Before I start divulging the many and different tales from our recent trip to Vietnam, I thought it might help to post the itinerary we followed. Day 1 Evening flight from London Heathrow to Bangkok. Day 2 Arrive Bangkok. Transfer to Mandarin Oriental Hotel. Day 3 Explore Bangkok with Driver Daeng. Day 4 Fly from…
Tag: travel
Goodnight Saigon, Billy Joel
Here’s another Vietnam track to jog your memories. It’s one of my all-time favourite Billy Joel songs (along with ‘Allentown’ and ‘Honesty’). I listened to it over and over when I was (um, well) a lot younger than I am now and in the long version, the beginning of the track where the sound of…
Epic Meeting – Adam of Vietnam Travel Notes
For some time now I’ve been pestering my blog-buddy, Adam, for help with planning our trip to Vietnam. He’s been saintly in his advice, recommending all sorts, from sights to guides, whilst whetting our appetite for this amazing country with his evocative photos. How does he know so much? Adam Hurley’s the man behind the blog, Vietnam…
Vietnam – if you can catch it, you can eat it – More Bizarre Foods
Here’s part two of Andrew Zimmern’s jaunt through Vietnam, sampling some of the more palatable options of Vietnamese cuisine (beef salad, Pho, civet coffee). Part three involves grilled fish (come on! how tame can you get?), sparrows and scorpions, and ‘tender’ bull’s penis: Part four sees Andrew Zimmern tucking into silk worms and snails at…
Ana Mandara Resort, Nha Trang, Vietnam
Monsieur and I have been enjoying some chill-out quality time in Nha Trang, Vietnam. Here’s a You Tube clip showing where we’re staying: The clip is certainly inviting and we have certainly been enjoying ourselves, but the resort definitely has a local flavour. For a start, when we went swimming the other day we noticed a strange…
Vietnam: if you can catch it, you can eat it, but I might pass.
All I wanted to do was find out how to eat Pho properly. So I went onto You Tube and searched for Pho. I watched and learned, then I thought I’d have a quick look at Vietnamese food on You Tube. Almost immediately, a clip of a dog being roasted on a spit came up….
The Hairy Bikers in Vietnam
Quite by chance, before leaving on our long-awaited trip I caught an episode of the Hairy Bikers where the bearded lads ‘do’ Vietnam. For any of you who haven’t had the pleasure of watching the Hairy Bikers on TV, Si and Dave are a pair of cooking enthusiasts who travel the world on their motorbikes,…
From Baht to Dong
Monsieur and I are currently on a two-week tour of Vietnam. It’s pretty thrilling, considering we just arrived in Hanoi today and so far the fascination is huge, the public is not necessarily a fan of European faces unless they bring money into their lives, the food is great and crossing the road is frankly…
One Night in Bangkok
Hi Epicuri-friends! Monsieur and I are currently in Hanoi, enjoying the fight to cross the road without being crushed by mopeds, kidnapped by cyclo pedallers or shanghai-ed for photos by women with baskets balancing off their shoulders. We’ve had a couple of enlightening days in Bangkok, including a visit to see The Golden Buddha, the…
Malaysia part 21: Junky islands and giant eagles
Next on the last-day-in-Langkawi hit-list was Tanjung Rhu, an island shaped like a junk, as in boat. It appears in lots of advertising media, not just for Malay products, and the natural beauty of the area surrounding the island is definitely worth the visit. On the way to Tanjung Rhu, we passed a couple of other popular Langkawi resorts: The…
Malaysia Part 20 – Cable cars and monkeys crossing
For our last day in Langkawi, Monsieur and I decided to rent a jeep so we could scout the island for anything we may have missed. Luckily, there weren’t any jeeps available for a couple of hours; the migraine that had been threatening to go full-blown, although still not an absolute head-cracker, had not reacted well to the previous…
Malaysia Part 19 – Dining companions
Monsieur and I may have been travelling à deux through Malaysia, but we were never short of dining companions. One night, a waiter told me the name of the umbrella trees which were dotted around the resort, looking like something out of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. ‘It’s a Rhu tree,’ he told us. ‘the native…
Epicurienne 