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In many ways this place inspired my visit to Vietnam.  Last year when I was travelling, I was also following a friend on Instagram who spent 4 months living in Hoi An.  He is a complete foodie and would post the most wonderful photos and videos of the food he ate while there and I thought to myself that I have to visit Vietnam!  And now I’m here. 

After a walking tour of Hoi An visiting various temples we had dinner at the Morning Glory restaurant.  Lots of interesting local dishes and 2 for 1 on all drinks except beer.  That included bottles of wine and we weren’t actually able to finish it all so got take away boxes for the wine (not the food).  First time for everything, I guess!  We returned to the hotel by eTaxi.  This is a new initiative in Hoi An and much welcome.  They looked like big old-fashioned golf buggies and we used them several times as the hotel was a bit far to walk from the old town but the local taxis weren’t interested in taking us for some reason.

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This is the classic overnight boat trip that a lot of people take when they visit Hanoi.  It’s a 4 hour drive by bus so you need 2 days really to do it.  We had our own boat which was much more luxurious than any of us had imagined.  The cabins were en suite with air conditioning.  One of the big advantages of this tour was that the single supplement was very low but there were a couple of nights where we had to share one of which was on the boat.  The Vietnamese government strictly controls where you can go to in Ha Long Bay so all the tour boats end up in the same place which means it’s a bit like travelling to a big car park.  This was at the beginning of the high season so there were only around 100 boats staying overnight but at its peak you end up with over 500 in the same place.  It doesn’t really give you a great feeling of discovery but it’s still very beautiful.  There were a couple of onshore excursions – a cave and a hill to climb – all done with hundreds of other tourists.  Certain places in Vietnam are definitely suffering from over tourism.  It’s also quite interesting to reflect on what the Vietnamese think foreigners want to see.  The biggest tourist groups are from Asia and they definitely have a different take on this.  Luckily our group was there mainly there for the food and that did live up to our expectations.

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The food tour started in Hanoi where I met the rest of the group – we were 14 – with a wonderful guide called Khoa. 

The first day was a marathon of food tasting which ended with a cooking class at KOTO (Know one teach one), a social enterprise which trains street kids to become chefs, waitresses and kitchen managers.  We start off with Pho Bo – traditional beef noodle soup for breakfast at a very simple café where we sat on plastic chairs – it was delicious – and set us up for the rest of the day.  We wandered around old Hanoi through the streets competing with motorbikes and cars although it wasn’t as bad as Saigon. On the way we tasted Bun Ca (small pork patties), rice noodle rolls, doughnuts, tea ceremony, egg coffee and various other things which I have forgotten…

The cooking class at KOTO was done in small groups which was interesting as we all had very strong opinions on what to do and what order we should follow…

We made a green papaya salad, fresh spring rolls, marinated pork and Bun Ca. We then ate all the food or as much of it as we could as portions seem to be very big. Of course we had to buy the cute aprons and we were given a Vietnamese peeler which looks like a lethal weapon – one for checked luggage then!

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The Vietnamese sure do have a sweet tooth!  Breakfast provided by the hotel consisted of a cheese roll with what tasted like very sweet cheese cake inside and Vietnamese coffee with condensed milk – another really sweet experience.  I had lunch at a really great place – basically a tiny café where they only served rice paper rolls.  They were delicious and lunch came to 55k which is less then £2.

I had read about a restaurant in Saigon called Vietnam House and thought it looked good so made a reservation on a Saturday night way in advance.  The restaurant is owned by an Australian/Vietnamese chef called Luke Nguyen.  When I go there it was a very upmarket corporate style restaurant and it was half empty.  The menu looked interesting but the waitress refused to let me order what I wanted saying it would be too much food for me.  I have never ever experienced that in a restaurant before.  She recommended a starter (squid) and let me choose the main course (twice cooked duck) although she tried to get me to order something different.  I ordered rice with the main course and also a gin-based cocktail called Taste of life.  The cocktail and the starter were delicious.  The squid was grilled and there was pomelo with salt and chilli dipping on the side.  The combination was interesting in a good way.  The duck arrived and turned out to be whole duck breast with mashed potato – no need for the rice.  Although the duck was well cooked it was very bland even by western standards.  There was no Vietnamese influence at all in this dish.  The portions were also very large and possibly meant for the American tourist?  When the waitress asked me for feedback I did say that I thought the duck was very bland and that I had thought that was the restaurant was called Vietnam House all the dishes would be Vietnamese.  She insisted on offering me a free dessert even though I didn’t want one after all that food.  That said it was a very tasty coffee mousse with fruit which was just the right side of not too sweet. 

I think I need lessons in where to go to eat while in Vietnam…street food and cheap and cheerful seem to be the way to go

Arriving at Ho Chi Minh City Airport was great after flying from London via Oslo and Doha.  However, I wasn’t quite prepared for the taxis in Vietnam.  The Vietnamese Dong (VND) currently stands at 29.000 to Pound Sterling – yes I know lots of zeros.  A taxi from the airport to the hotel I was staying at (about 20 minutes away) should cost about VND 150k which is very reasonable.  Long story short but I ended up with a taxi driver who tried to scam me for 886k showing me an app that had this amount on it as well as claiming that the hotel was on a street closed to cars – load of rubbish of course.  I refused to pay and and said that I would call the hotel to get their view. I ended up paying 250k which was still too much but he wouldn’t stop the car so I had no choice. This was not a great start.  I did confirm the price again with the hotel as for all I know prices may have gone up but they said no, 150k was the correct price.

After a bit of research, I downloaded an app call Grab which is used locally to book taxis of all kinds including bikes.  I added my prepaid card for payment as it’s easier than walking around with lots of cash.  The first time I used it I booked a taxi which at first confirmed the price as 55k but then lowered it to 1k – probably a gift from Grab as a first time user!  I thought it must have been a mistake as this is like charging 3p for a 15-minute trip.  When I checked the payment, it really was just 1k!  The next couple of trips using Grab cost what I would expect for driving around Saigon.  I used the app again to get to the airport to fly to Hanoi.  Once again, the cost quoted was 98k which was very reasonable but then immediately lowered to 9k!  I asked the people at the hotel about this and they were very surprised but said that as that was the quoted price that’s all I had to pay.  I’m still quite mystified by this.