The shop owner, a slim, raven-haired lass, asked me, “Do you like pong tia koun?” What? She explained it was something similar to a hard-boiled duck egg. ‘Balut,’ she said. Oh, sure, that sounds okay. Well, as it turned out, it was neither egg nor duck, not as we know them. Balut is actually a partially formed duck embryo. … Read more
If you walk down any street in HCMC you will probably find some amazing street food: it basically makes life here worth living. But I say that the best place to eat in Saigon is a local market. We usually track it behind scores of open-air cafes, jam-packed with young locals idly passing time on any Sunday morning. We settle in … Read more
Let’s start with beer. Vietnam’s capital is perhaps the loveliest in all of Asia, IMHO. Even as we approach it something felt particularly good. Air was fairly crisp, the zoom of traffic not to loud and there were mountains of fresh produce piled streetside, chatty people standing beside and enjoying a much. We were in … Read more
At the end of the winding descend from Youngyang we are soaking wet and clad in mud, and my pants bear the proof of a recent tumble.