its typical working fishing boats.
Then we reached Da Nang itself and visited the museum of Cham sculpture.
Da Nang’s famous Dragon bridge. Named because….well, it’s obvious isn’t it?
The Cham, or Champa, were the original inhabitants of central Vietnam and Cambodia. There are only around 150,000 of them left in southern Vietnam. (Ethnic cleansing 😩). They were Hindu/Buddist with their own language and built many, many temples.
The museum was one of the first built by the French and an archeologist, named Henri Parmentier, collected hundreds of artefacts and statues which are now in this world-class museum.
My favourite statue. Half Monkey-half Duck?
Next stop was Marble mountain in Da Nang. It’s a group of five karsts (like the ones that rise from the water in Lan Ha bay). They are both a natural wonder and spiritual setting.
The five karsts are named after the five ‘elements’. Metal, water, wood, fire and earth and home to a network of caves, tunnels and pagodas built by the mahayana Buddhists and Nguyen emperors (remember them?).
Lots of steps to climb! So many that we were exhausted so we had to find a nice beach club for lunch…
Note the typhoon creeping up behind us
…before reaching Hoi An, our home for the next few days.
A budding Bond villain if ever I saw one!
Toilet talk
If you followed my Japan blog you will be aware of my obsession with their toilet technology. Water sprays of varying temperatures, pressure and pulsating cleaning jets. ‘Privacy’ modes to mask ‘certain noises’ and lovely warm air dryers.
So impressed was I that kept my blog promise and installed one when I got home. I’m now well known for having one of the freshest bottoms in the Harrogate region!
In Vietnam, however, toilet tech is way behind Japan, though a little ahead of the UK, as many WC’s have a hose attached with a manual water jet.
I have absolutely no idea how to use such a thing. Do you stand up and spray up, down and around? How does one aim without a mirror? Or, are you meant to just stay seated and somehow thread the hose into the bowl and randomly spray?
Either way I reckon you’d just end up with damp dongs. (Because everyone surely keeps their money in their back pocket don’t they?).
Fruit quiz, Fruit quiz, Fruit quiz
Today, I’m going to award Anna half a point for knowing that the mystery fruit is also known as the ‘queen of fruits’. Its actual name, however, is the Mangosteen. It’s incredibly popular here, made into jams and desserts, and thought to have many medicinal properties.
The Durian (see fruit quiz no. 1) is known as the king of fruits and Mangosteen the queen, so they are often served together.
(Come on Charlie, I have to be impartial and don’t want to fruit-shame you but your fruit confidence and fruit knowledge are out of alignment😉)
Todays fruit quiz…
Another day, another mystery fruit
This evening we wandered the Night market.
Hoi An is a cute little town split by the Thu Bon river, along whose banks most of the action occurs.
There’s an old historic town which we’ll explore another day and the night market named because, well, it’s a market and it opens at night.
The frontage, as Brigitte pointed out, is a bit Torremolinos in terms of tourist quantity, lights and people trying to persuade you to eat at their restaurant but it’s much smaller, the food enticers are less pushy and no one has kiss me quick hats. (Or hôn tôi nhanh lên as they’re called here).
There’s lots of illumination along the riverbanks and a fleet of small dragon boats taking tourists up and down the river to cast their lantern upon the water and make a wish.
Dragon boats
My wish would be for less people.
However, move one street away from the riverbank and the atmosphere completely changes into a lovely, quiet little town with really nice boutiques and restaurants.
We ate at one called The Secret Garden and we weren’t the only ones, so it looks like their secret got out last night and they’ll now have to change their name. Maybe just the garden in future?
That’s all for today, another adventure awaits tomorrow when we get down and dirty on a local organic farm.
For some reason I was expecting Hue to be a quaint coastal town with a small castle but I must’ve mis-read the comprehensive notes we were given. It is actually a large and very modern city some 750km south of Hanoi and was the capital until 1945.
It is divided in two by the Perfume river – (because it smells, of course) – (yes, in a good way) – (lotus blossom in summer actually) – (stop asking so many questions) and, on the northern bank, is Thien Mu Pagoda, the main symbol of the city.
Thien Mu Pagoda – it’s vertical, my photography isn’t.
Further along the river is the Imperial Citadel, ancient home to the Emperors of the Nguyen dynasty of Vietnam.
It is huge. A city within the city, protected by an outer wall almost 11km long plus a moat and inner walls that divide it into the Forbidden City and the Imperial city.
It’s a vast and very impressive citadel with Palaces for generations of Emperors, their families, their wives, their concubines and the mandarins.
It was constructed as the Capital City in 1803 under Emperor Gia Long and 13 Nguyen Emperors ruled from here until the imposition of the French Protectorate in the 1880s and then it became mainly symbolic until the Nguyen dynasty was ousted in 1945 and Vietnam became a republic.
History lesson over, (phew, I hear you say) except for the interesting fact that these Emperors had so many children, by so many concubines, that over 40% of the population of Vietnam now has the family name of Nguyen.
Imagine roll-call at school – Nguyen? ‘Here Sir’, Nguyen? ‘Here Sir’, Nguyen? ‘Here Sir’, Nguyen?, Nguyen?, Where’s Nguyen? ‘He’s ill today sir!’ Okay, Nguyen? ‘Here Sir’, etc etc.
We were then taken on a cyclo-tour which was quite embarrassing. I felt we were two old people being taken out for rides in our wheelchairs.
On day release from the old peoples home.
Plus it’s a bit hair-raising being propelled at the front of a wheelchair through the Vietnamese traffic, it’s not exactly safe.
Talking of which, there’s a reason that a safe is called a safe isn’t there? The clue is in the name you would think.
Whenever I check into a hotel, before going out I always dump everything in the safe to keep it all, err, safe.
However, this is the second hotel we have stayed at where the safe isn’t. It’s not bolted down, you can just pick it up and off you go, as I shall now demonstrate…
The Vietnamese safe. A convenient take-away service for burglars.
More plate art-
If you order fish, you get a fish decoration made out of vegetables. Surely it would be easier just to pin an actual fish there? I wish, I’d ordered cow!
Strange things…
With the advent of the mobile phone, the Vietnamese now use their phone boxes to store old statues in.
Having eaten so much healthy food we were starting to crave carbs (or at least I was).
Many of you will know that, since buying a pizza oven last year, I’ve become a bit of a pizza afficianado/pizza bore (delete as you think appropriate). The same goes for sourdough bread (My starter has a name and travels with me), plus I’m partial to a fruity blonde, so when Brigitte spotted a micro brewery serving sourdough pizza we jumped in a taxi, waved our dongs in his face (yey, you were missing the dong jokes weren’t you?) and 50,000 later (about £1.70) we arrived at The Imperial Craft Bia Brewpub.
It’s owned and run by a Californian called Sean and his wife, Hằng, two very enthusiastic and bubbly characters.
They even use the yeast from their strawberry IPA as their sourdough pizza starter, which is interesting to me but probably not for you, apologies.
Suffice to say, delicious pizza, the pineapple IPA was very tasty and we have re-carbed our bodies.
Sean & Hằng
Also I got to further my mission and interrogated Sean on the Communism thing.
He was very enthusiastic about it all – and he’s an American – he’s the enemy here surely?
He set up his micro brewery six years ago, married Hằng, the business is doing well, there’s many local entrepreneurs, people are encouraged to better themselves and the people in general are really happy and feel the country is prospering.
He’s expanding his business and loves being in Vietnam.
I’m going to check the photos that I took of him to see if I can spot any hidden electrodes protruding from his head. It’s all so strange, communism is definitely, definitely, bad, right?
Onto the fruit quiz…,
Congratulations Anna you are today’s winner! You won by three minutes – so well worth getting up early to enter! 🤣
Yes, it was a Persimmon fruit, very popular in Vietnam snd China.
Another early morning start today to watch the sunrise over Lan Ha bay…
….and then Tai Chi before our Chai Tea.
I seem to have become one of those old people who do their morning exercise in US shopping malls. What’s happened to me?
The boat trip was so serene and relaxing that we were really sad to leave. I feel like we should’ve done it at the end of the trip, rather than the beginning as we’ve now got to get revved-up again into full tourist mode.
The whole crew waved us off the boat as they had done each time we arrived or departed which was a nice touch. It may have been them saying ‘Get off our boat imperialist dogs’ but, if it was, they are very good actors as each and every one was lovely, helpful and believably sincere. I’m still prodding though.
Brigitte loves a ‘treatment’, so her being in Vietnam is like the proverbial child in a sweetshop. She’s already had so many massages that she is suffering from erosion.
The number M7 in todays blog post heading is a new statistic, our massage count. Brigitte is contesting the number as, apparently, one was a ‘polish’. I haven’t asked and I don’t want to know.
Fortunately, her internet withdrawal symptoms seem to be subsiding now that her phone has reconnected and grandchild trivia is now back on full stream. Apparently one had cereal for breakfast.
We ordered a Pho for lunch en route which is a staple Vietnamese soup dish of broth and noodles. When it arrived we didn’t know whether to drink it or paddle in it!
However, the clue was there right on the bowl all along..
It’s a slow news day today as all we have done is disembarked, had a three-hour drive back to Hanoi before catching a plane to Hue (pronounced Hoo-way) so not much to regale you with.
By way of apology, please accept some more photographs of plate art….
It’s one of the five thousand, eight hundred and fifty six places in the world where the tourist guides all insist ‘James Bond was filmed here’.
As you will see from the photos, it’s an instantly recognisable place. It’s like the leaning tower of Pisa, the Taj Mahal or the Billy Bremner statue at Leeds United’s Elland Road ground. (What do you mean you’ve not seen that one? – it was voted Tripadvisor’s No.1 visitor attraction in Gildersome).
Ha Long’s huge bay’s incredible scenery is defined by almost two-thousand towering ‘Karsts’ (limestone islands). It’s name translates as ‘Descending Dragons’ but we’ve not spotted one of those yet, thank goodness.
However, Ha Long bay is not where we’re going.
The problem with Ha Long bay is that its fame has led to it being inundated with hundreds of boats and thousands of tourists which leaves no privacy for any self-respecting Bond villain to build his lair.
Instead, our destination was Lan Ha bay, which means summer orchids so more petals and less fire-breathing, which seems more pleasant.
So many photo opportunities.
Lan Ha adjoins Ha Long near Long Chau (keep up) and is pretty much identical in the scenery department, (both being UNESCO world heritage sites), but it’s much quieter, with just 60 small boats in a 70 square Km area. It’s beauty is unsullied apart from all the evil lairs commissioned by unscrupulous Bond villains, (although, by necessity, they’re very well hidden, otherwise Bond films would end after only 15 minutes rather than the requisite ninety).
Here we joined a small boat with just ten cabins called the ‘Yling’ where we will spend the next three days cruising and relaxing.
I don’t normally comment about the levels of luxury or otherwise that we may be lucky or unlucky enough to travel in, nor the quality of the food we eat, unless there’s a really good reason to do so.
There’s plenty of other food and hotel blogs if that’s your thing.
In this blog, it’s not relevant whether we stay in a youth hostel or a palace, eat grass in a field or Carpaccio of ostrich retina in Michelin opulence. For it to get a mention in this blog it needs to pass my very stringent ‘slightly interesting’, ‘oddly unusual’ or ‘cringingly weirdly’ testing regime).
We’ve had teriffic experiences in some places around the world and terrible experiences in other places and the relative cost or grandeur is rarely a factor of our opinion.
However, the moment we set foot on this tiny cruise ship we realised how special it is so I do have to mention it.
One of the reasons I wanted to do this particular tour was because of this cruise as I’d heard it was a rare experience but I wasn’t prepared for just how special it is.
It really is magnificent. Just ten beautiful cabins, each like a colonial diplomat’s residence. The boat gently cruises this magnificent bay with its towering rocks while we take part in activities, receive lectures about the geography, flora and fauna, visit islands and are generally pampered to death. If you are ever lucky enough to visit this area look it up and try to do it.
As for the food, which I’ve just said this isn’t about. It’s presented on the most artistically decorated plates I’ve ever seen.
It seems to have become obligatory for chefs to ‘paint’ the plate simply because that’s what the judges demand in order to win Masterchef on tv plus, of course, they can charge more as jus is obviously more expensive to mine than gravy.
You can’t just slap a dollop of mashed potato on the plate nowadays, it has to be a ‘quenelle of pomme de terre au beurre’ presented on a smear of that jus or upon swirls of sauce or spherical fish pearls to ‘elevate’ the dish or some other nonsensical made-up cullinery term. It’s like how everything is now ‘curated’ for you, though I still don’t know what that means.
However, it’s not the actual food that caught my eye, it’s the plates that it’s served on.
It wasn’t until meal three on board that we realised that the beautiful plates on which the food was being served were not beautiful plates. The patterns, which we thought were part of the ceramic, were not actually painted and fired in the glaze, but individually hand ’painted’ with edible sauces. (I sat scraping the plate with my knife and chopsticks and tasting it under Brigitte’s exasperated gaze for some time to verify this for you).
Take a look at the photos, it must take longer to paint the plates than make the food.
In the afternoon we hopped aboard the tender and sailed to Cat Ba, the large island in the bay with 10,000 inhabitants and home to the endangered Cat Ban Langur monkey.
Pointy pointy.
We then went on a bicycle tour (yes Jonny, I cycled!). I rejected the first two bikes as the brakes didn’t work, before settling on my speed machine.
Everyone then set off – except for me – as my saddle promptly collapsed and I ended up looking like one of those circus clowns, riding the tiny bike with my bum somewhere near the pedals and my knees around my ears!
Another bike later and a big gap to make up but I heroically overtook the stragglers in my race to the front.
I must be honest, I’m not a cyclist, never have been, I think my legs are faulty, and it turned out that there was an insurmountable obstacle on the return journey which I think the Vietnamese guide called ‘the slight incline’ so I returned by car.
Brigitte, however, impressively cycled the whole journey which proves that her daily gym routine works.
Day 2
So excited! Up early because last night Sam (our cruise curator🤣) said that we were having an early morning Chai Tea experience on the deck. What a great idea, utilising the exercise area for a traditional morning tea ceremony I thought.
Imagine my shock to find the eighteen guests all bright alert and doing some kind of bizarre twisting martial art exercise.
It wasn’t Chai tea – It was Tai Chi!
Ridiculous! I’m marking this cruise down on Trip advisor right now.
As we left the deck he said something about tomorrow morning doing yoghurt so presumably we’ll get to sample some local yaks milk delicacy. That sounds better.
The big upside about this boat for me is that there’s hardly any connectivity. No pinging, dinging, ticking, tocking, insta-ing, emailing or whatsapping, which is so nice and relaxing. We can just reflect, take in the ethereal beauty and be in the moment.
Brigitte, on the other hand, feels she is in the Betty Ford clinic and has gone cold turkey. She is starting to shake uncontrollably as it’s entirely possible that a grandchild’s shoelace will became unfastened today without her knowing about it and watching it unfold on video🤣
You may or may not get this blog as I’m just going to leave my phone and if it connects it connects. If not, then it might be mañana by the time you read this, and it’s possible we are already on our way south.
Strange things……
One lid up, one lid down, his ‘n’ hers?
Ooh, Fruit quiz.
No one got the correct answer today. I may start deducting points for incorrect answers – Lynn & Anita, pull your socks up! It was obviously a Betal fruit which has medicinal properties as an aid to breathing, weight loss and is used like a chewing gum.
No fruit quiz today, please try not to be too disappointed but our Kayaks await.
Hopefully at some point this will connect and be sent.
This mornings tour of the old quarter will, hopefully, just be a nice gentle stroll as we are taking things easy this time.
The reason is that, when we did Japan, it was like two weeks in a whirlwind.
Tour after tour, each and every day meant that we not only became quickly exhausted, but we just never had time to reflect on, nor appreciate the places that we visited. It was a shame but also a good lesson learned and so this trip was planned to be more relaxed. 50% tour, 50% relaxation plus we have to add an extra 10% to consider motorcycle collision avoidance strategy which is taking its toll on our elbows. Tip: Always keep them tucked in.
(The above reminds me of the time I was told that 50% of the population can’t read, 50% can’t write, and the other half can’t add up!)
Today’s tour began with the obligatory market area walk to gawp at the strange foods, inhale the unfamiliar smells and try not to be repelled by the sight of animal body parts in their various stages of dismemberment.
Oh, and to answer to Sue’s question, no, they don’t eat dog here 😱. I think South Korea once had a specific breed for eating but I believe that’s stopped now 🤞).
Animal welfare in Hanoi actually seems pretty good. I’ve not seen a single stray, nor any animal that looked malnourished or mistreated. They are either good with their animals or have a very efficient dog patrol.
The market walk also allowed me to stock up on photos for the unexpectedly popular fruit quiz, so that was a bonus.
Like many other cities around the world there are certain streets here selling particular products.
The Shambles in York for instance was where the butchery businesses were all gathered. I suppose it was simpler to keep all the fleshy bits of gore in one place for delivering into and the shoppers had a single location to visit to choose their cow parts for dinner.
Hanoi’s product streets are incredibly specific though and hold huge amounts of different items. There was a haberdashery street with a million different bags of buttons and I don’t mean small bags. These were serious bulk-buy buttons. Think potato sacks. Who on earth needs that many buttons?
There’s the crockery street, the glassware street, the ceramic street etc etc.
The electrical street could’ve equipped the requirements of a small town and my personal favourite was a street of maybe thirty stores all filled to the rafters with just pumps. Water pumps, fuel pumps and yes, I do realise that I’m strange.
There really is a street for every product range. It’s basically a more modern Amazon where you can simply walk in and get anything you need, but you don’t have to wait a day for it to be delivered. I’ve seen the future!! 😅
This is actually a shop!
We then visited the home of a very nice local lady called Mrs Quy, (pronounced ‘Kwee’)who proudly showed us her home and family tree …
Mrs Que and her family tree, plus she gave us tea, all for free, goodness me!
…and then we walked to the railway station although I couldn’t understand why.
I didn’t remember ticking the ’trainspotting’ box when I declared our personal interests. We found ourselves in a very long narrow street, a little over two metres wide, with cafes and chairs on either side. It seemed like an ordinary cramped thoroughfare until I looked down and realised that there was a train track running straight through the centre of it.
We sat down next to the track and waited. I honestly expected one of those little ‘toy’ trains that shunts tourists around theme parks complete with a peak-hatted ‘driver’ to slowly parade past waving to the kids.
What I didn’t expect was a huge commotion and lots of shouting to get all the souvenir sellers and tourists off the line just before a massive ten carriage double decker train came rolling through. It took forever to pass and it turns out to be the main train that runs from South to north of the country.
Locomotion commotion!
The communist party of Vietnam definitely doesn’t have a health and safety directive.
And that was the end of our morning tour, back to the hotel and sadly goodbye to Queen, our excellent guide for the last three days.
Queen & Queen B
I’m considering changing the blog format. Instead of having a section entitled ‘Strange things’, I’m thinking I need a section called ‘Normal things’ due to the numerical superiority of the strange ones.
We’ve seen dog-riding scooters…
Then there was the fish-slipper store. There must be something that explains the necessity for fish-shaped footwear but it continues to eludes me.
But for truly superior strangeness take a look at this….
This was just a glimpse of one of the many Vietnamese fables enacted by underwater puppeteers accompanied by orchestra and singers. It’s called the Thang Long water puppet show – Pretty amazing actually. I bet they all have really crinkly hands.
We went here to book a tour but they were just clowns.
And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for…. today’s fruit quiz.
Congratulations to Anita who was the first to identify the mystery fruit as ‘Buddas hand’ or ‘Buddas finger’. It’s mainly a ceremonial fruit, too bitter to eat but small, cute and chubby, hence the name. On re-reading maybe that’s racist? – sorry. Anita also gets a bonus point for providing the scientific name of Citrus medica var.sarcodactylis. Swot! For your prize, I’m sending you the Budda’s finger right now!
Onto todays fruit quiz.
You’re all doing too well so, today I’m increasing the level of difficulty!!
Today’s mystery fruit is?
Sadly, it’s our last night in Hanoi and I’n the last shop that we walked through on our way back to our hotel, we found a T-Shirt that sums up the city perfectly…
Tomorrow, our driver (It’s an odd name, I know 😉 ) will collect us, bright and early, for the three-hour drive to Lan Ha Bay where we board a tiny cruise boat for three days. I have no idea if there will be connectivity so, if not, my next post may not be for a while.
Our first impressions seem validated. It’s vibrant, colourful, loud and crowded, teeming with life and not one inch of unused space in either the Old quarter or the French quarter which is where we have spent most of our time so far.
There are nine million people in Hanoi and over seven million motorcycles, and it seems that every single one of them is continuously swarming up and down the streets, never slowing down, simply swerving around any obstacles that may be in their way such as cars, bicycles and of most concern, us.
Crossing the road seemed impossible at first, then I was told to watch out for any old lady who was crossing and just follow her.
The secret is pace, you just pick a crossing, and as long as you stay on it, keep your head down and maintain a steady and confident pace, they all just buzz around you in this incredible ballet, missing by centimetres, although I do have a couple of handlebar scuffs from the odd glancing blow. It’s neither pretty nor relaxing but it all works and everything keeps flowing. It’s unnerving but very efficient. No stopping, no jams. I’m sure there’s the odd squished person here and there but it’s very efficient.
It’s not as if there’s no rules or road signs. One-way streets are clearly marked, red lights tell them to stop and go, there are flashing crossings for when pedestrians can and can’t cross but they are completely and utterly ignored.
They are as much use as the Pope’s balls.
Tonight I suddenly realised that this was our second day of walking the city and yet I still have absolutely no idea what side of the road they drive on!
Apart from the constant fear of a road-mageddon apocalypse, it feels like a very safe city. It’s quite unlike Japan where everyone is strangely overly subservient, polite and gentle.
Everyone here is very friendly, respectful and helpful but with character and individuality. No one is threatening or pushy and Brigitte is happy to wander down the backstreets, confident in her safety.
It’s a really nice atmosphere.
Although it’s not a particularly religious country, most follow Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism (just to hedge the risk, I’m told) so they believe in Karma and try to be good kind and helpful which is rather refreshing.
It’s a really interesting philosophy, a Communist state and therefore, according to my education, it must be bad but everyone seems genuinely happy. They are all encouraged to better themselves for the good of themselves and their country which they all seem to have pride in. They seem to work hard, capitalism is encouraged and they say that the country is going from strength to strength economically.
Being a staunch cynic with entrenched views from a British education I’m still firmly wearing the cynic hat and prodding everyone I meet about it but even though I’m sure saying anything bad about the state would probably be a bad thing, it’s seems to genuinely be working. I shall continue to prod and poke so please start a Justgiving page to get me released in due course.
We actually went to the house of one of the heads of the local communist party tonight with our tour guide (my cynics hat tells me it was done for propaganda reasons, my head is starting to question that though) and both he and his wife shared with us his home-made rice alcohol (hic). He had a breadth of western knowledge, he was openly and fairly opinionated and was genuinely nice and talkative through our interpreter. Strange days indeed.
Today’s morning tour was to the literature museum
which is a garden and temple of learning, followed by a visit to Hoa Lo, the infamous French prison where they imprisoned, tortured and guillotined political dissidents and which, during the Vietnam war, became known as the ‘Hanoi Hilton’ because of the way the state fairly treated their US captives.
This evening was a street food tour presented by ‘Buffalo Joe’, named because his pregnant mother was evacuated from her village during a typhoon and gave birth to him on the back of the buffalo she was being carried on!
‘Buffalo Joe‘ a great guide despite being a total disappointment in the horn department.Brigitte trying to still be hungry at the sixth tasting tour restaurant.
We spent a very entertaining evening with BJ sampling local delicacies, all delicious. However, as nothing wriggled, hissed or tried to run away from our chopsticks I won’t bore you with detail other than to mention egg coffee, a local drink that was invented here.
Coffee, which was introduced here by the French, was not sweet enough for the Vietnamese palate so they added condensed milk. When that became scarce, an enterprising local decided to substitute it with a mixture of egg yolk, honey and cheese, which they whisk up and spoon on top of the hot coffee to serve. A half coffee-half cheese omelette which, personally, I’d have called a Comlette, but what’s not to like? It’s actually quite delicious 😋.
Strange things #3
I really have no idea!
Todays fruit quiz winner is Hannah who correctly identified the mystery fruit as a ‘Durian’ (Sorry Charlie, a Jackfruit is less bumpy, but please try your luck again today!)
Today’s fruit quiz……
Name that fruitPart of the fun of being in Vietnam is our nightly game of monopoly!
Oh no, I just realised that I completely forgot todays Dong joke, I must slip one in somewhere – ooh, I think I just did 🤣
My first blog is traditionally written by my Mr Angry persona and is usually an in-depth moan about our terrible travel travails, frustrations of waiting around, late flights, missed connections, British Airways reaching new heights of incompetence, lost baggage etc.
Imagine my outrage then as I wake up this morning and have nothing to complain about. It was a perfect journey.
I’m on the hardcore OJ, B’s drink is mainly bubbles.
Everything ran like clockwork, even BA was on time, their service excellent and all connections were straightforward.
The only potential for hassle could have been immigration at Hanoi where the queues were vast, but Brigitte spotted an empty lane reserved for diplomats so she just strode through ‘diplomatically’ (Brigitte has lots of amazing qualities but I would never put diplomacy amongst them 🤣!) and, once I made sure she wasn’t being marched straight to the Hanoi Hilton (look it up kids- we’re visiting there later today) I followed her through.
Once you arrive at Hanoi airport you scan your passport, it takes your photo and then each access point just scans your face and the gates open. Very efficient.
Unfortunately, when it was my turn, each point kept asking me to ‘Please remove your mask’ Now I realise I’d been travelling for over 24 hours but flippin heck! – did my face really look that bad?
Apple AirTags take care of baggage anxiety as you know when your case is about to pop into view and then it was straight through customs, despite me carrying more medications than the average pharmaceutical factory, and out we walked into the very pleasant tropical Hanoi heat.
We were met by our lovely guide for Hanoi, who is called Queen and who’s driver whisked to our hotel in Hanoi’s old quarter whilst providing a Vietnam history lesson along the way, extolling the benefits of Communism in Vietnam of which I’m sure I’ll cover in a later blog once I fact check her 😀.
First impressions? Hanoi seems a beautiful, vibrant, modern, clean city. I was ignorantly expecting a conflagration of madness, shanty areas, dirt, smell, poverty but our 40 minute drive was either skilfully executed to avoid all that or it really is a lovely city.
Strange things..
You’ll all know by now that I enjoy spotting weird things on our journeys so, Strange things number one was that we noticed lots of people crouched down on their haunches around the city. On escalators, on the pavements, outside shops. At first we were a bit grossed out, thinking they were emptying themselves 😱, then we thought they were maybe begging but no, apparently it’s a comfortable position people here simply fold themselves into to relax and watch the world go by. Personally I’d never be able to get up again.
After arriving at the Hotel, being greeted with fruit and drinks and generally pampered, we went for a stroll through the local, busy streets, found a tiny cafe/restaurant and had a fabulous meal of many courses of fresh food and blew millions of our Dongs (first Dong joke guys!) only to work out that it was around £20 including a beer and tips!
No idea what these are, Giant Lychees? Each is as big as my head!
We then went for an hour-long back and foot massage to sooth our weary travel bodies (there’s a beautiful massage shop every two meters) so another few zillion Dongs gone (There’s 30,000 Dongs to the Pound 27,000/€) and then home to bed with nothing to complain about whatsoever. Outrageous!
Andrew & Brigitte in Indochina 