Viet Nam the fourth: Day 12 Hoi An – transit

A fairly quiet day really, as the plan was that I’d get picked up around 4pm at the hotel for my flight to HCMC then home. I’m writing this at Da Nang airport, after my flight was due to depart, as VietJet have been sending me updates all day telling me my flight is delayed. In theory I’ve got about […]

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Viet Nam the fourth: Day 11 Hoi An

My last full day in Hoi An, and also L’s birthday. After breakfast we went to pick up our laundry, things sure are fierce along laundry street. once we’d got our clothes we walked the length of the street, and no less than two other locals, looking at our bag (and assuming it contained dirty clothes) gestured for us to […]

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Viet Nam the fourth: Day 10 Hoi An

Coffee. Viet Nam is one of the world’s largest producers of these wonderful beans, though they rarely get recognised for this as the majority is robusta, not the better marketed arabica variety. I’m not even sure many self-proclaimed coffee snobs know much about robusta beans, as these tend to form the backbone of the instant coffee market. Kind of like […]

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Viet Nam the fourth: Day 9 Da Nang – Hoi An

The historic village of Hoi An sits about 25km south of Da Nang. Even 10 years ago, there as a definite undeveloped space between the two. These days, the coast south of Da Nang is full of new resorts, and resorts under construction, so it’s hard to say where Da Nang ends and Hoi An begins. If you want something […]

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Viet Nam the fourth: Day 8 Da Nang

Viet Nam: beautiful one day, invisible the next. Well, if you head into the hills anyway. The regular reader may recall our experience on the last trip when we summitted the highest point in VN, Mt Fan Xi Pan, where we found ourselves well and truly in the clouds, ensuring the view was John Major grey all around. Today’s adventure […]

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Viet Nam the fourth: Day 6 Quy Nhon – Da Nang

We said goodbye to our slightly unusual, partly deserted hotel early in order to catch the 7.07am train to Da Nang. I’m sure the hotel means well, but with various oddities in the room design, few of its additional facilities being open, and staff who were very friendly but didn’t really know how to recommend places to go to around […]

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Viet Nam the fourth: Day 5 Quy Nhon

Happy New Calendar Year. It’s a good thing that the Vietnamese seem to be happy celebrating every new year, be it calendar, Chinese lunar, or their own lunar (which may or may not coincide with Chinese lunar) as around 1140pm on New Year’s Eve the heavens opened up and it rained a bit for at least the next hour. Fortunately […]

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Viet Nam the fourth: Day 4 Quy Nhon

It’s new year’s eve, and from the 15th floor of the Odin Hotel we can clearly hear what sounds like the strains of a passionate karaoke singer, while out the window the Grand Hyams Hotel is one big light show. The streets of Quy Nhon are full of families on scooters, but its not the same dense throng we saw […]

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Viet Nam the fourth: Day 3 – HCMC to Quy Nhon

I neglected to mention that there was also dessert on last night’s food and scooter tour, wonderful milk puddings, basically pannacotta/creme caramel (something else the Vietnamese kept when they sent the French packing) in three flavours: matcha, cream cheese, and caramel. Quite delicious. Started with a decent breakfast at the hotel, noting that their banh canh is quite different to […]

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Viet Nam the fourth: Day 2 – HCMC

Another fine day in Ho Chi Minh City. We checked out the hotel breakfast, it was pretty good, plenty of local options and no baked beans nor scrambled eggs to be seen. Highlight were definitely the chicken mince skewers that were wrapped around lemongrass stalks. L and I took in the sights of old Saigon, including the Notre Dame cathedral […]

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