northerly bound

Archived from the past, here is a little Vietnam stuff... un-proofread I'm afraid! I've got a bus to catch in a few minutes.

Vietnamese internet cafes were rough, the connections very slow and the computers extremely moody, so blogging was difficult. I had this archived for weeks. Here's a few photos, and an abbreviated timeline and trajectory through Vietnam.

(approx mid December)
SO we have made it a fair distance north up the coastline of Vietnam and now find ourselves in the lovely little ancient city of Hoi An. Nha Trang was a nice beach city that grew on us rapidly. Our first impression wasn't great, but we found the less touristy areas, and where we liked to eat and settled in quite nicely. We went on a fun boat trip, did a little snorkeling, made a bunch of new friends. We were in the first hostel we've found, they aren't common in Vietnam, so it facilitates making friends. Nha Trang was great ...but then the weather turned and became rather cold and stormy. Too cold and stormy to do any more stuff on the water, so we continued up the coast to Hoi An.

Hoi An is a UNESCO site and the old city is car-free, just scooters and bicycles. Beautiful old teak houses and narrow little winding streets, it's really quaint. There's about 200 tailoring shops and cute places to eat. Maybe my favorite market so far, they have beautiful vegetables and herbs here. This is our favorite place in Vietnam so far.

We seem to have gathered a little crew of people on the same route up the coast and on the same time line, and it's nice to have a group of people that we're hanging out with now. Jen (USA), Drew(USA), Carina (Norway), Marina (Russia) We'll continue on together to Ha Long Bay for Christmas. We have quite the bus ride ahead, we take an 18 hour bus ride up to Hanoi tomorrow.

Today we all got bikes and rode out of town to Cu Dai beach, known during the war as "China Beach". It's too bad the weather wasn't great, cloudy and a little too breezy, but we had a nice ride and it felt good to visit the ocean.

The Vietnamese are known as skilled tailors, and Hoi An is the tailoring capital of Vietnam, and I totally succumbed to the tailors and had some stuff made to be shipped home tomorrow. A silk-lined wool winter coat, 3 cotton summer dresses, a dressy silk top and a silk bathrobe. All for $120. Such a treat, I'm extremely happy with everything I ordered. I've never had the experience of verbally describing something I want, and having them draw sketches until we're on the same page, take a million measurements and tell me to come back in 24 hours. A couple fittings later, perfection, with excellent workmanship. There are also a lot of cobblers here within incredibly cool samples to choose from and beautiful leathers... Jon got his first suit made, a totally slick cashmere pinstripe, and a bunch of beautiful shirts.

After Hoi An we spent 24 hours on buses headned north, breezed through Hanoi and off to the astoundingly beautifiul Ha Long Bay, where we spent Christmas and a few days. Unforgettable.

We would have loved to do some climbing, there are amazing deep water soloing routes and a great company that takes you out by boat....and the routes aren't even that difficult. Deep water soloing means you climb with no rope or protection and just fall into the water. Unfortunately it's winter there, and while the water temperature isn't bad the air temperature was in the mid teens and we were chilly. So no water activity aside from a bit of kayaking.

As soon as the sun set we were unprepared and didn't have enough warm clothes! It was chilly. It really was an amazing place. It deserves so many stories, but I would really like to just cover the ground we made and get anyone who cares to follow our trajectory caught up.

By this time we were reunited with the crew we'd been on and off traveling with up the Vietnamese coastline, Carina, Drew, Jen, Tess and James. We then headed back to Hanoi for a couple nights, which was great fun, and then all took another epic long busride south. 21 hours later, and a totally surreal and bizarre dawn border crossing in the mountains of Laos and we arrived in Vientiane, the Lao capital.

Nha Trang

So we went to Da Lat. Da Lat is in the Central Highlands, our bus climbed windy (motion-sickness inducing for several people on our bus) curvy roads for hours to get there. While Da Lat sounded great in the guidebook and really inviting, we didn't stay as long as planned. The milder temperatures sounded refreshing but it was downright COLD - dreary and grey, like Vancouver in November.

It's really pretty in Da Lat, but everything to see of interest is really spread out and the best way to see everything is by motorbike tour, and in the drizzly chilly rain we couldn't muster up much enthusiasm. So we stayed a day and continued to Nha Trang.

(By the way, the tourist-class buses in Vietnam are awesome, over air-conditioned to FREEZING temperatures, but comfortable and efficient. Courtesy neck pillows and bottles of water and pee breaks every hour and a half.

Nha Trang is a pretty crazy city...now that we're here it sort of feels like how I imagine Florida beach towns to be, only... in Vietnam. Lots of Asian tourists, fewer backpackers, lots of hotels, a lot of party culture. Sounds lame, no? Well, admittedly our first impression wasn't great, but as the day has gone by we're more excited. The beach is astonishingly beautiful, and the draw of Nha Trang is that it's the kickoff point for no less than 71 magnificent tiny islands for snorkeling and diving, with little or no development on them. Boat trips are very affordable and Nha Trang is considered one of the best value places for PADI certification in the world, in terms of cost and and quality/health of the coral reefs. So we'll stay for a bit. Maybe do our scuba courses. We're settled into a great, cozy hostel with all kinds of perks, a block from the beach. We'll do a few boat trips and maybe our scuba courses.

It certainly doesn't have the undeveloped charm of Koh Chang, but we'll withhold judgment until we see some of these islands a few kilometers offshore. The water here is clear as gin.

Saigon

It's GRITTY here, makes Bangkok feel like we were just at kindergarten. Aspects of the chaos remind me of Delhi, there are almost no traffic lights. You can sense a lot of people are in survival mode, and it's way busier, dirty, hot, crowded. Yet you have all these remnants of colonial french architecture, elegant buildings, French-style cafes. Some people are very kind, but there is definitely a higher crime rate and Lonely Planet book advises to be very aware for bag snatching and pickpocketing, even from children. A lot of the smiles come with the attempt to swindle the most possible cash out of you. I can't say I blame them. We are both open minded about the traveling that lies ahead but feel that our first impression is that there is more hardness, toughness, to the urban Vietnamese than the urban Thais.

There is plenty of physical evidence of the war in the people...I've already seen lots of birth defects in limbs, similar to thalidomide, which I presume is result of fetal chemical exposure. There are also many amputees, people with no feet or legs panhandling, more than I've ever seen before in one place. To this day there remains unexploded land mines in rural areas, some of the people are too young to have been in the war, so I wonder if it was land mines.

I've heard Vietnamese cities are a bit hard...that the joyful traveling really happens in more rural areas. We've been here three days, done some really interesting sightseeing, and head north to a city called Dalat tomorrow. After that, the coastal city of Nha Trang for the beach.

I've been rather forlorn all eveing because I lost my ipod today. I left it in a cafe and didn't realize until our tour bus was well on the way back to Saigon. Impossible to retrieve off a tiny rural island in the Mekong Delta. The bus rides will be way less pleasant from now on. :-( Stupid, stupid girl.

I've been cut off -this internet cafe is closing. I don't have my camera cord with me, so no photos today... more soon.

Pai in the sky

This will be a quickie....

After Chiang mai we headed to the idyllic little mountain town of Pai, and stayed 4 nights. We love it here! Had we any idea how much we'd love it we would have allowed more time. We're begrudgingly heading back to Bangkok to catch our flight to Vietnam on the 8th.

I may just try to make it back to Pai at the end of January for the Pai Reggae Fest. We met some amazing people. One woman we met at the hot springs has recently built a very impressive new wood-fired forno in her front yard, and wants help learning how to bake western stuff in it, so there is the potential for some fun cooking. I really want more of Pai.

Yesterday was the king of Thailand's birthday, and for a country that loves its royal family so very much it's been very festive. It also means it's a long weekend, and the trains are all full, so we have a 12 hour bus ride to look forward to. We tried booking the train almost a week ago, and it was ALREADY full back then.

Pai is tiny, under 6000 residents, but it's a big holiday destination for Thais. Set in a wide valley of lush farmland, the pace is the most relaxed we've seen yet. Great food, lovely people, a vibrant arts and live music scene, it's incredible. I promise to upload a few photos soon.

Only setback - a couple days ago I was completely waylaid by terrible traveler's sickness, most likely foodborne. For nearly 24 hours I couldn't leave our guesthouse. I'm much better now - it's incredible how once you return to health how grateful you are to have it!

We rode an elephant!

I will expand on Pai and upload some photos when we get to Bangkok.

much love!

How do I feel about the food?

I know I've had very few things to say about the food, so it's about time I wrote down my thoughts! In no particular order, stream of consciousness style.

A month of Thai food never really got boring for me. It's very diverse, and the flavour profile fresh and bright. Curries for breakfast and/or lunch, noodles at least once a day, and lots of bright tangy soups.

While Vietnamese food is lovely, I have a hunch it will start to get tiresome at some point for me. Don't get me wrong, I do love it - but I think Thai is more varied and there are way more vegetables in everything. The curries in Thailand always have a couple different eggplant varietals, green beans, a few fresh tomato wedges, sometimes cauliflower. Vietnamese is really a protein and starch with a minimal veg content, and tons of bright fresh herbs.

I became addicted to extremely spicy food in Thailand. With Thai food you have such a range of flavours in balance, that the chiles sit atop a solid foundation of flavours and are supported by them, it's not just a blast of extreme capsicum heat by itself. I came to the point where I felt like I was often being served food with the farang level of chile, and began ordering "Thai spicy please, not farang spicy" to which servers would invariably snicker and look skeptical, and then rather impressed when I was happy and handling it well. Chiles when paired with sour (from lime juice) and salt (from fish sauce) is a lot easier to tolerate than on their own. Ordering from street vendors I could get a smile out of the most surly, tourist-fatigued cook when I'd encourage them to give me the real deal.

I came to LOVE a perfect Tom Yam Kai, with a silky chicken broth, tons of aromatics (lemongrass, galangal, keffir lime leaf, chili) and lots of veggies. I never felt this way in Canada, I'd had it before but didn't go nuts, but eating it here I think it may be my Favorite Soup Ever. The difference is how much of those aromatic herbs are actually in your bowl of soup. It's normal that you have a rather large heap of inedible woody herbs left at the bottom of your bowl when you're done, there is a LOT. It's a very loud soup, because of the chiles, but there is still a delicate balance in a good Tom Yam. The harmony of all 5 flavours: sour, sweet, bitter, salty, umami.

I used to feel this rhapsodic about Vietnamese Pho, however, now that I'm having them both regularly in their place of origin I think I love the Tom Yam more.

The Thai street food is amazing. From the getgo we ate a lot of street food. It costs next to nothing and is prepared in 2-3 minutes in front of you and the casual spontaneity of it is lovely. People tend to just sell one thing and do it well... fried noodles, fruit shake carts loaded with fruit, spring rolls, noodle soup, fried chicken, grilled meat on skewers. What made the grilled meat so fantastic is in part because they're cooked over these incredibly compact, efficient little charcoal barbecues.

When I had the occasional craving for sweets I'd track down Muslim rotee, very common in the north but a little hard to find in Bangkok. Amazing thin sweet crepes fried in ghee on a big circular cast iron griddle with various choices of sweet fillings- Jon and I were really hooked on banana-egg, but you can get jam, or nutella, raisins, condensed milk.

Som Tam is a very firey green papaya salad that I love. Grated papaya is thrown in a mortar and pestle with green beans, tiny tomatoes, green onions, fresh garlic, roasted peanuts, dried shrimp and a pinch of sugar, a LOT of lime juice, fish sauce, and chiles. They usually ask how many chiles you want. Farang (foreigners) usually want half or one whole chile per portion, but I came to like two. The key is that it's all bruised together in the mortar and pestle for a while, the raw green beans break down a little and crack, the sourish tiny tomatoes and little pink dry shrimp begin disintegrating, the gritty sugar starts to macerate the raw garlic and it just all comes together. This salad is hot, refreshing, and I became nearly obsessed in my pursuit. A Northeastern Thai variation that I was unable to brave replaces the little shrimp with a couple whole little black freshwater crabs, which have been preserved in salt. They're usually just torn in half and thrown into the mix. I just couldn't do it.

Vietnamese street food is a little less varied, and there is simply fewer vendors, too. We seem to need to search for them when we want a snack, whereas in Thailand they were everywhere.

What we had come to miss and were overjoyed to have again is good bread, and exquisite coffee. The iced coffee in Thailand is very good, but even better in Vietnam. I love what sweetened condensed milk does for espresso.

The occupation by France left a legacy of excellent bread knowledge and execution. There are vendor carts selling very respectable croissants and danish, financiers, baguettes and other nice pastries. Fantastic bakeries are everywhere here in Saigon. I will be the size of a walrus in no time if I continue to eat pastries every day.

Last night we bought a bagload of fruit from a vendor and went at it with my swiss army knife while watching the National Geographic channel in our room - it's the first time we've had a tv the whole trip. We had a few mangosteens, a sapodilla, a rose apple and a bunch of rambutans. The mangosteens and rambutans were amazing. We chose the sapodilla and rose apple because we wanted to demystify them but we were a little disappointed. We didn't love them. For some reason we're both still balking at the stink of durian - we're oddly wimpy about trying it. It smells horrendous. I love that people are forbidden from bringing durian on airplanes.

The most common Vietnamese vendor in Saigon is Banh Mi, the bizarre but amazing Vietnamese submarine sandwich. An armload of crunchy baguettes sits on the top shelf of the cart, and across the other shelves the mise en place includes: sliced meats like BBQ pork, sandwich meats of mysterious origin, a weird but not unpleasant take on pate, and a basket of eggs which they will cook up in a tiny wok over a little butane burner into omelette format. Also mayo, chiles, a pickle mix which usually consists of daikon and carrot, a plate of sliced cucumbers, tomato, onion, a big bowl of glistening cilantro sprigs, lettuce. There is also stacked boxes of Laughing Cow cheese. My favorite breakfast of the moment, which I had today from a Banh Mi vendor, was beautiful - she assembled it in about 3 minutes, with no direction from me at all: baguette, plain omelette drizzled with soy sauce and chile sauce, cilantro, cucumber, tomato. It cost less than a dollar. The key was that the eggs were perfectly cooked..lightly beaten and just set, so there were still pockets of runny yolk and creaminess. So good.

While I find myself missing the food in Thailand, I will be in Vietnam for month and I know I will be blown away soon. The Pho we had last night was one of the best I've ever had, which is fantastic since the first two we had here were so underwhelming, and actually didn't even stand up to many of Vancouver's offerings. Last nights bowl compensated by far.

Where were headed in a few days, Nha Trang, (after we spend a few days in Dalat) is known for its seafood.

To be continued!