UK media outlet highlights immersive tour of Vietnam from south to north

The British writer enjoyed a fantastic experience in the country traveling through cities and countryside, riding on mopeds, exploring rice paddies, and sampling local delicacies such as pho.

“I had thought that crossing the road in Saigon was nail-biting enough. You don’t wait for the swarms of scooters to pass, I was informed by one of the locals. You just start walking, keeping an even pace, relying on the scooters to avoid you; looking, always looking, but not slowing or stopping. It was terrifying, but it seemed to work. I was still alive, after all,” she said.

“Now, however, I was about to join said swarm, riding pillion on a vintage Vespa, courtesy of Vespa Adventures, a company that offers scooter tours at popular hubs across Vietnam. Would my luck hold? It was nerve-racking, certainly, but of all my many visits to Asian cities, this one suddenly felt the most intimate. I was on the inside in a way that I hadn’t been quite before, dancing the peculiar dance of the scooter rider in a conurbation where it is estimated that two million of its nearly nine million inhabitants take part in that same cotillion,” she added.

With regards to her experience of authentic local food, she said, “There was a different kind of intimacy when we found ourselves in the long spindly alleyways that slalom between the city’s grid of streets. Despite their cramped dimensions, these spines of darkness teem with life, edged with tiny stools on which people sit slurping the Vietnamese local noodle broth known as pho, which is eaten for breakfast, lunch, dinner and anything in between. Our guide told us that most Vietnamese don’t practise a religion these days. I would disagree. It’s pho.”

She recalled various memories about a visit to Sa Pa in the northern province of Lao Cai, “Last time I visited Vietnam’s northern mountains I slept in home stays, but I was advised that there were not any in good enough condition after the enforced two-year tourism break. I was a little sad about this, until I found myself at the Topas Ecolodge. Its location is one of the most spectacular I have ever encountered; it is an eyrie of a place perched at 950m above sea level, with vertigo-inducing views down to the paddy fields below, plus an infinity pool that appears to be at the edge of the world.”

“Almost as noteworthy was Tam Coc Garden in Ninh Binh, our next base. Its cottages are set in a tropical garden that seems to float amid the surrounding paddy fields. Said fields come fanged with giant limestone teeth that look as if they might have been conjured up by Anish Kapoor. There is also a liberal peppering of Buddhist pagodas nearby. I have never seen anything like it,” she revealed. 

She noted that this karst landscape is become known as “Ha Long Bay on Land”, a reference to one of the nation’s most famous tourist hotspots. Needless to say, now is a great time to visit both as there are  currently no restrictions placed on visitors following the COVID-19 pandemic and there are still few tourists, especially outside major cities.

Murphy concluded the piece by stating, “When we took the tourist-trap rowing-boat trip on the Ngo Dong river in Ninh Binh, there were times when we would round a bend and have the entire surrealist scene — the river carved out of luminous green rice paddies, the peaks poking out of the paddies like the gnashers of a dinosaur infinitely bigger than any that ever walked the earth — entirely to ourselves.”