In fact everywhere you look – you can discover another delightful flavour, spice, fresh herb, new shake, coffee, drink. So do yourself a favour and walk about  – take a motorbike ride, ask your hotel, or if you’re luck enough to have local friends – get them to take you about.

Don’t be like those tourists I met who ate lunch in the same cafe for 6 days – exploring their menu for sure – but missing the magical atmosphere that celebrates the local cuisine.

Whilst staying in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam I was lucky enough to hang out with two local friends who introduced me to some of the delights of southern Vietnamese Cuisine.

• Fresh Shrimp fried rice, sweet bird  egg soup, seaweed noodle and fresh shrimp, sour fish soup.
• Pho (a hot thin noodle broth) with all sorts of yummy ingredients (Beef, tofu, shrimp, fish) for breakfast, lunch AND dinner
• Traditional Hue  noodle soup and Crab soup (insert names) Although I could never master the name, I won’t forget the taste for many years to come.
• Black fish and Elephant Ear fish appearing in soups, grilled, steamed, baked. And my all time favourite -
• Pancakes – filled with wonderful spicy flavours,  fried in woks and wrapped in lettuce leaves and dipped in fish sauce.

Two great restaurants for pancakes that I tried were:

• Banh Xao  Muoi Xiem 19 Namky Kohoi Nghia P6 Q 3 where the owner and founder is famous as a “folk artist” cooking this sort of remarkable wafer like pancakes in demonstrations within her own country and abroad. Turmeric flour fried pancakes were filled with mushrooms, bamboo shoot,  shrimp, duck, coconut bulb, bean sprouts
• Banh Khot 59B Cao Thang District 10 boasts an equally great atmosphere,  bamboo  trees provide private eating spots for devouring plats of smaller rice pancakes topped with shrimp, pork (resembling mini-pizzas) which you wrap  in spinach or lettuce leaves along with  fresh mint and herbs before dipping in fish sauce.

A cafe society

HCMC is a real cafe society with plenty of fabulous cafes.  Each one is unique, like an oasis hidden from the bustle of motorbike filled well-lit streets.

The moment you enter you are either transported to you to a jungle, or a lake or a city filled with fairy lights, lanterns, silent ponds and creeks, flowing waterfalls. Live music and singers in some, whilst others have the hum of conversation. Every one boasts a great menu of fabulous tea, shakes, coffees, cocktails and food.  I was delighted to discover with local friends were:

• Cafe Ban Soanta 52 Dang Dung District 1 with Piano and violin  – private on a moonlit evening – recommend the fruit drinks
• Cafe Sorento IVG Hoac Hung P 12 in District 10 -recommend the yohurt drinks and speciality of the house Bun Bo Hue noodle Beef and Pork with shrimp dumpling in a rich soup or if your taste has adapted to the sweetness of South Vietnam, a crab soup will also delight you for for dinner
• Cafe Soida 6 Ngo Thai Nhiem in District 3 – with a great line up of singers, piano and guitar

Be prepared for lots of sweetness in the South and more spicy salty food in the North (though I’ve yet to validate and enjoy that – as I head off towards Hanoi after Cambodia and Laos).

The food really is all about you and HCMC is all about that food!

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Can you see it, taste it? Where were you when you ate that fabulous rosetta desert? What did you learn about the town when you ate their famous fish stew?

 I think it’s a great idea. What better way to embrace and anchor yourself in a place than via the digestive tract? or the taste-buds?

For people like my sister, they have the ability to recall towns and places through their visceral memory bank. Her trip through eastern Europe will sound and taste much finer when seasoned with memories of chorbe-de-fasola (bean soup!) than it would by her traumatised memory of being fined by an abrasive Bulgarian guard on a Brashov bus, because she didnt have a ticket.

A fair deal of our Travels are all in the mind. My own approach to travel isnt as broad minded nor as cruisy as my sister or my neices. I have a default position, when out of my comfort zone – when confronted by something out of the ordinary or off the plan I have formulated – I invariably  panic about what will happen, when it will happen if it will happen etc.

For instance, 3 days ago, we were on a ferry from Dubrovnik to Hvar, and the ferry sailed right past the town of Hvar. What!! It was calmly chugging up the coast of an island that looked completely deserted, thick with pine trees and no sign of life. I started to pray. Will we get off the boat? Have we now missed it? Should I have done something to remind them we were on the boat? Have we wasted the accommodation money? Are we instead going to Split further up the Dalmation Coast? What will we do there?

Gab was no good to me, she was off somewhere on the boat, looking at the scenery, photographing, as excited as a child on an adventure. Cruising with the cruisy.

Meanwhile, I am below, praying a mantra,  in a hot head of panic. None of the reasonable facts made their way through the shroud of anxiety.  I forgot how we had checked earlier the ferry was going to arrive at Hvar at 4.00. How the ticket said it was going to Stari Grad (which on the map was on the island of Hvar); how there were a  lot of other people on the boat going to Hvar. None of those facts could stop the panic.  I was left alone with a repetive prayer. Praying for what though? The ferry to turn around? an announcement (in English please)? Anything really.

Gab arrived back down at Deck 4. Come upstairs and see us arrive! smell the pine trees! Feel the breeze! Leave the bags! come on!!! Dont miss it!

So there we were up on Deck 5 watching the coast chug past, redolent with smells of rich green pine. She was none the wiser about where we were going, but she wasnt worried. A woman came up to stand beside us. She was alone, and we three were the only ones on our part of the deck. She smiled watching the island slide past even further.

Are you going to Hvar ? she asked, and then proceeded to explain how the ferry would pull into the old port, and as they had been in the tourist business for over 100 years would ensure we would be safely deposited at our hotel and would we like a photo?   And as we returned to get our bags, Gabby said there is your angel - the answer to your prayers.

Well the island is spectacular, and our taste buds and bodies have been embalmed and delighted with warm waters, delightful flavours, sun rain, sweet wine and good sleeps. Everything the island (which does indeed boast over 100 years as a holiday-health spa destination) promised and much more.

Looking back, as always, I am ashamed of my panic, and disappointed with myself to think my age or experience hasnt changed any of those default reactions I have. But thats me, I guess, and I have to digest that along with everything else this trip is teaching me about.

Hvala Hvar.

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