BOS>HKG>SGN>NHA>HKG:

Back in Hong Kong, after a short detour in the form of a 5-day family holiday in Saigon & Nha Trang, Vietnam.

Vietnam was wicked. Just like in Tran Anh Hung's films - leisurely slow, lush and saturated with tropical colours. Well, maybe not the crazy traffic in Ho Chi Minh City. But, I did have a superb time.

The particularly noteworthy:

Petting sea turtles at the Nha Trang Aquarium - OMG. They are even cuter than in Nemo. I never knew turtles were so friendly. (Well, they might have thought it was lunchtime when I walked down the stairs to the marine shelter where they were kept with the giant groupers) The ancient reptiles with X-File-alien like eyes swam up close enough to let me pet their seaweed-covered heads and flippers. Wanted to bring one home badly but that would get me arrested by less friendly Vietnamese customs...

Vietnamese coffee iced with sweet condensed milk is possibly the bestest coffee EVER. And this is coming from a gal who stays away from most coffees. Strong, super concentrated and creamy yet jitter-free; imagine Bailey's without the alcohol.

Lotus tea - It smells like vanilla ice-cream. I was sold after my first sip.

The Ana Mandara Hotel at Nha Trang is one of the nicest hotels I have stayed in... antique Chinese meets Bali / Thai tropical, the place is beautifully landscaped with fragrant jasmine bushes, Birds of Paradise, plumeria (egg flower) and palm trees of all sorts and sizes. Rooms were clustered as tropical bungalows with porches and thatched roofs.
And the pool! The pool! It was right out of Conde Nast Traveller - located perfectly on the edge of the beach, the view was water + sea + sky.

Fruits so exotic and so fresh, it's like I've never seen or tasted fruits before: dragonfruit, jackfruit, custard apples, coconuts, mangos, crazy sweet watermelons and half a dozen more that I can't name in English. Served most deliciously in lightly sweetened or flavored waters: dragonfruit with vanilla; mango with lemongrass; watermelon with ginger; bananas with coffee beans...

Going around town on a cyclo - there's nothing like it. A rickshaw powered by a bike (except the carriage thingy goes in front), one feels quite vulnerable when there's nothing barring your body from the streets packed with 1000's of motorcycles, whose drivers blatently ignore any attempt of traffic regulation.

Fresh honey- the Vietnamese like theirs straight off a giant chunk of honey comb. It tasted of flowers! Just a spoonful made my superstrong Viet coffee the perfect caffeinated nectar.

Spotting a two tailed lizard - free freak show on the way to breakfast. And I thought those things only exist on believe-it-or-not type TV shows.

Pics to follow...