Qui Nhon

When we arrived in Vietnam on 6 March, the rest of the month stretched ahead of us with no deadlines until our rendezvous with Harry and Lisa in Cambodia early April. Sadly, for now at least, our time here is already at an end and Phnom Penn is just a short flight across the border.

Spending almost a month in a new country has been a novel experience for both of us and inevitably, the variety of towns, cities and landscapes has been a huge part of the experience. Our travels this week have involved 2 more sleeper buses, another limousine minibus and a 9 hour train journey, so we can now appreciate the size of Vietnam and the diversity between the different regions we have visited.

We had booked a couple of stays in Nha Trang and Quy Nonh as stepping stones towards Ho Chi Min City just to break up our journey south but firstly, following our wonderful stay in rural Phong Nha, we had 4 nights in Hoi An. Hoi An was yet another place on our trip that is designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site and it deserves every accolade for its amazing architecture, a fascinating history as the place where the trade of the East met West in days gone by and as a place of culinary excellence.

We explored the Old Town with a brilliantly engaging walking tour guide and then as we wandered the traffic free Old Town ourselves, the exquisite coffee shops, boutiques and markets captured our attention. Our evenings in Hoi An were spent dining in as many recommended restaurants as possible and then people watching as the river was lit up by the world famous lantern boats.

Hoi An is a stunning tourist destination and we loved it and our river view hotel so much, that we extended our stay for an extra night and fitted in a visit to the slightly ridiculous Coconut Village. A coconut boat ride was followed by a great cycle trip for our first visit to a Vietnamese beach.

Middle of March and we were enjoying sunloungers again. Lying down for 4 hours ahead of south bound sleeper bus journeys and a long train ride, we agreed, was just about acceptable.

Quy Nonh was the first step after Hoi An and we spent the weekend in the only high rise hotel of our trip thus far. We mentioned on Facebook that, staying on the 12th floor of a building on the day that the sad events in Myanmar and Thailand had unfolded, was a tad worrying. The worry had begun on our bus trip towards Quy Nonh as, when news of the earthquake broke, Harry and Lisa were on the 2nd leg of their flight to Thailand into Bangkok. Thankfully, they arrived safely.

Quy Nonh provided a great place for us to enjoy a relaxing weekend in a very much less touristy city boasting great beaches and warm waters. As it was the weekend, the local population were very much out in force all across of the beach front but interestingly, this was only between 0500 and 0700 and then again from 1700 once the temperature dipped a little. Maintaining skin whiteness is a big thing here!

Our 9 hour train journey to Ho Chi Mhin was booked from Nha Trang which meant another longish bus journey and our driver on Sunday morning simply floored the pedal and leant on his horn for 6 hours. It was a scary journey. Nha Trang was also a coastal city with miles of golden beaches, palm lined boulevards and resort hotels. Ours wasn’t one of the resorts but we did enjoy our least expensive hotel night of the trip. Booking.com reviews can be relied upon!

Nha Trang felt very much like a European holiday spot with a much greater variety of international foods and restaurants. There were also significant numbers of Chinese and Russia tourists here indicating that their investment in this region, is not just economic. Sadly, the beach that looked golden, was pretty dirty and as Carole wandered along one end of the beach, she ended up filling a huge sack with polystyrene debris and discarded water bottles. Having used far too many of the latter over the last 11 weeks, this goodwill act assuaged our guilt. Slightly.

We took full advantage of the change of dining options in our 18 hour stop here by unintentionally, having both a Greek snack at lunchtime and then visiting a fantastic Greek taverna that evening. We pondered as to why and how a tiny Greek enclave existed in this part of Eastern Vietnam.

There was no mistaken that we were still very much in Vietnam later that evening, as we stumbled across a dress rehearsal for the city’s celebration of the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Nha Trang from the Americans. We enjoyed watching dancers, musicians and the military practice their moves for what is quite naturally, a big day here.

We finally reached Ho Chi Min City on Monday on the train where, to ensure some privacy and comfort, we had booked all 4 seats in a single cabin. The conductor’s reaction to our ‘sole’ occupancy would indicate that it is a pretty frequent occurrence. In truth, as we spread out our belongings, cables and kettles for the 9 hour journey and then tucked into elevenses, lunch and afternoon snacks, it is doubtful that anybody else would have wanted to share with us.

Most Vietnam rail tracks are single lines and whilst great speed is not a feature of these journeys, running on time certainly seems to be. Every station stop was bang on the timetable and there were no irritating it, ‘See it, say it, sort it’, announcements every 20 minutes. The toilet facilities weren’t amazing but we reflected that they weren’t that much worse than many a train loo at home.

Unfortunately, Ho Chi Min City, which actually most Vietnamese still call Saigon, involved a single overnight stay and a transfer to the airport for our next flight. Even overnight, however, the infamous traffic was in evidence and the little green man (our first sighting of him) in one of our videos, was little comfort against the massed ranks of Mario Kart scooters lined up at every road crossing. We plan to return to Saigon later in the trip.

For now though, it is adieu Vietnam.

PS Our discovery of and love for egg coffee in Vietnam led me to pen a letter in response to a feature in The Daily Telegraph about long black coffee. As one of the photos shows, they published it! Too much time on my hands?Read more