Hoi An, Hue and Phu Quoc
As with the Trans-Siberian railway, there is no specific ‘Re-Unification Express’ in Vietnam, a phrase often used to describe the Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh service. But as with Russian trains, that doesn’t detract from the simple pleasures of overnighting on exotic foreign rolling-stock, slowly trundling through lush jungle and rocky coastlines to sweltering cities on the sea-shore. That’s the image and the romance, and for once the reality of the experience wasn’t so far behind.
Chinese Academy, Hoi An
We’d left Pu Luong with plenty of time to get back to Hanoi to catch our train – a good 5 and a half hours to cover a route that should take less than 4. But by the time we arrived we had less than 10 minutes to spare, our taxi making agonisingly slow progress on tiny roads behind huge lumbering trucks and averaging around 20mph for several hours. Suitably frazzled, we were at least pleasantly surprised that our last minute booking of the only berths left on the train (2 top bunks) were big enough for normal human beings to comfortably occupy (we’d seen pictures of other coffin-like top bunks resembling those we’d endured on our journey to Karaganda in Kazakhstan) and that the compartment was only occupied by a tiny and very friendly Vietnamese lady who eagerly beckoned us inside.
Hardly any other tourists either, which was most surprising, though we were joined by a chatty young Indian called Manas from Lucknow who’d parked his extended family in the berth next door. Unnaturally loud clanks and strains, shunting and jerking naturally put paid to any decent semblance of sleep, but on overnighters that’s par for the course, of course. But the morning perked us up with a wonderful view from the corridor. The tracks as we approached Danang, our destination in the central region of the country, were built to twist around coastal headlands on the one side, and untouched forest on the other and the train meandered through it all at a snail’s pace. We’ve never been on a normal commuter train that slows down to allow passengers to appreciate the scenery, but that’s exactly what was happening here. Everyone piled out of their compartments to ooh and aah as the beautiful South China Sea crashed majestically into the rocks below.
We didn’t linger in Danang, but pushed on to Hoi An, a small city with a beautiful UNESCO listed old town at its centre and a tiny villa hotel for our stay over Christmas. We borrowed bikes and cycled the 5 kilometers into town, paid a bike keeper the equivalent of 14p to look after them for the day and explored the surrounds.
Chinese Academy, Hoi An
Hoi An
Hoi An
Chinese Academy, Hoi An
Chinese merchant house, Hoi An
Chinese merchant house, Hoi An
Chinese Academy, Hoi An
Hoi An, or at least the centre of the city, is a beautiful place indeed. Streets are lined with mustard coloured old houses, slowly blackening or mossifying at their bases, with thick, old wooden window fronts looking out towards their opposite neighbours. Some are vivid cobalt blue, or strewn with huge, almost black, wooden beams. The houses are interrupted in places by the presence of several Chinese academies, really temples, most filled with wonderful aromas from the huge spiraling incense cones tied to the ceilings and sporting a variety of huge and inventively decorated mosaic dragon statues. There are no cars allowed here either, so traffic is limited to a few motorbikes or rickshaws. You might sense there’s a ‘but’ coming, and you’d be right….
Backstreet, Hoi An
Hoi An
We don’t really like to think of ourselves as tourists, but in reality that’s all we are. Helen and myself debate whether we should refer to ourselves as something else, like ‘travellers’, but although that might be technically true, certainly on this trip, I find the term pretentious or am reminded of the hippyfied and downright dirty European bums you meet in the less salubrious parts of India or Peru. Whatever we are, at the moment we are a part of the wealth of tourists that frequent Vietnam and we are distinctly uncomfortable with that. Squaring off the desire, or compulsion, to visit famous places with the inevitable discomfort of being part of the masses who also want to do the same thing is becoming, in my opinion at least, very difficult. We’re immensely privileged to be able to do this, but are less happy with that privilege if it’s not accompanied by a degree of exclusivity. We want to see the world in our own way, without the distraction of fat, vested morons trailing glumly behind flag bearing tour leaders on a never ending route march. In some cases that’s just not possible, but we want it regardless. We want to have our moon on a stick.
Backstreets, Hoi An
Though we tried to resist, Hoi An dragged us back into that feeling. Equally, we despaired at the rampant over-commercialism that large parts of Vietnam seem to revel in. With one or two exceptions every house here is either a shop, some high-end, some selling tat, or a restaurant or coffee joint. The streets here are packed with Europeans and Chinese tour groups and an increasing amount of domestic tourists, with shop owners and masseurs constantly vying for their attention. Someone described Hoi An to us as a little like Disneyland, and to a certain extent they were right. There’s no sense of ‘reality’ here – it’s simply one big commercial enterprise in a pretty setting. Without the atmospheric sense of slight decay that went with it, it would have been unbearable. At least here though, unlike Hanoi, it was easy to get around and there was no choking smog.
It took a good deal of effort to rise above and try and get the best out of it. On a positive note, we managed to succeed in many ways. We had a bright, hot day on Christmas Eve and rounded off our visit to the town with a very special meal in a local place called ‘The Field’. Located near our villa, the restaurant incorporated a specially constructed platform that extended out into the paddy fields next door. We enjoyed a sumptuous 5-course meal overlooking flooded fields in the dusky, dimming light, with nearby palm trees and far off motorbike riders adding to the distinctly Vietnamese flavour. We were lit by candle-light alone, and that plus the lovely wine, wonderful staff and lack of any other tourists whatsoever made it one of the best Christmas meals we’ve ever experienced.
We also had a lovely morning on Boxing Day when we attended a cookery class in a nearby homestay. We’re not making a habit of attending these things per se, but thought Vietnam would be a great place to try this out again as the cuisine here is pretty damn good and we might learn a thing or two to take back home. The homestay was run by 2 women, one of whom was a lady called Nhi. When she said her name I had to stifle my desire to laugh out loud. Some of you will know the film ‘Monty Python and the Holy Grail’ in which King Arthur meets a strange bunch of individuals in the forest known as the Knights who say ‘Ni!’. She said it in exactly the same way Michael Palin does in the film. I nearly doubled-up and wanted to ask her whether she’d like a shrubbery. Hopefully she didn’t notice. The cookery was great though. Along with an Italian couple also on the course, we visited a local market to shop for ingredients and took the produce back to the homestay. We made spring rolls filled with sweet banana and prawn and a hot chili dipping sauce (a recipe from the ladies’ mother who came out to give us a geriatric wave) and a mango & pork salad which was fabulous. We were commended for our unripe mango grating skills (you’ve either got it or you haven’t) and our spring roll frying prowess, and had a lovely lunch chatting with the family and the Italian couple. We also discovered another craft brewery in town, the 7 Bridges, which had a mean selection of ales. Equally welcome, Helen enjoyed a long & relaxing massage in our room on Christmas Day. But snippets of delight couldn’t save us from the main feature of our time here – an ever worsening weather situation that dominated proceedings and made for a wet, cold and at times pretty miserable experience. From late Christmas Eve onwards and for the next 5 days, it rained pretty much constantly and heavily. We were also starting to get rather tired.
‘Ni!’ shows us how to successfully grate a carrot
We went back up the coast to the town of Hue, the erstwhile imperial capital (until 1945) and a significant omission of our last trip to Vietnam. We’d been looking forward to this. The city is awash with fine Nguyen dynasty architecture, royal palaces and an abandoned water park that looked ripe for exploration. We took a bus directly from Hoi An – a sleeper bus that just had individual sleeping pods instead of seats. We were assigned two upper pods opposite each other and rode up to Hue in a semi-recumbent posture with our feet squashed into a tiny footwell. It should have been luxurious, but we’re not Vietnamese sized and it was bloody uncomfortable. The rain continued and we got soaked walking the short distance to our hotel, though we were cheered up shortly afterwards as we indulged in a hot soak in the large free standing slipper bath in the middle of our room. An evening out in a fine local restaurant and (you guessed it) another craft beer find, and we thought we were back on the right track, looking forward to a busy day of sight-seeing on the following morning.
At the Imperial Palace, Hue
Fate was against us again though. The rain started light but soon got heavy. We were tired, fatigued in fact, from battling the elements and perhaps suffering from a little too much alcohol over the past few days. We also knew we had a long rest on the island of Phu Quoc coming up. Perhaps a combination of these factors, plus the lack of a good rest since the Seychelles and the presence of many more tour parties here as well, put the nail in the coffin. Though we tried to enjoy our meanderings around the Imperial Palace complex, we were just too gone to care and retreated back to our hotel. This is the first time on this trip that I’ve personally felt tired in the extreme (Helen’s second) and we needed to simply stop for a while.
The island of Phu Quoc beckoned. A long but mercifully easy travelling day and we arrived in the evening at a quiet resort called the An Yen, a cheap, slightly beat-up place but with nice little chalets – just our kind of thing. A beer or two with the welcoming American & Vietnamese owners then bed for about 14 hours…..Total bliss.
We spent the rest of our time in Vietnam here, seriously chilling, researching, writing and generally doing not an awful lot. We ventured out to some of the bars and restaurants in the south of the island on the odd occasion and wished we’d not bothered. Huge, purpose built resort complexes with rammed beaches with a Disney-like / Singaporean level of unreality that left us cold. Luckily it seemed that we’d managed to find the only remaining place on the island that suited our tastes – a lovely little slice of paradise indeed.
An Yen Resort, Phu Quoc
An Yen Resort, Phu Quoc
An Yen Resort, Phu Quoc
We spent a fabulous New Years Eve here. The owners put on a barbecue and a small bonfire and for a ridiculously small price we enjoyed huge prawns, sumptuous fish platters, pork kebabs and the like, with literally as much beer as we could drink. And we drank a lot. We’d already been out for a few before this even started and by the time we shuffled off to bed in the wee hours we (mainly me) were about as drunk as we’ve been for many years. We met and enjoyed the company of the others – a young Swiss family, a couple of older Germans and a small group of Russians (some from Suzdal), all lovely people and all loving the atmosphere of the last decent place on the island.
The wonderful bar cum restaurant at the An Yen Resort, Phu Quoc
An Yen Resort, Phu Quoc
New Year’s Eve, An Yen Resort, Phu Quoc
The owner, a young Vietnamese man using the name ‘Alex’, told us it wasn’t going to last. He appreciated that us Europeans are happy being close to nature, in relative isolation and peaceful surroundings with a level of comfort that only needs to be adequate for us to be more than happy. Not so the Vietnamese. Alex lamented the fact that the burgeoning domestic tourism market is much happier with cleaner, newer, more sanitised surroundings where more people, not less, are desirable. The whole resort is due to be rebuilt in this image later in the year, the wonderful ramshackle beach bar area and raised sea-view platforms all set for demolition and replacement with 30 or 40 new residences. No doubt it will render it devoid of personality.
That, in a nutshell, sums up the state of Vietnam. Where possible and where money allows, the ‘best’ places are redeveloped and polished to the point of homogenisation, where any remaining character is erased entirely, and the populace loves it. The escape from reality for them is based on a sense of removal from the dirt, the sweat, the essence of everyday life – it’s almost the exact opposite of what we crave in a destination. We want local colour, the sights and smells of a Vietnam that meets our preconceived ideas about what it should look like and are most disappointed when we don’t get it.
We’ve met quite a few people lamenting the change here, those like us, who’ve been here before, a long time ago, and can’t quite believe the difference now. Equally, though, it’s a wake up call for us too. Surely it can’t be right to want a country to remain a pretty, poor backwater just because we want to see our own expectations fulfilled. The danger of course, is that Vietnam dilutes or eradicates the very thing that makes it appealing and unique. But we, it seems, are no longer the target audience.
Helen and myself have mused over our time here at length. At times we’ve loved it and at times we’ve hated it. Our trip to the Mekong was great, our time in Da Bac and Pu Luong was without doubt one of the best things we’ve done on this trip. But Hanoi in the main was awful and Hoi An & Hue pretty soulless and sanitised versions of their former selves. The real, the old and the genuinely wonderful can still be found if you dig deeply enough, but how long that will remain the case is very uncertain.
Foodnote: Vietnam excels at the art of making a good cup of coffee, but it also has a few unique ways of serving it too. I’d already tried strong coffee with a bucket of condensed milk in Can Tho, but in the central region a couple of specialities stand out. One is Egg Coffee, where a raw egg yolk is added to a single or double shot of espresso. A dash of coconut syrup is also added and the whole concoction stirred vigorously for 30 seconds. The result is wonderfully rich and, unsurprisingly, extremely sweet. Another is Salted Coffee, where a significant amount of salt is added to single or double espresso shots with much condensed milk. The result here is a weird but rather satisfying mixture of sensations, the initial salt hit being gradually replaced by an increasing sweetness. More of a caffeinated excursion than a coffee destination in its own right to be honest, and not something you’d want everyday, unless you were after the waistline of a darts player.
Simon (2nd January 2026)
I think when we were in vietnam it was probably somewhere in between your 2 different experiences, and probably just right for the like of us. Glad you managed to find somewhere in phu quoc with the kind of charm you were looking for. We were one od the ones in a 5* luxury resort though… although i imagine before the island became the disneyworld of today as we were still watching the sunset by ourselves most nights.
Sounds like you had a good New Year and a well earned bit of relaxation. Here’s to 2026 full of life, love and adventure xx
Yes it looks like the island had undergone (and is still undergoing) a massive transformation in the past few years alone, for better or worse.
Happy New Year to you too. I’m expecting 2026 to be just as eventful as 2025!!
Happy New Year Helen & Simon, and all your readers.
I’ve never travelled as you have but can see the eternal conflict between staying honest to the roots of a place and making it an ecconomic sucess.
Truely hope there is a way forward x x
Take care & hope 2026 brings all you hope
Hi Clover – Happy New Year to you too. You’re totally right about the ‘eternal conflict’ – its a little depressing to see some of the same mistakes we made as a country being repeated here and in other places. ‘Progress’ seems to be an unstoppable juggernaut in Vietnam though and everyone’s only interested in the new and shiny…..