Asia
-
Into Cambodia: Siem Reap & Angkor Wat
Words. One of our airbnb hosts in Vietnam has left a review of us on the website, as they do. When Michaela runs the Vietnamese text through Google translate, the review consists of just three words: “clean tidy happy”. Well, it’s hardly an extended character reference but “clean tidy happy” is a description which we’ll readily accept as a compliment. And on the subject of words, I picked up a T-shirt in Hanoi which carries a slogan which just about sums up my entire life philosophy just now. It reads…”think global, drink local”. Yep, that just about says it all. As the end of our time in Vietnam approaches, we…
-
We Have To Mention The War
“Everybody has heard of the Vietnam War, right?” asks Mickie the tour guide as the minibus heads towards the tunnels. “Well”, he continues, “let me tell you there is no such thing. My country has a history of a thousand years of war. After World War 2 we have the Indochina War, the French War, and then, the one you call the Vietnam War”, he pauses for effect, “we call the American War, not the Vietnam War. I hope before you leave Vietnam, you will understand more about the American War”. Mickie is impassioned, proud of his country, and – like every single Vietnamese – from a family devastated by…
-
On To Saigon Or Whatever It’s Called
Day 35 of this trip and we cop out for the first time. Up until tonight it’s been local food all the way….Indian, Nepalese and Vietnamese dishes, local specialities, street food, even a frog on a stick for God’s sake. But Can Tho is different: the restaurants aren’t quite as inviting, the atmosphere is less accessible, and the street food we’ve tried is unpopular with locals and close to inedible. So we cop out and find an “ordinary” restaurant, The Lighthouse, which, perish the thought, does steaks and stuff. For the first time since we entered the country, we eat some non-Vietnamese food: Michaela’s is a French dish, mine Belgian.…
-
Down To The Delta: Markets On The Mekong
We seem to get from Da Nang to Can Tho in the blink of an eye, via a domestic flight which leaves on time and arrives early followed by a taxi driver with Formula 1 aspirations. Our base in Can Tho is in the Ninh Kieu district, close to the quay of the same name, and as we take our first stroll and look out across the water, there is a serenity which we think is like a Spanish siesta, but will come to realise later that it is something else entirely. The mighty Mekong River travels some 3,050 miles from its source high on the Tibetan Plateau down to…
-
The Bridges Of Da Nang And A French Village In The Sky
Da Nang is a large and sprawling city, and our time here is very short – plus, we’ve discovered that the sights which we want to visit are a distance apart from each other and are all some way away from our seafront hotel. Sipping draught Tiger beer on our first night here, we are just debating whether hiring a driver for a day might be our best solution, when we look up and see a guy with a plastic wallet full of leaflets making a beeline for us across the road. “Hello”, he says, “my name is Mister Tony. You want find a driver and guide for your stay…
-
Da Nang: The Modern Face Of Vietnam
Laying our Vietnam ghosts has been such an edifying process, we now have a very strong affection for this country after our bad times here at the onset of COVID when we met with some real hostility simply because we were British (this was when the pandemic had taken a stranglehold in the UK more than anywhere else). We’d also had bad food experience, the meals we ate in Hanoi back then were consistently poor, a bit like being given a bowl of washing-up water where if we were really lucky the dishcloth had been left in the bottom. We always knew though that this was not typical – every…
-
Hot Days & Warm Hearts: A Week In Hoi An
The advice we’ve been given is that, when it comes to visiting the My Son Sanctuary, we have two choices: go in the morning when the coach parties are doing the rounds and visitor numbers are high, or risk coping with the intense heat of the afternoon when we’ll more or less have the place to ourselves. Seeing as we are one half of the “mad dogs and Englishmen” couplet we opt, of course, for the quieter, hotter alternative. As it happens, temperatures have raced up the scale since we’ve been in Hoi An and at the same time someone has adjusted the humidity setting so that T-shirts last about…
-
To Hoi An: The Land Of Lanterns
And so we head to Hoi An, a place about which we have heard so many good things that this will be our longest stay in one place whilst in Vietnam, a full six days. Our original intention was to go by train from Hue to Da Nang and then taxi to Hoi An, but we got chatting to a guy in a cafe on the first morning in Hue who told us he can book a bus which will take us door to door for half the price of the taxi alone. Bargain. Bargain? Well, yes, but boy does the journey bring surprises. Sure enough, we get picked up…
-
Tam Coc to Hue: Inside The Imperial City
The climb to the dual peaks of Hang Mua is a hefty ascent of over 500 steps which are so irregular and uneven that coming back down is almost as tricky as going up, but the magnificent views from the top make every bit of the effort worthwhile. Sweeping panoramas across the lush green paddy fields, towering karst limestone hulks and twisting rivers lead the eye eventually to the urban sprawl of Ninh Binh city. These views hammer home just how much water there is here: villages are islands and roads are causeways. At Hang Mua, gardens have been laid at the foot of the hills and a few cafes…
-
Halong Bay-Hanoi-Tam Coc: Towards Stunning Scenery
The look and sound of a wet road and the repetitive whine of windscreen wipers are inextricably linked to my memories of childhood Saturdays, and as we make our way back to Hanoi from Halong Bay in the “limousine bus” this particular Saturday is doing its best to trigger those memories. We knew to expect inclement weather during this spell, it’s that time of year here in the north. No visit to Hanoi is complete without a trip to Train Street, so, given that we are passing back through the city at a weekend when there are more trains scheduled than at other times, we play the game of grabbing…
