Vietnam
I wasn’t disappointed. Vietnam was a fascinating place to visit and has a great range of contrasts from frenetic Ho Chi Minh City (still called Saigon by the locals), the Mekong Delta, and Vietnams “Rice Basket” with its busy main water ways to the quiet and peaceful back waters. The intellectual, cultural and spiritual heart of Vietnam with its crumbling Citadel (old Imperial City) now a Unesco World Heritage site reflecting its history of Nguyen dynasty. I fell in love with the old world charm of Hoi, another Unesco World heritage site. The town is a living museum with Chinese, Japanese and European trading influences, the full moon lanterns lighting the streets and it’s handmade tailors to the amazing beaches of Danang to make a holiday complete with some well-earned R&R.
Food will play an important part of any trip to Vietnam. It is totally fresh and healthy relying on the five elements and yin and yang to make a fresh balanced meal, each meal we had was like a feast with five to seven courses. We had plenty of fresh fruit, vegetables, fish, meat and rice. We cycled to a local house in the Mekong to sample the local seasonal fruit, fresh made buns that we helped roll for the owner to cook for us, which we ate with honey tea.
In mid Vietnam we cycled through rice fields, fruit orchards and vegetable gardens where the colours were vibrant and amazing. We also visited the “Village of Vegetables” in Tra Que where the whole town is involved with the growing of aromatic herd and vegetables. Here were taught how to cook “Tam Huu” a pancake with a blend of shrimp, pork and aromatic herbs. In the Mekong we tasted local specialities like Elephant-ear fish. In Saigon we ate at KOTO (Know One Teach One) restaurant which is a charity restaurant that Jimmy Pham, a Vietnamese –Australian opened to give disadvantaged youths a possibility to learn and improve their lives.
Local life in Vietnam was fascinating. In the Mekong we went on every sort of water transport available from large local ferries, Sanpans that had roofs that need to drop to get under low bridges to small rowing boats to get up the small back waters. When we were cycling local children and families would call out “hello”. We saw plenty of women in their conical hats rowing boats to buying and selling their villages produce at Cai Rang floating market as the sun came up. You can identify who is selling what they have for sale is hung on a pole from the boat. We visited various local places of work, such as the local brick kiln, a mat weaving house. One of the most impressive for me was the coconut processing factory this demonstrated how all parts of the plentiful nut are used. The husk for matting, the shell is put into a high heat kiln to be turned into charcoal, the milk and meat are used for food leaving no waste.
Recent Vietnamese history and current everyday life. We visited the Cu Chi tunnels from Saigon which is a network of tunnels 250km in length that housed 16,000 Vietcong during the wars, first with the French in 1948 and later provided storage, hospital and living quarters during the American War. You are allowed to descend into the tunnels if you wish. Much of the areas we visited in Vietnam had bomb craters or were battle scarred from these recent wars. The attitude of the locals is that they have forgiven but won’t forget but are very happy to show tourists around. Saigon is a full on buzzing Metropolis that is open 24 hours a day. There are 21 districts that make up Saigon; 16 are urban and five rural. The area we stayed in was district one and the Dong Khoi area. Here you find beautiful French Colonial buildings and the Saigon River. It felt very safe to be walking around in the evening and there were some superb designer shops, however the bargains are found at Ben Thanh Market. We went through China Town during rush hour and I have never seen so many mopeds (the local form of transport) gliding peacefully along!
The quality of the accommodation we stayed in was excellent. I particularly enjoyed the tranquillity of the Mekong Riverside Lodge and Pilgrimage Village resort Hue, the central location of the Grand and Majestic Saigon. The Furama Danang was a good hotel with a superb beach and with easy access to Danang for great bargains at the local market and Hoi An for the culture and tailor shops.
I would definitely recommend a trip to Vietnam and will certainly go back. I would recommend including a few centres to get the most from it.
