I love the smell of Napalm in a morning

Greetings from poolside at the hotel Nam Hai, Hoi An. And wowsers Mctrousers do I wish you were all here to see this. An infinity pool that stretches out towards a turquoise, steady sea, the horizon broken only by distant mountains and palm tree fringing. Plus I have a trusty Mojito in hand, which makes everything infinitely better. What can I say about this special country, with its conical hats that bring romance to any picture, smiling people, lush greenery and food that makes the palate zing to life?

I last left you in Singapore, working frantically to deadline in self-imposed isolation, which I have concluded is the quickest way to insanity known to man. Don’t try it. Ever. Unless you like waking up in the middle of the night trying to catch all your random thoughts in a metaphorical dream catcher wondering if you’ll ever feel sane again. Nevertheless, I managed to make the deadline for the book and felt a soaring sense of elation that I can only liken to how Nelson Mandela might have felt at his release, when I boarded the plane for Hanoi in the North of Vietnam.

The flight was longer than expected, Vietnam is much bigger than I thought. I arrived at night and after a happy reunion with Rosie Foodie Nonce-meister Jonst crashed into a plush bed, courtesy of my companion’s amazing media bartering skills. The first day was spent trawling the motorbike and scooter-laden streets and tiny side streets of Hanoi. The city has a youthful buzz that I hadn’t expected to find. The buildings are crumbling, and have both a Chinese and French influence, with potted plants that descend from the balconies at the tops, but the people are a mix of old and new. Wiry looking women balancing poles with food on either end, which made them look like walking Libra signs, stride purposefully along the streets, while the hip young gunslingers zip about on scooters dressed in modern clothes- some of them pretty damn cool actually. On the whole there’s an air of a country that’s forgotten its horrific past and is finally coming into its own, America in the 50s full of youth, promise and hope.

Rosie was doing a street food slide show for the Guardian Food section, so we were on a mission to find the best street food Hanoi had to offer. The first stop was a coffee shop that’s been around since 1936, which serves up extra strong coffee made with the help of a trusty weasel. They feed little white weasels on the plantations coffee beans, which the little mites then process through their vital organs and then, to put it bluntly, shit out. Apparently the chemical composition of the bean is changed and makes the best coffee in the world. The interior of the cafe itself was like entering Alice in Wonderland world, with its stooped ceilings, overturned bottle crates and miniature stools serving as chairs, and equally mini tables whose tops were etched with messages of love, phone numbers or a rather cheesy Vietnamese photograph. I ordered a weasel coffee with condensed milk, which came in a little ceramic cup with a heart emblem on top. It blew me sideways. The air of faded grandeur added mystique to the experience, making it feel more like a ritual as the locals sat about, smoking and sharing plans for the day to come. A perfect start.

We spent the rest of the day trying local foods that are all made at stalls around the city, local delicacies using ingredients from the local province and loads of herbs, noodles and pork- which I had to abstain from. Worse luck. After a much-needed siesta (or watching Mad Men in my case) we headed back out again for more local food. Sadly my hunger and lack of veggie options all conspired against me and I ended up-horror of horrors- eating at an all you can eat Pizza buffet. Well I was hungry damn it! We finished the evening at an outdoor café perched on the seemingly ubiquitous tiny crates, eating a yoghurt dessert with jellied fruits in the shadows of a rather gothic and impressive church.

The following morning we headed out to Halong Bay- a mystical place with calm emerald waters, pierced with limestone boulders jutting out in various shapes and heights, surrounded (at this time of the year at least) by an opaque mist. It was rather touristic though, with hoards from the Merrell and socks wearing brigade jostling to climb aboard their boat. Ours was a rather charming junk ship, with faded strips of orange and navy paint and a miniature pagoda on its roof. The crew were amazing and immediately made us feel at home. Less so one particularly annoying couple from “Tazzy” Australia. It was their first trip abroad after a life of raising “foive kidz” and we didn’t hear the end of that. “Do you hev a big family? “ “Oi don’t agree with thet, when you’re a mother of four boyz…” “Why don’t you girls get married and hev kidz?” ARGH! Do shut the fupp up you silly woman. But the other guys aboard the ship were great, including one spectacularly stereotypical socks-and-sandals wearing German, named Ollie. By the end of the trip we had him belting out Tina Turner’s ‘Private Dancer’ (“Deutschmark!!!! DOLLAR!!! I take American Express!”) on the ship’s deck, as we glided through the calm waters back to shore. The food during the cruise was also worthy of mention, with Asian greens such as morning glory drenched in garlic, crispy fried prawns and heavily peppered and super fresh calamari.

Next morning we hopped on a short flight to Da Nang, where we were picked up and transferred to our hotel in Hoi An. What a magnificent hotel it is too. Beach cabanas of impeccable design, with jasmine scented body lotion and a pool to die for (I may have mentioned this earlier?) The first evening we went into the little streets of the town centre to try and find some fresh local seafood. The streets at night are lit by lanterns, which makes for an incredibly festive and romantic atmosphere. Sadly we ended up in a tourist trap eating dried-up red snapper with a coarsely chopped chilli and lemon grass topping. Nicht so gut und never again! The next day we had better luck though as we met up with a couple of local girls who run a tailoring shop (Hoi An is famous for its tailoring shops which have the ability to copy any dress imaginable) who took us to a local seafood place where we tried banana flower salad, greens drenched in garlic and butter and braised fish in a claypot. Utterly divine and a far cry from the horror of the night before. The great thing about the women here is that they have fantastic senses of humour, they are liberated and open and moving forward in a progressive way. Sadly, apparently the men are known to be lazy drunks, which is why the women are so strong- both physically and intellectually. The women run their own businesses, have children and still manage to achieve it with humour and happiness. Truly inspiring.

Another thing of mention before I head off, was the local food market we visited on bikes yesterday. A rather shabby affair, with low corrugated iron roofs, makeshift stalls and the place where flies abound. And yet, and yet… The women who work there were so full of smiles and looks of curiosity, the children smiled shyly behind their hands all of them wanted to talk to us in the only English they know “Hello” and ‘Yo” (I’m not sure why they love ‘yo’ so much, I even had to slap a child’s hand and say yo! as I passed him on my bike!) But the piece de la resistance came though when I spotted a Karaoke machine in the far end of the market. I pointed to it and the next thing I knew the stallowner was running around like a blue arsed fly trying to locate a microphone. Uh oh. This is it, don’t get scared now. He eventually found one and I was coerced into singing Michael Jackson’s 'Beat it' to a steadily growing throng of locals. This was sure to test their senses of humour to the limit. I made Rosie go first which she managed with the usual amount of aplomb, applying gusto and a generous amount of shimmying. It was so funny to see the locals crowd around laughing and clapping as we made utter fools of ourselves in a scene reminiscent of Bridget Jones in the Thai prison. I’ll never ever forget it…

But that’s quite enough from me, more to come from what is fast becoming one of my favourite countries…