Day Six : Hue

Travel dice says NO GO

And just as we gear up for what turned out to be quite a trying night aboard a 'sleeper bus'. The bus refused to start, causing a 2 hour delay. So we sat by the roadside and made friends with a couple of Manchester lads and a Korean girl.

Travel dice says "no"

Day Six: Hue

"The Deafman of Hue"

Mr Lac, the self-professed 'deaf man of Hue' is one helluva good host. Not only does he serve delightfully fresh and flavourful food -- stir-fried pork, grilled beef skewers with fresh herbs, and a mean Hue-style pancake, he has the most expressive gestures and the most emphatic thumbs-up sign I've ever seen!

Thumbs up to Mr Lac!

Ancient Citadel Tour
After lunchies we got on board a couple of scooters and had a short tour of the ancient citadel that Hue is famous for.

A French Bakery

In the middle of Hue we find an unbelievably good boulangerie... chocolate brioche, lemon meringue tart ... bliss!

Day Five: Hoi An

The perfect Banh Mi

Day Four/Five: Hoi An

Made to Order

Who would have thought Hoi An would be the unknown fashion and food capital of the world? In our time here, we've had bespoke clothing made for extremely reasonable prices and amazingly short lengths of time and eaten an incredible range of the most delicious food.

Hoi An's famous wantons -- crisp fried wantons covered in sweet and sour sauce


White rose dumplings


Cao Lao -- noodles made from Hoi An spring water


Calamari salad


Spring rolls

Mermaid Cafe
It's been mentioned in the NYTimes and almost every guidebook and tourist advice I'd came across -- so I wass determined to give it a go. And sceptical as D was, and as full as I was (we just had a pre-dinner 'snack' of spring rolls and calamari salad), we were blown away.

Grilled mackeral and turmeric in banana leaf

Grilled stuffed squid

Day Three: Hoi An

Hoi An: Welcome to... Beirut?
With its low chinese-styled buildings with peaked tiled roofs, most of Hoi An has been protected from the ravages of the construction boom that has otherwise gotten a ravenous hold of the rest of Vietnam. Be it wisdom, foresight, or just the lure of the tourist dollar, a part of Hoi An has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage site. Thankfully this has meant that Hoi An's Old Quarter, where most of these buildings are situated, has been protected from modernisation and the incursion of modern vehicular traffic. Small as Hoi An is, the town is not spared from the tooting of scooters or the jarring blare of horns.

As we step from 'regular' Hoi An into the quiet and calm of the Old Quarter street, the effect is like stepping into a parallel world. A hush descends on the street where only 'primitive vehicles' are allowed. It is a surreal, but welcome change. Unfortunately, this does not last.

Hoi An's supposed to look like this


But now it looks like this

Not 10 minutes into our walk, we hit another parellel street -- if you can even call the dug up length of dirt, gravel and mud a street. Deep ugly gouges snake their way along the little that's left of the path, so we have to inch our way along store fronts and navigate heaps of rubble. I hear my heart tinkle into a thousand broken bits as I survey the destruction.The vehicular regulations, are of course not applied to the construction vehicles, so the peaceful streets are beset by a constant cacophany of rubbling machinery. D had read earlier that they are laying new pipes --sewage I think -- and the works are affecting business for stores in the Old Town. And no wonder. Dust covers and bespoils every surface and mud-caked footprints sully entrances.

But the efficiency of change -- whether we like it or not -- has her merits. By the second evening, rough concrete paths were already taking shape. Some streets glisten with a fresh hot coat of pungent-smelling tar. Putting it into perspective, D said, "not everyone who comes here gets to see construction in the old town" -- so whipping out his camera,che goes of to take sexy shots of the steamroller.

Day Three: Saigon-Danang-Hoi An

The Marble Mountains

When they said 'Marble Mountains' I didn't expect it to be quite so literal. Arriving from Saigon, we touched down at Danang with a taxi awaiting. The plan was to visit what guidebooks had touted as a picturesque and impressive natural wonder. After a winding drive uphill, and finding ourselves driven to a large workshop, we stepped from the cab into a forest of dancing lovers, dragons, urns, lions, tigers, and yes -- bears, a little bemused, and a little disappointed.
Hoping to find something less cliche, we cut through the Narnia-esque tourist trap after the requisite few corny photos and headed out towards the pounding sounds. There, we found a quarry. And further up, a carved stairway leading into the belly of a mountain -- one of the actual Marble Mountains that makes up the group of five looming natural marble formations that Danang is famous for.
It's said the trek into the mountains is worth the time and effort, but we weren't so keen on an arduous walk after the early morning and rather cramped flight so we bid farewell to the marble carvers as the cab weaved its way past rows of stone lions and other sentinal beasts immortalisd into cold stone.

Danang
She appears to be preparing for something. Something unknown to us. All around she is being built up, torn down, leveled. Signs everywhere promise big things to come. But strangely, as we speed by, the whole city -- store fronts, offices, cafes, a giant water park complete with six-storey high slides, seem deserted. It's vaguely disconcerting and a bit sad, like a girl taking huge pains to get ready for prom, in the hope that - maybe, soon -- her date will arrive.

Day Two: Saigon

The Cu Chi Tunnels

by D

The smell of cordite hung heavily in the air as we scrambled through the tunnels. The sharp snaps of the ak47 whip around us, very unlike the booming noise we have come to expect from Hollywood firefights. The tour was dusty and crowded, and most exhibits were blocked by a mass of bodies. The photographs i took did little to highlight the gruesome and awesomeness of the home-made traps, and before long, i put my camera away to better enjoy the experience. i found the best part of the tour was the bus ride there and back. while the air-conditioning was less than wonderful and the road was bumpy, there was a certain charm of going past the "real" vietnam. watching people take their sunday afternoon naps on hammocks tied to raw cinder block houses and seeing them eat at the local equivalent of the cafe, a moveable glass booth and hand-painted signs, on truncated plastic chairs.

Day Two: Saigon

A Vietnamese breakfast

To me, there is nothing better than a loaf of freshly baked bread. For breakfast, two swollen loaves greet my greedy eyes. A thin crunchy crust beheld the light cotton candy insides that is the hallmark of the French-influenced Vietnamese bread rolls. The light fluffy bread, smothered in strawberry conserves or stuffed with scrambled eggs and paired with an iced coffee so strong it punched me awake with its caffiene jolt to the heart is the perfect start to a day.

Day One: Saigon

ARRIVAL
Our destination looms into sight. From the oval eyelets of the plane, the swollen Saigon river, heavy with her burden of silt, meanders her way in sluggish looping swirls through the sprawling patchwork of green and brown paddy fields.
It is a vivid real life lesson in high school geography; a display of ox bow lakes, branching tributaries, and the fertile gifts of a river at the end of its journey towards the sea. And then the ground lurches ever closer. bumpbumpbump. Welcome to Saigon.

INTRODUCTION
We first smell and hear Saigon even before we see her. Out of the pristine new airport, we are immediately beset by the tang of diesel fumes as our taxi barrels into the thick of the raucous
Around us, a hundred mopeds weave around us like a churning tide, moving as if bidden by a secret song known only to them, intersecting in a complex, chaotic dance.

LESSONS IN CROSSING THE ROAD
We are too early to check in so we have ourselves a nice wander through the hurly burly of the Satruday morning Saigon streets. Once you get the hang of it -- and it took me quite a while before I stopping jumping at every tooting horn (which was every 0.05 seconds as sounding the horn is less of a warning signal and more of a orientation tool designed to tell pedestrians and fellow drivers "Hey I'm here, just riding me bike".) -- crossing the roads here is a liberating and nerve building affair. The key is to just walk at a constant pace so the traffic can judge how to avoid you. Motto of the story: Jaywalking like fuck -- and having an absolute right to do it -- is incredibly empowering.

TOURISTY THINGS

And like the damned tourists we are, we find Pho 2000, "because Bill Clinton ate there". But because we are tourists, we get lost, turned around by the disorientating tangle of unfamiliar (and nameless) streets. To quell my rumbling belly, I get my first hit of Vietnam -- a mystery snack that is a warm flat round of squishy dough bought off a street vendor. It turns to be a grilled tapioca and corn cake, which tasted like the green tapioca cakes found in pasar malams in Singapore. Toasty warm and slightly sweet, the snack was familiar tasting, fragrant and filling.

Then we find Pho 2000, which, like all tourist hot spots is clean, safe and nothing to write home about so i shant. Instead i shall tell of how D got accosted, not by one, but two Vietnamese guys...

Happy glue guy
We walk out of Banh Thanh Market, unimpressed by the shopping on offer and feeling annoyed at the pushy stall=holders. Suddenly, out from this bush, a young man suddenly bursts out and stoops over to attack D's feet with a bottle of glue. He wants to fix D's torn berkies. but D refuses and we quickly walk on. But the guy's insistent and follows us across the road, imploring like his heart would break. We hurriedly enter the would-be haven of the restaurant, expecting him to give up. But the tenacious young man then proceeds to wait outside, positioning himself outside our window, and continues to implore D for about 15 minutes, even as we eat. But before long, put off by our firm but sheepish gestures in the negative, he left, I would assume, heart broken at another torn shoe left unfixed.

The English teacher
We don't need a cyclo, and no we don't need a bike. But we must have looked friendly enough, because he takes us across a busy road intersection. It's enough encouragement for him as he -- in quite good English -- regales D with tales of his life. In typical D fashion, he engages the gentlemen, asking him questions about his language skills and his life. The man continues to share, he studied English in school, becoming a preacher until he fell ill, leading up to his urgent need for some money to go to the pharmacy for medicine for his condition which is, I kid you not, "water shooting out his (ass)" as surmised by descriptive gesticulations. D slowly explains to him that we do not have much money, and they shake hands as we part ways on the street of shoes, where D finally get his berkies fixed up for 10,000 vnd (<1sgd)