Vietnam the third: day 16, Hoi An – Singapore

Was a little sad to say goodbye to Vietnam: for all the heat, chaos, hawking, and haggling, it’s now elevated to a home away from home, a place where there is much good food, friendly people, and a general good time to be had. It’s also proof that a country can bounce back from being screwed over by the US and make something for itself (now if only the US could do the same).

The Vietnamese seem to generally be a proud people, who can both hold onto traditions and also adapt with the times — many of the businesses we shopped at also have strong online presences, and will ship worldwide. Madam Khanh banh mi can be ordered for delivery. At the same time an unassuming streetside stall established in the 1950s, with the original owner 107 year-old and still going strong, can be selling just one thing, and selling out every day.

Last night’s bedtime reading featured the English cricket team trying their best to implode against NZ, the US trying to implode by letting a bunch of the most un-xtian xtians demonstrate once again that religions don’t really like women, and a travel article on the BBC website (https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20220623-vietnams-107-year-old-pudding-master) that featured a little stall not more than 700m from our hotel.

Figuring that we’d have a fairly solid morning, last minute packing, squeezing in one final massage, checking out, we pencilled in Xi-Ma as a maybe, kind of amazed at the coincidence for this to get posted right when we were in town. We’re still a little rusty and the whole travel thing, a touch out of practice, but still managed to get our stuff together and pack in plenty of time for the massage, and it was only 32 degrees out, so figured we’d go check out Xi-Ma, because who can resist a 7k vnd bowl of goodness?

Even with the pretty good instructions in the BBC article, we walked past the place, as it’s literally a handful of stools, a person with a big pot, a couple of buckets for washing up, and a little sign. Googlemaps also wants to take you a bit further up the street. But we doubled back and found it, complete with the woman in the article’s photo, wearing the same outfit. I’d accuse them of jacking up the prices due to their new celebrity status, as it cost 10k a bowl, but the irony is that they probably don’t even know about the article being online, as the BBC website is blocked in Vietnam (we can access it through global roaming, but local wifi blocks it). So the extra 3k might have been because we chose to pull up little red stools and dine in (and given that 10k vnd is $0.62, we didn’t care). The black sesame pudding was delicious, full of black sesame flavour and a hint of something savoury. However it doesn’t seem that a single bowl cures colds.

Then it was time for our last massage at The Lemon Tree Spa, who are lovely and have looked after us well across multiple visits. I think they were a little sad to see us leave, as Hoi An’s still a little quiet. L did a bit of additional reading and found out that The Lemon Tree pays its staff a salary, not just on commission, so that makes them good people. Check them out.

Da Nang airport, I’ve talked about this place before so will try not to repeat myself, but I do love the long runway, first build by the French, then used by the Japanese, then back to the French, then expanded by the US to accommodate all manner of military and civilian planes. Some of the old military hangars are still there. When taking off, it feels like you’re taxiing forever, and then when you take off it seems you’re only half way down the runway.

Bye Vietnam, see you again soon.

Nothing much to report on Singapore just yet: we arrived, cleared immigration and customs, went to hotel and did a quick walk for snacks. We’re staying near the Arab quarter, across from Haji Lane and near the mosque, where there’s a bunch of construction going on. Will do some proper exploring tomorrow.