Pho king amazing
Wednesday, 24 July
In a single day we have done so much! Jane and I arrived a day earlier than the rest of the cohort and so had 24 hours to explore on our own. Our hostel was "Little Hanoi Hostel" (not to be mistaken for Little Hanoi Hostel 2 which is not even related!) and were amazingly helpful in recommending our days worth of food. The National dish is Pho, and Dave (our friend behind our hostel desk) told us Ly Quoc Sur, No.10 Pho restaurant was the place to go. Run like a fast food joint, the workers were dressed in orange and the orders were made and ready in minutes. Pho is a beef noodle soup, to which you decide what cut of beef is added. Hot sauces, fresh herbs, limes and some kind of golden fried bread sticks called quay were freely on the table as accompaniments. I had a mix of "well done" and "half done" brisket beef in mine. It felt fresh and natural with a real meaty stock that you could have happily drank on its own.
Vietnam is also famous for its rice paper spring rolls and just half an hour after our Pho indulgence we came across a street vendor frying a whole load of them. They are seriously nothing like the filo pastry spring rolls you get at home. Rice paper is ultra thin and so you get so much more filling in every bite and still get the crunch. Served with a bag of some kind of sweet chilli fish sauce it is the ultimate street food. My mouth's watering just thinking about them. Apparently they vary as you go south and so I am looking forward to becoming a spring roll connoisseur.



The rest of the crew arrived today and although they were not staying the night, our hostel were more than accommodating. As we didn't leave for Laos until 5 in the evening, the Little Hanoi Hostel let us all store our luggage and shower there for no extra cost. We pretty much repeated our day but with more people. Lunch at No.10 Pho once more and a wander around the old town. By 5pm we were washed and ready for our nightmare 30hr(!?) coach journey to Laos.
The Descending Dragon
Wednesday, 7 August
Since my last write up we have been through both Laos and Cambodia to return back to Vietnam 2 weeks later. It is currently 1am and I am on route to Dong Hoi, about a third of the way down Vietnam's coast. We took a bit of a roundabout route and flew (only £20!) from South Vietnam (Ho Chi Mihn) to North (Hanoi), only to make our way back down south again, as this meant that we could include another friend of ours for the Vietnam leg of the trip. In the end we lost a Becky and gained a Lucy so logistics stayed the same.






Today the typhoon arrived. There is not really much to do in a typhoon. We visited what we could but our main goal was to kill time before getting on this tiny sleeper train designed with the average Vietnamese man in mind. 6 beds crammed into a dirty, sweaty cabin and I am on the top bunk overlooking the only stranger in here. Poor guy.
The Queen of Spring Rolls
Wednesday, 14 August



The next day we decided to go our separate ways and do our own thing for a bit before regrouping for our 5 course cooking class ($20) in the evening. Being left to my own devices isn't usually a good idea. It started with me sitting on a barbers chair for a shave and getting my hair cut. We didn't exchange a single word, I sat down and he started cutting. Hmmm. Hoi An is famous for tailoring and I couldn't help but pick out some fabrics, get measured up and put my orders in. I should have totally become a designer, I had great fun combining the different patterns and creating shirts from scratch. I designed two for $35. With about an hour left to kill I decided to hunt for the Cao Lau... just a snack to keep me going before the cooking class I thought. I found a crowded indoor market and ordered the finest bowl of noodles. Cao Lau is a type of noodle, made using a highly secret recipe making it something of an urban legend. Kind of greasy, thick, meaty noodles served with different soups. This stall did just two versions and having finished my first bowl I made the mistake of trying to ask to "taste" the other version. Two full bowls of Cao Lau later I was stuffed and heading to the river side restaurant for our 5 course cooking class.
The cooking class began with a tour around the local market





For our final night in our favourite place we decided to book into a posh hotel and enjoy some luxury. Dinner there was a "Vietnam street food experience" which was more of an encounter than experience in comparison to last night. We finished our time in Hoi An with a big night out and headed to Da Nang in the morning. China beach and seafood is what Da Nang is famous for and both resulted in disappointment. In fact the seafood was probably the most soul destroying part of the trip so far. It had enormous potential with the menu in the form of 20+ big red buckets filled with various sea creatures. Most tables were filled with Vietnamese on holiday tucking into some of the most amazing looking seafood. We pointed at squid, prawns, fish, crab and clams and excitedly awaited its arrival to our table. How do they know how we want it all done we thought, whilst looking around at peoples crispy fried squid and chilli crab. Everything we ordered had been taken from the bucket, put into boiling water and then put on our plate. I can't think of anything more depressing.
Hedgehog, Snake and Rat...
Tuesday, 20 August

...is the answer to things I have eaten recently. Da Nang didn't really have much to offer. The world's best collection of Cham Sculptures Museum wasn't enough to keep us for longer than 24 hours. With a team down to 4 we took a night train to Nha Trang, a popular party spot for the Australians. Full of tourist attractions, we used the time to make the most of Western amenities. Sitting in a rubber ring in VinPearl Waterpark felt a million miles away from sitting in the inner tube of a tractor tyre in Laos. Both I loved! Since then we spent a day fishing ($40 each!?), ate Hedgehog (Edited: having Google translated the word "Nhim" it turns out we ate Porcupine), tried, but failed, to go ostrich riding and had a mud bath in Thap Ba Hot Springs. The mud bath was well worth it. We spent a good few hours sitting in the mud, sunbathing until the mud went hard and then washing it off in a mineral bath. Waterfalls, Jacuzzis and pools easily occupy the rest of your time.
Some of our favourite food has been eaten here. The Vietnamese pancakes are enormous and sold dirt cheap on the streets. The roads are filled with little red stools and locals tucking into these pancake wraps. We totally know how to eat them now too! Rice paper wraps, greens, pickled salad, rice paper sauce and chillis, all ready on the table for the construction of the ultimate pancake wrap. We also picked out a live snake and had it prepared for us. The famous "snake 7 ways" was once on my bucket list but I have recently learnt that it was developed purely for tourists; not a local delicacy or ritual. Fried in a light batter seems much more common and we all picked at the tiny ribs with a smile on our faces.



Back in Ho Chi Minh we spent a day visiting the Cu Chi Tunnels (above left) and War Remnants Museum before leaving on our two day tour of the Mekong Delta. A tour along the delta is a common way of getting to and from Cambodia. Our tours itinerary took us around the markets and plantations that thrive along the river and we spent the night in a home stay out in rural Vietnam. It was great to wake up to the flow of the Mekong and get out into the floating market. Boats selling produce from the local farms attract wholesalers and tourists. Our boat regularly got "hijacked" by other boats selling things. They would literally lasso our boat and ride along side us to take orders; breakfast and coffee served like never before. Our guide, who named himself "handsome slim", took us by boat to see various Vietnamese traditions in practise; from local markets to the making of rice paper noodles. Among this we went through mangroves and fed crocodiles using a fishing rod with meat tied to the end of it! For lunch we dared the BBQ on a spice plantation where frogs, still in their skins, were bubbling away over the heat. Eurgh. The rat next to it, strangely, looked quite tempting. Tempting enough for us to buy a couple at least. Everyone stared at us as we carried our banana leaves back to our seats; there was really no mistaking what animal it was. I almost feel ashamed to say that it tasted delicious! Tiny succulent morsels of honey roasted white meat. Like miniature chicken wings. Nom...
There's something about Sapa
Friday, 23 August

It was the perfect end to our 5 weeks. Situated higher up, the weather is a little cooler and the landscape is a lush green. Our tour guides were local women from the rural villages in Sapa and were extremely friendly. We trekked for most of the day with the local women helping us the whole way. They taught us their way of life, invited us to their houses, showed us how to use various devices to make clothes, mill rice and the rest. A full, thoroughly enjoyable day. Yes the women weren't helping us and being uber lovely for no reason, it turned out that they all owned little stalls and wanted to sell things at the end of our walk. I made the mistake of buying a bracelet from a little girl at lunch only to be hoarded by several hundred of them seconds later (left).
