211: Rex Bar and Ben Thamh Market, Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam from the 1000 places to see before you die book

The Rex Hotel is one of the great old guards in Saigon. A retreat for all the hacks in the days of the War and a rambling 5 star hotel now that still retains its charm. Greatly helped of course by the fact that 5 star luxury in this city only costs $145 a night. I think the reason why it is here is because it is one of only a handful of outdoor bars in Ho Chi Minh...mind you..I dont think that being a mere 5 storeys high protects drinkers from either the noise or pollution issues- especially when next door they are building something that is looking rather large and had hundreds of workers on it seemingly 24/7.

The Rex Bar: Quite gaudy with itsgold crown and two elephants





at nighttime the bird cages all light up as does the crown!



one of the views from the bar

Anyhow....thats it- a bar. turns out there is a newer more spectacular one in a new shopping complex around the corner on level 33 which I think will take this one out of its spot in the book.

So...to the market. Well here it is...

It had about 100 stores selling either clothes, shoes, souvenirs or food. As always in these places the food ones are the most interesting..the verdict?

 

Its a tear off for both. Ive seen far more exotic markets (this was a tourist market) and have been to bars with far better views



snake and scorpion rice wine. Very good for men apparently



209: The Blue Mountains and Lilianfels Resort and Spa, Australia, the 1000 places to see before you die book

"Even better in the wet" promised the marketing blurb for the rainforests of the Blue Mountains in Australia. They didn't mention the cold though did they? To be fair, I hadnt factored in that a mountain range would be significantly colder than it was in Sydney- even though it was only a mere 1 hour drive away to the coast.


The settlers obviously named this mountain range after the blue balls they got trying to cross it.

It was freezing. It was wet. I had the flu. An 18 month baby on my hip. And it was a miserable, bone knawing 4 degrees with snow predicted. A 5 degrees with a 15mph wind curling into the damp of the rainforest before twisting its way "right back in ya face" as one tourist remarked to me upon check in at Lilianfels.

I had to laugh that my sister had advised to bring my bathers. The outdoor pool was barely visible through the thick fingers of fog that grasped the sodden branches of the paperback and lillipilli trees. The sun vainly tried to jostle for greater exposure but the storm clouds threw their squat oppressive weight around and bulleyed their way back to a dominant position. 

My niece Evelyn in happier moments in the room

So much for a meander through the bush this weekend I thought checking in to a room which came straight out of Country and Garden. Pink and white ole English bird wallpaper, some faux- french bed drapes arrangement falling off a wooden semi circle screwed in the wall above the pillow, reproductions of John Gould's drawings of wildlife of Australia gracing the walls, a stuffed kookaburra on the bed that when squeezed hard laughed for a bit and a decent enough bath which sadly was now housing a toddler who had thrown up on the way there.

I decided to venture further afield...well...in the hotel that is, as clearly with the weather outside  I would need a fortifying G&T at the bar first. I discovered a pleasant enough reading room, a room housing a full billiard table, an indoor pool (hurrah) and a spa replete with sauna and steam room (double hurrah).

The bar wasnt conducive to long chats with strangers but the restaurant cum sitting room area with big squashy sofas and two fires at either end took the chill off the interior decor of the bedroom.

 Still...there were two things that needed to be reviewed in order to tick off one more entry in the 1000 places to see before you die book.  And to do that...I had to venture outside.

Rugged up, the first stop was the cablecar down to the bottom of the mountains- replete with a boon for vertigo sufferers like myself- a glass floor

But the bottom was quite amazing. Trees rising for miles, the sounds of kookaburras in the distance, the call of birds rising out of the tree ferns and the towering mountain range as its backdrop.

After that a hair-raising ride back up to the top on the world's steepest railway. Katoomba used to have a coal mine and the railway was used to transport people up and down. Nowadays the mine has shut and a new railway put in for the tourists.

Railway through a tunnel in the rock

The original railway

 After that another cablecar back to the other side and over the waterfalls.

So....to dog ear the page from the 1000 places to see before you die or rip it out? Well we were undecided about this- it is a rainforest and it is a stunning mountain range. However, I think Tasmania (probably, I might add as like most Australians Ive never been there) has as stunning ranges albeit without a rainforest...and Lilianfels despite its historic nature is a nice hotel but one can die without being worried they've never stayed there.

So on balance...its a rip out

212: Pho Hoa, Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam from "1000 places to see before you die"

Food tends to dominate our lives...well at least mine. The search for the exotic, the unusual, the tasty, the extreme....or, like today, where I havent eaten as was trying to sort out a partially damaged house from Hurricane Irene, sustenance. So I checked in for my flight to Hanoi where Ill see another 5 things from the 1000 places to see before you die book and decided to hit the business lounge. It somehow is quite comforting to realise that no matter where you are in the world, when it comes to queue jumping or security bypassing or just wanting to stop someone nagging about your unfinished chores, that a confident stride and just a slightly condescending nod (ever so slight- sort of how Id imagine the Queen would do it if she passed Gordon Brown in the hallway of Buckingham Palace while wearing her negligee) to security as you stride past the check in desk into the lounge works a treat.

And thus I sat down to yet another dish of noodles and deep fried spring rolls courtesy of Vietnam Airlines and thought Id write about last night's 1000 places to see before you die number 212 review... pho. This national dish of Vietnam is a noodle soup with various meat or vegetarian additions. And Pho Hoa is, according to the 1000 places to see before you die not only the pho heaven of Vietnam but also both a restaurant and an experience that you have to see before entering the graveyard.

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I was surprised to work out how they found the place...tucked as it was a fair hike from the central tourist drag. Good news was the teeeeeny restaurant (prob only held about 50 people) was devoid of tourists (aided Id say as it wasnt featured in my Lonely Planet book) and, according to the heavily pregnant lady who chose to join my chipped formica table for four, was very well known by locals.

In fact it looks rather fancy in this shot with its nighttime lights......and I decided the fashions in the shop next door needed to be shared with the world so here's a bonus shot of that place for you as well....

Or perhaps a shot of the inside of the restaurant. Gotta respect a man who smokes and eats at the same time and uses the floor as the ashtray. Mind you the floor was filthy with bean sprouts and remnants of plants as people didnt seem that keen on using the waste bins underneath each table.

Back to pho. The choice was raw beef, well done brisket or flank, fatty flank, crunchy flank, beef paste, tendon, bible tripe (the only dish I confess I couldnt work out what the inevitable English translation typo was meant to be....bubbly tripe is the only thing I could come up with unless the experience of eating tripe is a heavenly experience which I assure you its not), beef balls and special noodles with all kinds of beef and vegetarian.

I decided that there is enough fatty and crunchy foods in the Vietnamese diet as it was and went for the special noodles. The broth smelt beautiful and apparently it is simmered for 5 hours every day- it was essentially a beef stock. Bean sprouts, a couple of handfuls of chopped spring onions and a few sprigs of parsley were added to the base.

To that I followed the preggo lady's example and concocted a paste from the various bottles on the table (unmarked so hard to know but definately chill, fish and soy sauce were recognisable) and tipped that in, then grabbed shreds of leaves off the plants that arrived separately and added to the top. On these I had no idea what they were but after a few ladylike rabbit nibbles on each type I quickly worked out which ones I liked the best.

The result- one happy me slurping away.

Now...is it a dog ear on the page of the 1000 places to see before you die book or a rip out of the page?

   Being a national dish you can buy it on every street corner and the only real skill would come in making the broth. But it was a very mild tasting and devoid of any particular flavour so I couldnt detect any culinary masterpiece in creating that.

Its a rip out from the 1000 places to see before you die book this one.

210: Mekong Delta, Vietnam in the 1000 places to see before you die

Its hard to justify why a big teeming swamp of brown mud can get a ranking in the book. Unless of course the banks were littered with herds of zebras, the odd wallowing crocodile or two and the roar of lions in the distance. But instead the only signs of wildlife I saw today were a few mangy dogs on the banks, a handful of ducks splashing near the shores and the roar of gasoline as my boat and twenty others roared across its 6km width. Rather different to the Okovango then!!

I signed myself in for a day tour to experience life in the southernmost bit of Vietnam. Like most things in life- you get what you paid for. And for one of Uncle Sam's tenners I got to chug on the Delta for 30 minutes, visit a coconut candy factory with the obligatory sales pitch, visit an artist's centre for Agent Orange victims with the obligatory sales pitch, a honey factory for the obligatory sales pitch, a tropical fruit factory for the obligatory sales pitch and a bonsai factory for the obligatory sales pitch. In between these three hours of hell were a few high spots.

Certainly being paddled down a tiny waterway canal by two ancient women was pleasant and relaxing as we wove between 15 foot high palm fronds, admired the rickety timber structures of locals houses, smiled at the children swimming in the muddy waters, took photos of the elders swaying on their hammocks on the waters edge and threw droplets of water at the passing ducks. Rounding a bend 10 metres into the journey however we passed boat after boat of tourists also enjoying the same experience- but going in the opposite direction. Bit disconcerting as we were heading for lunch....could it be that bad at the tourist restaurant?

A short 15 minutes later our highlight bit of the tour was over (always, always ask for the fine print if it isnt in the flyer) and we headed into the restaurant. It seemed there were quite a few happy Vietnamese there (sadly all tourists as well) tipping beers down their throats and getting rather merry. Lunch was included but the plate of boiled rice with a thin strip of 2mm thick chicken and some unidentifiable veges wasnt really vietnamese haute cuisine so I went off-piste and perused the menu on the table. Hmmm....elephant ear deep fried fish, pigeon, eel, snake, goanna, turtle and squirrel.

Always refreshing to be in a restaurant where you labor over each meal choice torn between decisions. Those agonising minutes of going down and up, half down, then to the right on a menu, chomping your lips all the time to determine what your body wanted to taste.  Would boiled goanna and chillis be nicer than turtle served in its shell with lemongrass? Would snake soup with helpful herbs be nicer than minced pigeon and noodles?

I have to confess being somewhat intrigued to try the turtle- figuring it was a mere unendangered swamp tortoise that had just picked the wrong moment to surface as a boat paddled by - but you never know given the delta does run into the sea...so I went for the roasted squirrel.

While the photo had a big bushy tailed red squirrel the waiter wasnt sure if it was a grey or a red one, or a baby or an old one, proudly telling me "they arrive here already cut up." Didnt appear he had seen one ever in his life either.  Okay...and so one roasted squirrel was purchased for $7. I have to say it was rather tasty- definately a market opportunity for someone in England brave enough to serve them up. Albeit I think taking the Australian route and just killing them like the kangaroos and shipping dead to Asia might be more lucrative. My lunch companion was a medical forensic photographer so we took great joy in holding up each chunk and trying to work out which bit was which. The hind quarters were the easiest given that tiny claws still peeked out from under the soy roasting sauce. The ribcage also easily identifiable as well as was its little paws. Thankfully the head wasnt present!

After a final detour for the last sales pitch of the day we boarded on the bus and were rushed through the rice paddies back to Ho Chi Minh. Its an interesting tradition in Southern Vietnam- they bury their dead on their plots. Consequently, in between all the people huddled down in the water with their traditional hats on their heads looking after the rice, rose concrete structures for the dead. One dotted here, then a few more at the back of the patch and so on. Apparently regulations have them buried 2 metres down in the swampy ground but you just wonder about the hazards in the surrounding waters as the bodies decomposed.

All in all an enjoyable day. Does this entry in the "1000 places to see before you die" book get the dog ear or the page ripped out vote? Well...i think the best thing to see in the Mekong would be the floating markets...but that requires an overnight stay as they are all over by about 7am. Sadly, given that there are only a few places sufficient enough to cater for tourists I would hazard a guess the standard of accomodation could be a bit grim...but the photos of the market look very cool.

Without being able to see that (and never having had done so), Im ripping this entry out of the book!

208: Patrick Guilbaud Restaurant Dublin, Ireland

Definately deserves a ranking- restaurant patrick guilbaud- is all that its website says..........................."combining contemporary elegance with an intimate ambience and unparalleled service."  Patrick Guilbaud’s family is from Cognac but, after a brief stint in England he moved to Ireland to open his own restaurant...in the process...obtaining a few Michelin stars.



The food was exquisite....

The wine list not so....well at least- not from the point of view of its size....all too hard so we asked the sommelier to pair our food up as we went- which was wonderful!!  Extremely generous servings of the plonk with some very unusual choices- in fact we asked for two labels from an unusual white and red wine that we tried as both were lovely.

We were in the mood to relax and chat rather than pore over the exhaustive food and wine menu so we went for a "chef's surprise." After finding out what we liked or disliked the chef went to work serving us up a 5 course little treat....

which amazingly even saw me eating...and loving..fish- cod!

Fantastic. Service was great, food was truly amazing, wine pairing was interesting and a revelation. The bill...well circa 450 euros for 3 of us which given the gluttony at the table I felt was good value