Visit Vietnam and you'll be able to combine a visit to Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum with a luxury beach holiday – and pick up some bespoke tailoring, writes Angela Long
WHEN IN THE presence of well-dressed Australians who are disrobing, should fate smile on you in this way, check out their labels. If there are none on their shirts, trousers or dresses, they may well have been shopping in Vietnam.
Tailoring is the great craze for visitors to the S-shaped socialist country. More famous in recent times for war, Vietnam is seizing the peace with commercial gusto. After crude oil, apparel is its biggest export. Overnight bespoke tailoring is also a huge industry in tourist areas, such as the dusty but authentic town of Hoi An, next to the South China Sea and about midway between Hanoi, in the north, and Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), in the south.
Hoi An is reputed to have more than 2,000 tailors, most of them housed in sweatshops across the river from the town centre, where the shopfronts compete for customers. Many of the clients are Australian; an increasing number are American, and a few are English and Irish.
The clothes are made to measure, from a huge variety of patterns. The tailors keep catalogues of fashion chains such as Next; customers just have to point out the items they want, have their measurements taken and choose a fabric from the range to hand. Return within a day or two and voilà, as the former colonial masters would say, lovely new clothes at risible prices. (I got two skirts, a dress, two blouses, a pair of trousers and two men’s shirts for less than $130/€100).
One can’t help feeling a little guilty dining on sartorial fat, so to speak, at the expense of the hyperactive local tailors. But Hoi An has much more than clothes to recommend it. The town itself is faintly seedy, with some lovely buildings from the French occupation. There is a feel of The Quiet American, Graham Greene’s novel (and two films) set in the 1950s, in some of the bars.
The local barkeepers, most of whom share the Vietnamese passion for soccer, will cry “Roy Keane! Robbie Keane! Very good!” when they discover an Irishman. And it is arresting to see in the headlines of local newspapers, amid the short, sharp words of Alexander of Rhodes’ romanised form of Vietnamese, the names Beckham, Fàbregas and Ronaldinho.
There are also some very comfortable resort hotels. My pal and I stayed at the Victoria Resort, where most of the accommodation is in chalet-like semi-detached apartments. Ours opened on to the beach. At about 7.30am each day a water buffalo, with traditional wooden yoke, would comb the beach while his master’s assistant did a bit of sweeping as well. A 10-legged monster ran crab-like up and down the beach; it was hotel staff moving the palm-leaf tops of cabanas from one location to another.
When you sat under the cabanas, reclining on a sunlounger, the pole was equipped with a small red flag. Wave it languidly in the direction of the beach bar and a waiter or waitress would pop down to see you and take your order for a club sandwich or cocktail. It was hard not to like, especially when the sun scorched out with temperature of about 27 degrees. In January!
There are many attractions in the area, but fashion unites tourists and visitors. My black coat (necessary in the evenings in Hoi An in January) was a real hit. “Oh, lovely!” women and girls would say, admiring the slightly glossy surface of a Zara military-style three-quarter coat and stroking the sleeves. Touching is common. But never touch a southeast Asian on the head: it is as insulting as striking them.
Another thing that gave our Vietnamese friends much pleasure was finding out about visitors’ families. “Oh, lucky, very lucky!” women would cry, contorting themselves with joy, on learning that I have a son and a daughter. (My friend, who can report only three sons, was not rewarded with such jubilation.)
The people were mostly lovely, even the uberpersistent saleswomen at a stop in the Marble Mountains, en route from Hoi An to Hue.
Hue is touted as an ancient city, but what you see in its old section is mostly from the 19th century. The Imperial City is a mini version of the Forbidden City, in Beijing. Much of it was destroyed during one of the fiercest battles of the Vietnam War, in 1968. Ten thousand people perished, mostly Vietnamese fierce and desperate to repel the invaders. Unesco has declared the centre of Hue a World Heritage site, and slowly the old beauties are being restored.
Near Hue are a number of royal tombs, with the best that of Tu Duc, a Nguyen-dynasty emperor who lived in the 19th century. His tomb is set in five hectares of woodland, which also houses a collection of buildings including the Xung Khiem Pavilion, on the banks of a small lake, and the Hoa Khiem Palace. They are a little shabby now, but it is all very charming, a secluded haven from the furious pace of Vietnamese life.
For so it is: everyone is always working, be it on a street stall, in the rice paddies that run beside motorways, or strutting into the Hung Bung Joint Stock Company. Vietnam has embraced capitalism, uncomfortably as that may sit beside the almost personality cult of the late revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh.
In Hanoi we were again in the lap of luxury at the Metropole, where Bill Clinton, Queen Noor of Jordan, Noel Coward and a long, eclectic list of big names have stayed. But the biggest name in Hanoi, and Vietnam, as a whole is still Uncle Ho, who masterminded the Vietcong effort in the war of the 1960s and 1970s.
The Ho Chi Minh mausoleum, in central Hanoi, is a leading tourist attraction. Even on a quiet winter Sunday the queue outside stretched for several hundred metres. Ultimate respect is demanded. No talking in line. And when one gets in to see Ho, who died, unluckily, before his countrys final liberation, in the late 1970s, no dawdling, staring or photography is permitted.
No dawdling is permitted on Hanoi’s roads, either, unless you want to become human bean paste. The traffic just goes and goes, everywhere, anywhere, from 6am until past midnight. Squadrons of serious-faced scooter drivers bear down on cars, pedestrians and daredevil tourists taking a ride in a bicycle rickshaw. The effect is bracing, to say the least.
But get away from all that with a cruise on Halong Bay, two hours’ drive from Hanoi. This is one of Vietnam’s oldest tourist draws: they were doing it in their bustles in the 19th century. The bay features dozens of weird sharp limestone lumps, triangular or otherwise geometric, rising out of its limpid waters. A popular route is to take an overnight cruise on a wooden junk – actually these days a well-appointed passenger craft with comfortable beds and modern bathrooms.
The absolute highlight is a visit to a floating village. This consists of about 20 wooden pontoons, moored in a companionable arc, which hold peoples homes, shops and schools. Only a tiny temple is on the shore, which rises at about 45 degrees, so providing little building land. It takes 45 minutes for the residents, fishing folk, to get to Halon township. They may be the last people swamped by the tide of commerce and modernity that has seeped over Vietnam.
Where to stay
Sofitel Metropole Hanoi. 150 Ngo Quyen Street, 00-1-84-4-38266919, www.sofitel.com. Peerless. A gorgeous turn-of-last-century building; white French colonial on the outside, art-deco timber within. Service is excellent. Don’t ask a taxi driver to take you to the Sofitel, as there is also the Sofitel Plaza, grand and modern. About €300 per night.
The Victoria Hoi An Beach Resort Spa Hotel. Hoi An, 00-84-510-3927040, www.victoriahotels-asia.com. Get a unit right on the beach if you can. There’s a lovely pool, just beside the sea, a small gym and a very good library. About €120 per person.
Duxton Hotel. 63 Nguyen Hue Boulevard, Ho Chi Minh City, 00-84-8-8222999. A good if anonymous four-star hotel. About €120 a night.
What to eat
Vietnamese food is delicious and cheap. But you might experience a fair bit of internal angst after your first few days of travel. Reliably good dishes include pho, a tasty noodle broth that might also contain meat. Tom hap bia is shrimps in beer. Banh bao vac are fish-and-vegetable dumplings.
In Hanoi, try one of the restaurants that train street children in catering. We visited Hoa Sua (28a Ha Hoi, 00-84-4-9424448), in a former colonial residence. The food wasn’t great on our night, but others have had better experiences.
Travel tips
You’ll need a visa from the Vietnamese embassy in London; there is no representation in the Republic. Your travel agent will do it for a fee, but allow at least three weeks.
You’ll also need shots for typhoid and possibly hepatitis B, and ask your GP for advice on malaria prevention.
Go there
Air France (www.airfrance.ie) flies to Hanoi from Dublin and Shannon via Paris. You can also fly with KLM (www.klm.com/ie) and Vietnam Airlines (www.vietnamairlines.com/vn) via Amsterdam. Sites such as Ebookers.ie and Travelpaths.ie also offer other routes.