Vietnam | SoutheaSt aSia
‘We rattled past immense forests and mountains plunging to tiny beach-lined bays and sleepy fishing villages’ Opposite page clockwise from left: Local selling fruit from a boat; Old ruin of the My Son; Double room at La Residence. This page from top to bottom: Pho Tai; Docked boats in Halong Bay.
the local speciality banh khoai (a crispy pancake of shrimp, pork and bean sprouts) with nuoc leo (a peanut sauce), bun bo (spicy beef noodle soup) and seafood with vegetables. Food in Hue is served with formality and elegance, with a tradition of ‘royal cuisine’ where as much emphasis is placed on the aesthetics of a dish’s colours and presentation as its contents and cooking. It certainly made for a formidable treat for the eyes as well as the taste buds. The next day we struck out for the elaborate royal mausoleums that the emperors built for themselves among the low hills south of town. Our reward for toiling through the heat on bicycles was some glorious snapshots of rural life - as well as the final imperial resting places themselves. At the top of one notably arduous ascent, I caught my breath next to two teenage boys who were busily texting from their mobiles as they awaited customers for the recently butchered hunks of deer seeping blood on to the table in front of them. If that image illustrated how the country’s young are as enthusiastic about technology as their peers elsewhere, then the timelessness of Vietnam was etched into the wrinkles on the face of the birdlike old woman dozing beneath her conical hat in a hammock next to a roadside snack shop in front of a glorious green vista of paddy fields. It was amid this unchanging rural setting that the Nguyen kings built their mausoleums of temples, gardens, stelae and tombs. We happily lost ourselves in various sites before bobbling along rutted routes back to town where, enchanted but exhausted, we revitalised our saddle-sore bodies at La Résidence with a retreat to the spa, a splash in the pool and mocktails at the bar. Reluctantly prising ourselves from the hotel’s attractions the next morning, we made our way to Hue railway station to await the Reunification Express that snakes - at a speed that hardly merits the word ‘express’ - from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City in anywhere from 30 to 40 hours. We opted for the three-hour stretch from Hue to the commercial hub of Danang, en route to Hoi An. A young man explained to us in English how much he loathed the communist regime, without bothering to drop his voice, even as two seats away a couple of uniformed army officers stared emotionlessly out the window. They were clearly unaware of his observations and would probably have cared little even if they’d heard. We rattled past immense forests and mountains plunging to tiny beach-lined bays and sleepy fishing villages. But for passengers who had seen this all before, the focus of attention was the food vendor, as she negotiated bags and legs to push a cart piled high with grilled chicken and sun-dried squid through the carriage. The bustling modernity of Danang holds little interest unless you want to see close up how wholeheartedly the country’s rulers have marched from Marx to Mammon. But we were heading for the slowpaced charms and architectural heritage of Hoi An, a 30-minute drive south that took us past the shimmering white sand expanse of China Beach, where the first US Marines waded ashore in 1965 and where luxury all-inclusive resorts and golf courses are now springing up with alacrity.
May 2011 Kanoo World Traveller 41