May 17, 2011
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Hue

One morning in Hue I decided to take a ride in a cyclo over to a bridge by the Citadel walls. Colin elected to get some exercise by running the distance. Unfortunately, we got mixed up – he waited for me at a different bridge, and it took over half an hour for my cyclo driver to track him down. Colin didn’t have time to worry about having lost me as he was totally occupied in entertaining a group of local school kids. Apparently they were asking him to flex his muscles, and were fascinated by his tattoos, his size, and by how much he was sweating!!!

Our third stop up the coast of Vietnam was Hue, which we reached after a four-hour bus trip from Hoi An.  This was our only bus trip during daylight hours, and it was lovely to see some of the coastline…when I could manage to tear myself away from my book, that is.

Hue was the capital of Vietnam during the reign of the Nguyen dynasty, 1802-1945.  The heart of the town is the enormous Citadel – a large walled area (about 10 kilometres in circumference) on the banks of the eloquently named Perfume River.  The Citadel contains a range of monuments, pagodas, lakes and canals, but pretty much functions as part of the town.  The exception is the Imperial Enclosure – literally a citadel within a citadel – which housed the emperor’s personal dwellings and gardens, as well as other buildings used for official political and administrative activities.  The Citadel was heavily bombed during the US-Vietnam war, but is gradually being rebuilt.

Bonsai inside the Imperial Enclosure

Inside the Imperial Enclosure

Inside one of the many restored buildings in the Enclosure

Still in the Imperial Enclosure

Incense sticks drying on the walls surrounding Tinh Tam Lake

On our second full day in Hue we did an excellent cooking course at Missy Roo’s restaurant. It started with a trip to the market to buy ingredients, then we cooked and ate four dishes over a three hour period. This is me with our (very patient) tutor, Kip. It was a fantastic course.  Don’t those hats look sexy.

Colin cooking Banh khoai, a pancake fried in a heart-stopping amount of oil, stuffed with pork, shrimp and vegetables, and eaten with salad greens and spicy peanut sauce.

May 15, 2011
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Hoi An

We spent three nights in Hoi An, a beautiful old town about halfway up the coast of Vietnam.  It was low tourist season, and the quiet streets were so restful after the constant buzz of Saigon.  Hoi An is located on the river Thu Bon and it used to be an international trading port.  The centre of town, known as the Old Town, is a Unesco World Heritage site, and it’s not hard to see why.  It definitely felt like we took a step back in time: I could gush about how beautiful it was, but I might just let the photographs do the work for me.

We relaxed a lot here: the hotel had a swimming pool, we spent half a day at the beach (this time under a proper umbrella), we enjoyed the best food of the trip to date, and met some interesting people along the way.  I also read a great book which I highly recommend – Audrey Niffenegger’s “Her Fearful Symmetry”.  All in all, we enjoyed Hoi An immensely – this place would be perfect for a honeymoon.

Blue house on the outskirts of the Old Town

Most common mode of transport in Hoi An

Colin, upstairs at Faifoo restaurant – where we indulged, more than once, in hoanh thanh and cao lau

The river Thu Bon – so cute it’s almost twee

At night, the Old Town is magical

Lantern shop in the Old Town

Being a tourist! These baskets were surprisingly heavy, and I am seriously impressed by the size of the loads I’ve seen some women carrying. The woman who lent me this basket showed me the damage to her shoulder caused by years of carrying baskets – there was a big groove that should not have been there, and the leathery skin was stained a deep red-brown. Pretty astounding.

May 13, 2011
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Gluttony (and now for more bourgeois concerns)

Who knew that I would so quickly develop a demanding audience – more modern stuff!  Less history!  We’re not interested in reading about crossing the road!  I thought you were going to write about food!

I guess I have rise to the occasion, but while I’ll take such requests into consideration, I will not let them dictate my blog content.  As the iconic Pastaqueen would say, blogs are something like a fascist regime.  While commenting is encouraged, and cheeky remarks welcome, don’t forget that I can always delete you if you start talking smack!!!

This is a post just about food.  Despite several highlights, on the whole, our gluttonous escapades were a little on the mediocre side for the first few weeks of travel.  But as we’ve moved up the coast of Vietnam, the food has gotten better and better, or maybe, we’re just better at hunting down the good stuff.  This post, then, is a homage to the gastronomic specialties of Hoi An and Hue and not (only) an attempt to satisfy my audience.

Hoanh thanh – a Hoi An specialty at the excellent Faifoo restaurant. These are a type of wonton with madly-crisp pastry, salty-spicy pork filling, topped with a sweet and sour vegetable sauce. Utterly to die for and totally worth the cholesterol.

Cao lau – another Hoi An dish comprised of thick noodles, sliced roast pork, and topped with squares of dry pork crackle and salad greens. While the hoanh thanh was amazing, it was cao lau that I couldn’t stop thinking about after eating it. The noodles are thick, a bit like udon, but chewier and with a pleasing rough-ish texture. The greens were a mix of delicate lettuce and herbs that added freshness and a little pungency. The pork crackle sealed my fate as an ex-vegetarian.

Vietnamese pork sandwich from a street stall in Hoi An. Hot, crispy baguette, stuffed with sliced roast pork, salad, and several unidentified sauces and pastes. The vendors didn’t speak any English, so we weren’t able to identify the sauces, but we could taste chilli, lemongrass, garlic, lime, salt…a party in your mouth/taste explosion kind of thing, and only 10,000 dong each (about 65 NZ cents)

Banana and chocolate pancake in Hue – empty calories were never more worth it. Pancakes appear frequently on the menu in Vietnam as you move north, and I have succumbed repeatedly. This was the best one so far – it was quite thick and substantial, but not doughy in the slightest. Chewy, moist interior, mind-blowingly crispy exterior (the texture of good fish and chip batter), fresh banana and the perfect amount of cocoa. Hell yes, it was good.

Banh beo – a Hue speciality with the dubious English translation of “bloating fern-shaped cake”. Banh beo is rice flour steamed into little cakes, topped with crumbled, dehydrated shrimp and chewy garlic fried until caramelly.  You eat these dipped into a mild fish sauce.  A well-deserved afternoon snack after exploring the citadel.

Hue fresh spring rolls, made by Colin and I at a cooking course (run by Missy Roo’s). Many of the fresh spring rolls we have eaten elsewhere were disappointingly bland, but these were not. The mixture included lots of garlic, shallots and chilli, with black mushrooms and vegetables, dipped into a sauce made with more chilli and garlic, fish sauce and rice vinegar. No kissing for a while after eating these.

Colin making Bun bo Hue – beef noodle soup. This soup is the Hue version of Pho that you can get all over Vietnam. The broth is flavoured with lemongrass, black pepper and chilli (whereas the milder Pho is typically flavoured with ginger and cinnamon). To cook the beef you place it in a ladle and lower it into the boiling broth for a matter of seconds. Fresh lettuce and herbs are incorporated at the table. While eating this, I happened to ingest a herb that tasted just like the pungent smell of a minty-earthy weed that grows by the river at the bottom of my parents property (a Proustian moment perhaps?)

Iced Vietnamese coffee at the infamous Cafe Nang in Hanoi. We have become addicted to coffee made in this style – black, lightly sweetened, very strong (I mean, gives-you-a-zing-before-you’re-halfway-through-strong), and served in a water glass with chunky ice. The coffee at this cafe is especially good, with delicious undertones of bourbon and caramel. The tiny cafe is usually packed with locals from early in the morning until late at night.

May 12, 2011
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The sleeping bus and a tale of woe

Our plan, after Saigon, was to travel up the coast of Vietnam, using an open bus ticket that would allow us to hop on and off the buses which go up and down the coast every day.  After a bit of research into the reliability of different bus companies, and a bit of a reality check in terms of our schedule (9 days to travel over 1600 kms), we revised this plan a little.  We decided to stop at only three places along the way – Nha Trang, Hoi An, and Hue – and spend at least 2 days in each place.  We also elected to take a sleeping bus for three legs of the journey, which meant that it would travel at night while we (tried to) sleep.  While this meant that we would miss seeing the countryside and coastline on the way, it did mean maximum time in each place (and of course we saved on three nights accommodation).

We left Saigon at 8.30pm and arrived in Nha Trang at 7.30am the next day.  The bus was a real experience in itself – the ‘seats’ are almost fully reclined and extended so that you can only lie down.  Colin had requested a seat with extra leg room, which meant that his feet hung off the bed into the aisle.

Our two seats were part of a group of five crammed into the back of the bus, so you really have to hope that your neighbour doesn’t snore, or fart, or kick in their sleep (lucky for me, Colin was my only neighbour, and I trained him out of his worst nocturnal habits years ago).  Nonetheless, it was hardly a comfortable ride. You can’t sit up because there is another row of beds directly above you…when I first hopped on the bus I felt a bit claustrophobic for a few seconds, but the novelty of situation soon took care of that!

Once on the move, we watched a movie on the laptop (sharing a single set of earphones) then made ourselves as comfortable as possible for the night.  Sleep was very broken as the roads are quite rough in places and you get tossed around a bit.  I woke up early to see the most incredible red sunrise, dozed some more, and then all of a sudden we had arrived in beautiful, sunny, hot Nha Trang.  We sought out a cafe pronto, for lots of coffee and eggs, then found our hotel, dropped off our bags and hit the beach.

Unfortunately I had managed to develop a bad cold overnight, but I didn’t want this to spoil our first of two days at the beach, so I took some cold and flu tablets – the real ones that you can no longer buy in New Zealand.  These sorted me out pretty well, and we spent the next few hours swimming and lazing in deck chairs under a beach umbrella that we rented for 70,000 dong ($3.50 NZ for the whole day).  Nha Trang itself is quite developed – a bit like an oversized Orewa, but despite this, the beach itself is beautiful – white sand, palm trees, clear water, islands in the bay…hawkers walk up and down the beach selling fresh mangos and pineapple and fresh seafood.  These women were selling fresh (live) lobster and crab which they cook in the pot of water they carry with them (heated by coals in the tray underneath).

The “woe” came later that afternoon when I realised that I had managed to get the worst sunburn I have had in years!  I knew that a little sunlight was getting through the beach umbrella, but I totally underestimated the ferocity of the rays.  Falling asleep on my deck chair didn’t help either, and I got singed all down my back, legs and stomach.  Once the cold and flu tablets wore off, I spent the afternoon at the hotel dousing myself with lotion and feeling a bit sorry for myself – sick and sunburnt in paradise – not fair!