rtw with lucy

Vietnam is a beautiful country, and it is very long and thin, so going east to west is no big deal, but north to south is rather time consuming. We had to take an all night train to get half way down the country. Riding a sleeper train has been a new experience for us, and we have done it twice now. It’s really pretty easy to sleep, because the train just rocks you to sleep. For breakfast in the morning they came around and passed out instant noodle packs, and we went ahead and opened them up so as to be ready when they came around with the hot water. And we waited. And waited. No hot water ever made an appearance, so we went looking for a special tap or something, but there was none. An hour later, they came back around and took our noodles away from us, and looked irritated that we had opened them up. Half an hour after that we were getting off the train and looked over to see the employees eating our noodles! We never did get that one figured out.

Other than the noodle madness though, we have had the best food ever. Spring rolls, fresh or fried, are the national dish, as is any kind of seafood. Rice or noodles come with every meal, including their breakfast, and wonderful broth soups. All kinds of fried wontons in many different shapes and flavors and filled with any kind of meat, vegetables and seafood, and with a big pile of lovely fresh minty greens alongside. Garlic is used in abundance, along with ginger, hot peppers, lemon grass, and other things too subtle to identify. Every dish here is slightly sweet, which adds an interesting new flavor to the food.

Then besides all the great Asian food, there is a strong french influence here as well, because France held Vietnam as a colonial power until 1954, so you can get great french breads and pastries. Also, Vietnamese coffee, which is a cup of very strong coffee with a dollop of condensed milk in the bottom, which you stir in to your taste when you get it. No nescafe here.

We may just go ahead and stay here. Or we may just come home and take up Vietnamese cooking, because it is so good. Thai food was wonderful, but Vietnamese food is sublime. Stephanie

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 1st, 2007 at 10:40 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.