In which Layla and Roz revel in the hipster coffeeshop haven of Ho Chi Minh City

By Layla

Ho Chi Minh City. Aka Saigon. Aka our final stop before our holiday is over, I go home, and Roz flies to the UK for work. We sped through the nighttime streets from the airport to our hotel, climbed many flights of stairs, gasped at the increased heat and humidity, set the aircon to its lowest setting, and spent the rest of the night with teeth chattering in Arctic conditions. 

The next day a rare treat: no alarm clock! (Though Roz will note that I woke her at 8am with an accidental exclamation of "Gosh!" - I was just expressing surprise that it was the latest we had slept all holiday!) The morning at leisure, we strolled around, getting the feel of the city. I'd compare Hanoi and Saigon to San Francisco and Los Angeles. Hanoi is beautiful and charming, but Saigon feels more dynamic and exciting. If you want to go places in life, it feels like Saigon is a destination for that. There's a special energy there. The city is particularly teeming with motorbikes and hipster coffeeshops. So many hipster coffeeshops. I've never seen anything like it. So in order to soak up the local atmosphere, we felt it wise to spent the morning coffeeshop-hopping. The Workshop was my favourite. 

After a hipstery lunch in one of said coffeeshops, we met up with a Saigon Free Walking Tours guide and spent the next couple of hours walking around town in the blazing heat admiring fab French architecture: government buildings, the cathedral, the opera house, and an impressive post office. We passed the building famous for the photos of evacuation by helicopter at the end of the Vietnam war and went round the fancy Reunification Palace, admiring its stately rooms and emergency bunker... and dreaming of ice cream. 

Our dreams soon came true in a little cafe in a park, where people had gathered to hang out, sing together, and play badminton. There was a collection of contemporary sculpture. It was all lovely, if a bit hot... so we went back to the hotel for some of that Arctic aircon. 

That night we headed out, via a cocktail, to a cool indie-feeling cinema where we had excitingly bought tickets to a random Vietnamese film with English subtitles. It was both scary and rubbish so we took our leave and strolled instead down a pedestrianised, bustling street lit with neon flowers to a fancy and nice vegetarian restaurant called Hum for dinner and cocktails before bed. 

We are always sad on our last day of holiday, so to distract ourselves, we've taken to booking a tour. Today we hopped in a minibus to the Mekong Delta, the point where the huge river, having traversed Tibet, China, Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia finally meets the sea in Vietnam. It's the quintessential daytrip from Saigon. We started by visiting a temple with some fab Buddha statues. Then proceeded by motorboat across the river to various islands where we got to taste the local produce: honey, various weird and wonderful tropical fruits, and coconut candy. We then got into little canoe-type boats and were rowed along narrow watery passages with an arched ceiling of palm leaves. It was all rather cool. 

We had an extravagant, beautifully vegetarian lunch on one of the islands, then headed back to the hotel. We spent the rest of the afternoon playing Scrabble (I won) in Tractor Coffee, then again in L'Ursine (I won again) before a final dinner and the local craft beer from Pasteur Street Brewery. Reluctantly we ordered some banana cake for the road and tore ourselves away. It was time to go home. 

So, Vietnam is a fabulous holiday destination. It is delightfully cheap, interesting, beautiful, diverse, brimming with great food, and for an Asian country, gosh, it's so easy. People speak English, there's a great tourist infrastructure, and there are masses of sights to see and activities to do. I know everyone else already knew that... but after 10 years in the planning, it was great to have my suspicions confirmed!

Books read on this holiday (sorry we have different rating systems!)

Layla - All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (5/5), When the Floods Came by Clare Morrall (4/5), Hagseed by Margaret Atwood (5/5), a little way through The War of the Worlds. Y HG Wells, and three quarters of The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin. 

Roz - The Lost Language of Cranes by David Leavitt (9/10), When the Floods Came by Clare Morrall (8/10), We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson (8/10), The Marvellous Adventures of Ingrid Winter by JS Drangsholt (8/10) and The War of the Worlds by HG Wells (9/10). 

In which Roz and Layla paddle through palm groves and cook a very, very large meal

By Roz

There's something strange and yet quite fun about arriving into a new city late at night. And all the more so in Vietnam, where there is a commendable enthusiasm for going to bed early, meaning the streets are deserted by eleven at night. So arriving into the town of Hoian at midnight, we felt like we were swooping into a ghost town. But one which was beautifully lit with lanterns and felt strangely magical. 

The feeling of magic continued when we arrived at our hotel. Our taxi drew up at a strangely palatial place, with doormen, a facade and a general impression of luxury. In notable contrast to our hotel in Hanoi, which had had a lobby full of sleeping staff when we arrived. I prepared to explain to our taxi driver that he had taken us to the wrong place when I realised that he hadn't. In a happy turn of events we'd accidentally booked a fabulous hotel for hardly any money. I suspect that this is the first and last time in my life that this will happen. We fell into bed - having drunk our free welcome cocktail - with a giggle of glee. 

Next morning we woke feeling just as cheery, and jigged our way down to a delightful breakfast (cornflakes, fruit, pancakes, oh my!) before heading into town. The main street - arrived at through the old Japanese covered bridge, which is like no Japanese bridge I have ever seen, but is otherwise very pretty - is full of old buildings and cute shops. We pottered in, buying the odd picture and such like and then resolved to go for coffee. But before we made it to coffee, I got lured into a tailor's shop and found myself ordering a spring jacket and choosing fabrics before I could really think twice. And it turned out to be such fun, musing on the respective merits of different materials, linings and styles. Over coffee and then a delicious lunch at the lovely Roastery we marvelled at my impulsiveness (and indeed enthusiasm for clothes shopping - I haven't actually been into a clothes shop since moving to Tokyo almost a year ago) and generally felt very cheery.

After lunch we went back to the hotel to slather on sun lotion ahead of something I had been dreaming of for weeks: paddleboarding. In Washington, of course, we went almost every week from spring to fall. But it's not so easy in Tokyo - paddleboarding really isn't a thing, unless you go to the ocean or to a tiny artificial lake. So it has been a reaaaally long time since I've been paddleboarding and I have missed it. Our guide picked us up from our (fancy) hotel, and drove us and some kayakers to their out of town base. Moments later we were hopping on our boards, and paddling towards, and then into, a watery forest of coconut palms. Oh how I loved it. Our lovely guide attempted a little guiding, pointing out grim deserted homes (deserted as a result of flooding over the last few years) and local fishing methods but soon we got down to the serious business of tranquilly paddling towards town (with a stop off for a board based beer). It was particularly lovely to find ourselves arriving in town as the sun began to set, and the lights began to come on. 

Having bade farewell to our nice guide, we went for an ice cream and a slow mooch through town before returning to our hotel to get changed and ready for the evening. We'd made a reservation at a restaurant that everyone had recommended -  Morning Glory - and I looked appropriately smug as we swept past others queuing to get in. Pleasingly - perhaps I even mean surprisingly - it did actually live up to its press, and the food was a terrific combination of delicious, tangy and innovative. Also cheap. Hooray all round!

Next morning, after another fabulous breakfast, we borrowed hotel bikes and headed out to follow the advice we received earlier this week from some nice Colombian fellow Halong Bay trippers, who'd been to Hoi an before us. We headed out on an unpleasantly busy road to an area famed for its Coconut Palms. Once the roads had cleared a bit, this proved an excellent, scenic plan. And then we followed a sign for a basket boat trip (much to the distress of a local boy who had taken it upon himself to be our gigolo and tour guide) and organized ourselves a waterey tour in a giant basket made of reeds. Our tour guide was a cheery wee lady, who was mainly preoccupied by her amazement at our incompetence with an oar, our horror when she caught a crab and by making us "jewellery" out of palm leaves. 

Back on land, we had a drink before continuing on our way on a beautiful path that eventually led us back to town. Hooray for Colombians and their advice! After a lunchtime avocado toast experience (the shame!) we headed back to the hotel for a delightful afternoon of which we are both thoroughly ashamed: swimming and a spa. We assured ourselves we are absolutely not the kind of people who do that kind of thing on holiday. It's too decadent and extravagant. But it was cheap, excellent and delightful and so we did... After a pre dinner cocktail we headed to dinner at an Indian restaurant (which was notable for not being as good as the rest of the food we'd had - retribution for straying from the Vietnamese path) but otherwise felt very cheery. 

This morning, I was woken by the alarm (a disappointingly regular feature of holidays with Layla...!) before a final delicious breakfast in our hotel. We then headed out to a nearby island to join a cooking class. We'd originally had plans to tack a bike tour on to the end of the cooking class but  I rebelled at the last minute before we paid (a rebellion I was consistently and unpleasantly smug about for the rest of the day, since it unexpectedly ended up pouring with rain pretty much all day).  This kerfuffle over, we headed out on on a boat with the rest of the group to the venue of our cooking class. The class turned out to be super fun, with a plethora of courses, and a cheery local teacher and non-annoying fellow students. The only cloud marring our otherwise excellent experience being the volume of food cooked and our inability not to eat everything we made. We thus staggered back to town somewhat green from too much food (though obviously my smugness at avoiding a cycling-in-driving-rain situation was a great consolation to me) and settled down in a succession of coffee shops to hide from the rain, consume much liquid and avoid thinking about tofu. We nerdily used the time to plan a storytelling workshop for Layla to run in Tokyo (to help breed more storytellers) and to read. We shunned dinner - a first - and headed to the airport early evening wondering if we'd ever be hungry again... Next (and final) stop: Ho Chi Min!

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In which Layla and Roz make it to Vietnam (10 years late) and explore Hanoi and Halong Bay

By Layla

I first planned to go to Vietnam almost ten years ago. But then Roz and I got together, she wanted a first vacation that we planned together, we went to Cambodia and I never did get to Vietnam. But a relative proximity to our new home and some lovely cheap flights courtesy of air miles finally brought us here. First stop: Hanoi. 

You hear all sorts of things about Hanoi. Mainly the massive concentration of people on mopeds, which is exactly true. There seem to be no specific road rules: any free bit of road is fine to zoom into and they roar past en masse like a school of fish surging forward on the tide, making it tricky to cross the road. The Old Quarter too lives up to expectations: it is lively and bustling, particularly with tourists, with people dining on tiny short chairs clustered around low pavement tables, with little shops selling knock-off shoes and bags. But less expectedly, it is also crammed with hipster coffeeshops, embracing my favourite design aesthetic and brimming with French patisserie. And there is a large, pretty lake with a temple in the middle, and wide, leafy walkways around the perimeter where people stroll romantically, use a hardcore-looking outside gym, sell pineapple, walk their dogs, have their kids drive battery-operated cars, and just promenade. I loved it. 

We arrived too late to do anything the first night, but the following morning we hit the road running - or rather, cycling. I'd booked us a countryside bike tour, which first involved leaping into and navigating Hanoi's surging moped wave - just a tad terrifying. Then we peered at the opera house, cycled over this beautiful old bridge designed by Mr Eiffel, navigated some more busy roads, and found ourselves in the countryside, visiting a pretty temple and cycling along narrow paths between rice paddies. Our tour guide was totally rubbish, taking us in wrong directions, and when asked, just making up facts about Hanoi... but we had a good time anyway and finished the tour in a vegan restaurant. We spent the afternoon eating French patisserie (you saw that coming, didn't you), strolling around the lake and sipping beer at a lakeside cafe. Then we had dinner and cocktails and headed home to bed, because an early start loomed the following morning. 

The Vietnam sight that features at the top of every good tourist's must-see list is Halong Bay. This is one of the natural wonders of the world, a beautiful bay crammed with thousands of tiny-but-tall islands rising out of the water, often filled with caves. And the only way to see it properly is on a boat. Our tour company (Vega: highly recommended) drove us the four long hours to the port with 12 companions, then took us all out in a little boat to board a bigger boat and our Halong adventure had begun. We ate a massive lunch while sailing past truly spectacular scenery, then headed out on kayaks for a glorious exploration of little lagoons where monkeys cavorted on near-vertical walls, and the water was turquoise, and there were crazy rock formations making cave tunnels through which we navigated our kayaks. In our case, inexpertly...

Next up was the Surprising Cave, probably the largest cave system I've ever visited (other than that terrifying black lava tunnel in Jeju, South Korea). This cave was beautiful, filled with stalactites and crazy rock formations. Our guide, who was cut from different cloth than yesterday's bike guide, described at vast length the various shapes that he/tradition could see in the various rock shapes. "What do you think this one is? You see? It's a monkey! And look at this rooster. Rub the head of the turtle. Do you see the penis rock? It's specially illuminated!" Luckily before he had a rebellion on his hands, we eventually emerged into the sunlight and returned to our boat for a spring roll-making lesson and an extravagant dinner with a vast number of courses. We washed it down with Saigon beer, then played a wee game of Scrabble and headed to bed. 

It was fun to wake up with the amazing scenery just outside our window. Which was just as well as it was an early rise to jump off at one of the islands and climb 400 stone steps to a lookout point. A great view over the really remarkable bay! Then we descended onto a beach where, even though the weather was not quite summery enough, we went for a fun (chilly) swim. Hooray! Back on the boat for a while, and we sailed to Cat Ba National Park for our next adventure: cycling, hiking and rock climbing. We rode our bikes along a pretty coastal path, through the countryside, and into a charming village where we had the obligatory stop to see them making rice wine, and chuckling inside while the gangly young backpacker boy gamely tried all proffered beverages, including one from a big jar full of dead snakes. Mmmm... 

Next, we left our bikes and headed for the hills. It was a beautiful little hike through forest and culminated in a slightly challenging rocky scramble to the top of the hill - then more rock climbing to get down the other side. By the time we'd cycled back to the boat we were ravenous. Luckily another giant meal awaited. I would happily have read my book on a lounger on the roof of the boat and watched the floating villages that we cruised past, but an hour later we were told it was time to kayak again. It was lovely but I was nearly broken. It was something of a relief to land at Cat Ba town to spend the night in a pleasant hotel. The town itself is tourist-central with a weird Vegas-inspired aesthetic, but we found somewhere pleasant for drinks and dinner to toast a great day. 

Yesterday we got back on the boat for four hours of sailing (and eating) through the beautiful Bay, then four hours of much-less-charming driving back to Hanoi. When we arrived, we did another stroll around the lovely lake, had tasty dinner in a nice restaurant, grabbed our luggage, and hopped in a taxi. Goodbye Hanoi - we were off to the airport. Next stop: Hoi An!