Food Glorious Food

From region to delicious region, Vietnamese food never disappointed.  Despite my pescatarianism, I was able to find a range of culinary delights--from soups, to sandwiches, to fried wonders.   Paul was particularly cautious; with his immune system weaknesses he didn't want to test out the viability of his travel insurance.  But still, we found food that was: 1. cheap, 2. delicious, 3. non-stomach-cutting-up 

Some areas were better than others and we had to do a lot of digging for the authentic, particularly in Nha Trang, but we did well.  My friends staying in Nha Trang were disappointed with the food overall and didn't have as much luck as us.  But we also braved breakfast soup stands, market stalls and the odd bahn mi stand.  

Inside Ben Thanh Market in Ho Chi Minh, the home of the world's best Pho and Bun Cha

heat, humidity and a hot bowl of pho

chopstick skills 

Bahn Mi, influenced by French colonialism but oh so Vietnamese.  The bread is lighter and crispier than a baguette and the bahn mi sidewalk vendor filled my version with a nondescript (better that way) spread, laughing cow cheese and a variety of fresh herbs and vegetables.  Paul's version included an oddly packaged sausage. Both were almost painfully spicy, though we asked for mild spice. 

Miss Sau's establishment in Hoi An, home of the 'white rose', an amazing steamed dumpling native to the central region of Vietnam 

Fried pork spring rolls and a noodle concoction to rival all noodle concoctions at our favourite little roadside place in Ho Chi Minh 

The favourite place in Ho Chi Minh, a short walk from our hotel and in the middle of district 3 

Roadside fruit vendors 

The obligatory Paul's-on-holiday-doughnut-picture 

coconuts with a straw under an umbrella moving down the street 

Fast food; a noodle stand connected to a motor bike outside the main market.  More impressively, we saw this man on the move, cooking noodles with one hand and driving with the other.  

Maybe it was the excessive sweating, but the food felt cleansing and healthy.  Ish. Maybe. It could definitely be argued though that the food alone is reason enough to trek to Vietnam. 

Nha Trang

Once we finally managed to get to our room, Nha Trang became a haven of all luxuries a median London salary can buy. For $60 a night, we booked ourselves into the 4-star Michelia Hotel located on the quiet end of the busy strip that was Nha Trang's nightlife.  This suited us fine; besides drunk Russians, the tourist centre gravitated around strip clubs and bars pumping out loud rave music late into the night.  

Besides not ordering room service, we spent a lot of the late afternoons reclining in air-conditioning and enjoying our sideways sea view.  Michelia really spoiled our ability to book a hotel in Europe ever again.

That aside, we also had a wonderful base for exploring the 'reality' of Nha Trang.  For us, this meant wandering away from the centre and instead Northwest into markets, sipping Pho at street vendors where Paul had his first encounter with a giant rat and sitting on quieter strips of beach.  That was fabulous.  People were kind and either smiled or ignored us.  We found a restaurant on a random residential road that served us a tabletop BBQ grill made of stone.  We cooked our squid and prawns on our table and left $8 lighter.  

We also discovered Nha Trang's Catholic Cathedral, a cinderblock wonder with delightfully Asian touches.  Notably, the LED backlit crucifix at the altar, above the statue of Mary, etc: 

We got into a bit of trouble trying to backtrack to the beach, mostly that we had no idea where we were and signs like this were only modestly helpful: 

 

 When we eventually found the strip of sand that was the beach, it was admittedly beautiful. Unlike Hoi An though, this beach ran along a busy thoroughfare of a road and touts wandered in and out of beach chairs selling their wares.  My particular favourite was this woman, whom I dubbed 'Lobster Lady':

 She carried a gigantic stick balancing, on one side, a pot of prawns, squid and lobsters on ice and on the other side, a charcoal grill well-fired and ready to cook.

 The process was remarkable.  I was only sad that we'd just eaten breakfast so I wasn't able to partake in Lobster on the beach.

 Besides that, I wasn't charmed by anything the tourist centre had to offer.  Food was relatively expensive and mediocre compared to other places on the rest of our trip and the setting felt altogether too brash.  There were charms to be found but we had to go digging.  With only two weeks in Vietnam, it's not exactly what we wanted.

One temporary reprieve--we found the Thap Ba Hot Springs, a resort-like venue north of Nha Trang that, for a nominal fee (can't remember at the moment, sorry) dipped you in hot spring mud, laid you out like a pig in stink and then massaged all your woes away.  Entry also included access to the geothermal swimming pools, waterfall and hot tubs.  Definitely worth a visit:

 

Alas, after three days of relaxing and beach hopping, we learned from past mistakes and booked ourselves onto a flight from Nha Trang to Ho Chi Minh.  This included a rather decadent transfer where our hotel concierge accompanied us to the airport, took our luggage and checked us into our flight.  All part of the service!

The Vietnamese Sleeper Bus

From time to time I make ridiculous holiday transport decisions. Unfortunately, I don't know the stupidity of these point-a to point-b plans until I'm in the middle of a journey through pothole-jungly-nothingness.  What's more: often in the heat of the moment, a stupid travel decision masks itself as a viable, time-saving option.  It never, ever is.

Which is how we found ourselves tickets on the Vietnamese Sleeper Bus, a delightful coach service that takes you anywhere in the country--from top to tail--Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh, around and beyond.  Our particular voyage took us from Hoi An to Nha Trang, an 11-hour-trip from ancient trading town to Russian-touristy beach town, only we didn't know this yet. 

The journey started less than auspiciously when a man on a motorbike arrived to pick up Paul, the luggage and me.  Let me rephrase--very small motorbike.  He pointed (the man, not the bike): 'Who goes first?'  Smartly, I argued: 'we booked the coach!'  Smartly, he responded: 'I take you to coach'.  

It appeared the coach was remotely parked on a much larger road than our little backwater street.  So I hopped on, hugged tightly a man whose name I never found out and prayed the rucksack strapped to my back wouldn't propel me backwards.  

Upon arrival, we were shuttled to two seats stacked on the 'upstairs' of the bus all the way to the back.  The sleeper bus is dubbed a 'sleeper' because it contains seats that, loosely, recline.  They come decked with a footwell and a dodgy set of pillows and blankets that may or may not have been washed in the last three years.  

If you're short, which Paul and I are, it's okay.  If you're not, like our Flasheart-lengthed new bus friend from South England, you're pretty much 'sleeping' (another term I use loosely) accordion fashion.  

 

 tall people problems

Paul's seat was directly behind me and directly next to the toilet.  The door didn't close or lock, people tended to pee on the seat, floor, sink and by 30 minutes into the trip, Paul became the official spokesman of the 'is there anyone in the bathroom?' game.  Only he didn't speak Vietnamese so it became a pantomime of pissing.  

Upon departure, our bus was relatively empty.  So we tried to move downstairs to two seats next to one another.  A screaming match ensued with the 22-year-old bus conductor who, in a moment of we-don't-speak-the-same-language-crisis shouted 'NO!' emphatically.  Multiple times. We got the point.  

As it turned out, we stopped several times, often at the side of the road, to pick up an array of passengers, a mix of locals and western tourists.  As the conductor tucked us in like sardines,  the locals comfied up and passed out straight away.  This was no small feat considering the lethal combination of meticulously potholed pavement and our bus driver's desire to reach our destination dead or alive.  

On top of this, I'd been having a bit of a crisis of confidence. The second week of the trip was marred with my obsessive notion that I had a blood clot in my leg, that it was going to travel to my brain and I was going to die in the middle of some Vietnamese b-road.  This wasn't entirely unfounded--since my brother's stroke I'd been meaning to get tested to see if I had the same blood disorder.  Plus, I'd done a lot of traveling already throughout the summer and woke up the morning after my flight home from Ghana seized with pain and unable to stand up.  Naturally, being the needle-phobic-hypochondriac I am, I diagnosed myself with DVT and then did absolutely nothing about it.  

Four hours in and I was in panic mode.  Between fighting the toilet pirates and trying not to fall off the top bunk between potholes, Paul fed me a steady stream of Oreos.  Because somehow, this was going to sustain my well-being against life-threatening health issues.  It appeared to work because I survived the journey and am still alive to tell the tale.  

The rest of the trip was much of a muchness.  Fall asleep, be jolted awake by pothole at 50-miles-per-hour, fall asleep, have a chat with the lovely English couple next to us, dive into pothole the size of a car, hit our heads on the window, sleep--possibly concussion induced.  This routine was briefly punctuated by a rest stop somewhere in the middle of a forest.  It catered to finer palates with various types of scorpion or snake whiskey, noodles that had been sitting for far too long and these local delights:  

Seaweed Pringles just about made the trip bearable and we arrived into Nha Trang as the sun was rising at 6am.  We trudged our way to our hotel, obviously located at the opposite side of the city, and dropped our bags as the hotel was setting up their gigantic free breakfast.  What a sight for hungry, smelly, exhausted eyes.  

The check-in staff eyed us warily and consented to accept our luggage.  They promptly reminded us that check-in was at 2pm, that our room wouldn't be ready until then and that no we could not have breakfast but yes we could use the complimentary beach chairs and towels on the beach.  

Paul and I made our way to find a group of heavyset, middle aged Russians vying for every single beach chair.  Germans usually hold the hogging the beach chairs record but these Russians gave them a run for their money.  At 7am, all but two chairs were taken.  We staked our claim, passed out facedown and woke up 3 hours later stuck to the plastic mats.    

4 hours to go.  

At this point, I realised that if we'd have flown, we may have been out of pocket £60 more than the bus.  But isn't a night's sleep worth that? At least? 

Yes. Yes it is. 

The Cham Islands

As the days began to melt into one another, we decided a sea breeze would be a blissful reprieve from the humidity of central Vietnam and booked ourselves on a day trip to the Cham Islands.  We met a kind travel agent who booked us on the day trip and because I paid little attention to the particulars, I didn't realise we'd booked ourselves onto a speed boat around the islands.  

Two problems: I have a nervous disposition.  I get sick on speedboats.  

Our boat driver seemed to relish in both of these facts as we zipped, dodged and soared above some medium sized waves.  Twenty minutes later and chunder free, we arrived on the first island, name forgotten.  

In front of this flower, I got a phone call from my brother: Catey had accepted his proposal.  My little brother is getting married.  

We were ferried from temple to beach area to boat again by a rather kind Vietnamese man.

  Through the market with aerated seafood going to the highest (and fiercest) bidder: 

 to a land of little chairs 

and onto another island with a beautiful beach, tourist restaurants and nothing else: 

 

and were paused when the waves were too choppy for our vomit-inducing speedboat

After a two-hour delay, we made our way back.  I divorced my lunch from my body and closed my eyes.  It was an altogether mediocre trip firmly on the tourist trail.  The islands themselves are lovely but we saw such small cross-sections of the two we went to that it hardly seemed worth the time or money.  

My advice: do some research and find yourself a transfer boat only.  Tour not necessary; wandering will suffice.

Hoi An by night

Pictures only, really. You get the point.

Variations on the theme of...cocktails:

Strong cocktails. 

 Variations on the theme of lanterns that burn strongly into the night:

In the night market on the newer side of the river 

bridge all lit up 

An Bang Beach

Midway through our trip, we decided to do something daring and rented bikes.  I'm not talking motorbikes, just your bog standard pedally bikes.  My desire to seek the sun must have had something to do with it because the road situation in Vietnam got no better when we left Ho Chi Minh.  Motorized scooters, bikes, glorified lawn mowers all skirted and spurted their emissions around us.  I kept my eyes forward and tried to follow the rules of the road.  At one point, this woman:

cut me off with her 300 feather dusters attached to all four sides of her bike.  Alas, five kilometers through town, over bridges and across rice paddies led us to this:

Where $2 or a modest lunch of beer and noodles ($2.50) bought you a beach chair, umbrella and afternoon of solitude.  

And only a handful of tourists dared venture

 no resorts lined the beach, only palm trees 

and mountains peeked out of the background

I had another altogether sublime moment here.  The world is such a beautiful place.

Hoi An by day

Hoi An is a town blessed by its beauty.  The Thu Bon River divides the ancient old town from the newer, but only slightly updated, new town.  In theory, tourists are meant to pay a small fee to enter and wander around the old town's sites.  In reality, this is poorly policed.  

Old town by day--magical by both day and night but the day pictures are clearer.  The houses are built in the traditional style and it's like entering a time warp, but in a good way. Sadly, Hoi An is also very susceptible to flooding; in fact the city's residents build with this in mind and can readily move furniture from the ground to first floor.  But many of the historical properties mark where water levels have risen to in the past.  It's a fitting reminder about the futility of mankind. 

Doom and gloom aside, the walking district oozes charm.  

The old town is filled with an array of historic pagodas, houses and delicious restaurants and the streets are bike and pedestrian only.  

 Hoi An is also the home of Vietnam's tailoring trade and every third building houses men and women touting their handmade clothing, shoes and coats.  

Competition is fierce and on one particular wander I made the decision to frequent a small shop on a side street near the river.  I showed my lady a photograph of a dress; we argued about the material.  She took a deposit for half the price of the dress.   When I arrived and tried on the creation the next day, Miss tried to convince me that I could get away without wearing a bra, that half a side boob sticking out  was classy, that the dress looked great.  I looked like a hooker.  We argued; she agreed to 'fix' it.  And in a feat of return to high school dealing with problems, I lost my deposit and never returned.

Lesson: do your research if you plan on having clothes made in Hoi An.  

This was our only negative experience in the city though.  Almost every meal was amazing--we stuck to the mantra of eat as the Vietnamese do and avoided overly tourist-filled, Lonely Planet recommended restaurants.  

Ban xeo and Chinese-style wontons 

On average, we paid $12 total for a meal including beer, sometimes 'Bia Hoi', an alcoholic concoction sure to turn any hypochondriac into an understatement.  Bia hoi is the Vietnamese equivalent to craft beer/home brew only it's not regulated by any health agency.  It can be found all across the country, in small bars, restaurants and your average street side food cart or portable pub:

Besides being delicious, bia hoi also happens to be very cheap.  At roughly 24 cents a glass, we toasted our hosts and downed a few glasses.