Sandra Howard
Finds mad mopeds, serene gardens and great food on her trip from Hanoi to the Mekong Delta
MY FIRST time in Vietnam, and driving in from Hanoi Airport in the gloom of pre-daylight I felt elated, almost like being 20 again and staying out till dawn. I was still sleepy, though, with half the night lost to the time-change, and glad enough to crawl under a crisp, white king-size duvet for an hour or so at the Movenpick Hotel – which offered calm luxury and a great, late breakfast – before sallying out to explore.
With six million people and three million motorbikes, Hanoi certainly hums. Girls ride the bikes, their long hair flying out from helmets, and couples pin toddlers between them. It’s a thrilling, throbbing, mopeddodging city – and a challenge to life and limb.
I saw noodle-cooking on pavements, squatting flower sellers, unfamiliar foods and, when I could drag my eyes away from the pulsing pavements, right above the tight-packed little stores were glimpses of the dilapidated, centuries-old French colonial architecture.
Flagging a bit by evening and, with an early start next day to the Red River Delta and Ha Long Bay, my husband Michael and I ate in the hotel.
It was a gourmet experience without the fuss – steamed sea bass and a light spicy Vietnamese chicken curry were both delectably good.
On the way to Ha Long Bay, the rice fields were stubbly, waiting for the weather to warm them, but it was a new and appealing landscape.
We stopped at a shopping complex for coffee where the beautiful, lacquered papier-mache dishes and boxes on sale were irresistible. And Ha Long Bay, when we arrived, was a dramatic sight.
Extraordinary rock formations sprout out of the water and you can make out strange shapes: a lion’s head, a dragon, a cup with a handle.
Our Hanoi guide, Mr Binh, had arranged a boat trip and we chugged out among the rocks, passing a floating fishing village before mooring at a tiny hilly island to see a cave.
It was a bit damp and chilly, and as we climbed some steep steps, I have to admit that my heart wasn’t entirely in the expedition. But then we were suddenly in a cavern the size of a stadium. The cave was elegantly lit, with stalactites meeting stalagmites, and it was spell-binding.
Mr Binh told us that the cave was only discovered in 1910, by a farmer climbing the hill to cut wood. He fell 90ft through a hole, but somehow lived to tell the tale.
‘Where can we eat tonight that’s cheap, fun and local?’ I asked Mr Binh. He smiled. ‘Quan An Ngon in Phan Boi Chau Street. It’s a short walk from your hotel. Good local food and a very few dollars.’
What we found there was a buzzing emporium of an eaterie, outdoors under huge sail-like canvasses and packed with talkative families and upwardly mobile young locals. We loved the whole new experience.
Michael’s ‘seafood hotpot’ arrived as a plate of uncooked fish, shellfish and veg, and a cauldron of hot water set to boil on a burner. He looked at it all in complete panic. A group of giggling waitresses soon gathered, bursting to practise their English and show him the ropes. ‘I see you on television,’ one said, which seemed highly unlikely. But we weren’t complaining; both the fish– once cooked – and the bill were a perfect treat.
WE FLEW south towards our final destination, Ho Chi Minh City, stopping first for a fleeting visit to Hue, Vietnam’s ancient capital, now a world heritage site, where we hit a rainy day. This was a pity as it was our only chance to see the Citadel and stay in the famously elegant La Residence Hotel on the banks of the Perfume River.
Heads down and encouraged by our effervescent new guide, Mr Thong – whose English, learned from the BBC and Voice of America, had a powerful American GI’s twang – we squelched round the vast walled site of the Citadel. Seat of the Nguyen emperors of the 17th and 18th Centuries, and with its own Forbidden City in which the emperor, queen and a multitude of concubines used to reside, it was sadly war torn.
‘My kids don’t think about the war,’ Mr Thong said, pointing out shrapnel scars and a shattering bullet hole in a magnificent mirror. ‘It’s the past.’
Not for him, we felt. Hue had suffered some of the most aggressive bombing of the war. The Citadel had survived, stripped of many treasures yet still remarkable and memorable.
With only one night in Hue, we checked out TripAdvisor for somewhere interesting to eat, and a small cafe called Bloom that was associated with a charity for homeless children won our vote.
The set menu seemed a brave choice at first, but it was great. We were served with an array of small dishes, flavourful soup, slivers of vegetables and beef and a piquant mango salad. The girl serving us was delightful and once again the bill was incredibly small. La Residence Hotel, colonial home of past French governors, seemed a splendidly appropriate place to stay, with its fine period style and dramatic setting on the Perfume River. It gained its name from a legend about scented grasses that once lined its banks and which permeated the whole town with their aroma.
Off promptly in the morning to Hoi An, we took the main highway that hugs the South China Sea, or ‘the Eastern Sea’ as Mr Thong corrected us firmly. ‘China needs watching. We have to guard our backs,’ he added.
The road wound over the Cloudy Mountain range that was true to its name, passing lush paddy fields and fish ponds on the way to the city of Da Nang. Beyond were pure white sandy beaches – that saw the first landings of American troops – and stretched down the coast for 20 miles.
It was a gorgeous foretaste of what was in store at our resort hotel, The