Coffee in Vietnam

On October 17, 2025October 16, 2025 By Rick McIn food, travelLeave a comment

Reason enough to plan your holiday in ‘Nam. 😀

Vietnam is the 2nd largest producer in the world after Brazil. Second only to rice in value of agricultural products exported from Vietnam.

First introduced by the French in 1857, the Vietnamese coffee industry developed through the plantation system, becoming a major economic force in the country.

It’s a boom and bust crop, needless to say. And there are environmental and sociological concerns.

Starbucks opened its first store in Vietnam in 2013. Highlands Coffee is biggest of the chains.

Almost every little street kiosk makes good coffee, however. I’ve not been to Starbucks nor Highlands.

For me, most of the coffee is too strong.

Here my guide is drinking black tar. I’m having the same tar with sweetened condensed milk.

The use of sweetened condensed milk rather than fresh milk was first due to its availability and easier storage in a tropical climate.

Egg coffee is super popular, as well. Egg yolks with sugar and condensed milk rather than fresh milk.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

There are dozens of other alternatives available, hot or on ice. Coconut and Salted are great.

At the Me Linh Coffee Garden we toured the coffee plantation. AND visited the Asian palm civet enclosure.

Kopi luwak, also known as civet coffee, is a coffee that consists of partially digested coffee cherries, which have been eaten and defecated.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) investigators call this animal cruelty.

The set-up for the animals at Me Linh Coffee Garden looked very good. BUT that’s what they want to show tourists.

I didn’t drink civet coffee.

In Vietnam they call it weasel coffee.

Here are coffee beans.

We drove away from the highland coffee tourist location via one of the abandoned U.S. airports from the American War.

4 Star Hotel vs Hostel

On October 16, 2025October 15, 2025 By Rick McIn travel1 Comment

During the rainy season, Nha Trang, Vietnam, has 4 star and 5 star hotel rooms available at very low price.

For CAD $18 I stayed in the Summer Hotel. 4 Stars. Excellent breakfast buffet.

Next day I caught the bus up into the highlands ➙ a hill station called Da Lat.

There I stayed in a private room in the most popular hostel ➙ Dalat Family Hostel.

One Canadian has been living at the hostel for the past year. Less expensive than Edmonton, he told me.

I paid CAD $13.30 for a minimal private room. No TV. No window. No breakfast.

Cost-wise, both are about the same relative to my travel budget.

BUT my 4 star hotel room was boring. Like almost every hotel room at every price range.

The front desk was not very helpful. I went to a popular hostel down the street to get information and book my tour.

By comparison, within 10 minutes of arriving at Dalat Family Hostel I had my day tour booked. My onward night sleeper bus reservation made. AND I had signed up for a fun communal hostel dinner.

I left a review:

Unforgettable, fun hostel.

Scored 9.0

Advice on tours and bus. My 3 waterfalls tour on bike was excellent. Hostel is an entertaining maze of unique areas including weight room and pool. Great social dinners.

Not boring. 😀

Saigon Tourist Highlights?

On October 15, 2025October 14, 2025 By Rick McIn travelLeave a comment

Most travellers recommend spending as little time as possible in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon).

Good advice.

Terrible traffic. Sprawling urbanity of 14 million people.

On the upside, a modern metro line was opened late 2024.

BUT Saigon is a great place to shop. It a transportation hub. A place to get things done. AND see some interesting attractions, even if they are somewhat far apart.

I started with a GPSMyCity walking tour.

Paid to visit the War Remnants Museum. MUST SEE.

The French controlled Vietnam from 1884 to 1954. Some of their colonial architecture is still impressive.

Central Post Office. It looks like a train station.

Personally, I enjoyed the French influenced coffee and bread even more than the architecture. 😀

There’s much more. Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

BUT … spend as little time in Saigon, as possible.

Nobody’s Fool by Harlan Coben

On October 14, 2025October 12, 2025 By Rick McIn books, TVLeave a comment

Harlan Coben is one of our best working authors.

I can’t imagine how he comes up with his complex plots.

His 2025 book is Nobody’s Fool.

It’s something of a sequel to Fool Me Once (2016) which was adapted into an excellent TV series.

Sami Kierce, a young college grad backpacking in Spain with friends, wakes up one morning, covered in blood. There’s a knife in his hand. Beside him, the body of his girlfriend. Anna. Dead. He doesn’t know what happened. His screams drown out his thoughts—and then he runs.

Twenty-two years later, Kierce, now a private investigator, is a new father who’s working off his debts by doing low level surveillance jobs and teaching wannabe sleuths at a night school in New York City.

One evening, he recognizes a familiar face at the back of the classroom. Anna. It’s unmistakably her. As soon as Kierce makes eye contact with her, she bolts. For Kierce there is no choice. He knows he must find this woman and solve the impossible mystery that has haunted his every waking moment since that terrible day.

His investigation will bring him face-to-face with his past—and prove, after all this time, he’s nobody’s fool.

3 Waterfalls Tour, Da Lat, Vietnam

On October 13, 2025October 12, 2025 By Rick McIn travel1 Comment

After weeks of heat and humidity, I finally headed UP to Da Lat, or Dalat, at 1,500 m (4,900 ft) above sea level. One of the most popular tourist destinations in Vietnam.

Tourists love any climate that can grow tea or coffee. Hill stations.

I walked the canals and lake both nights I was there. Pretty in the full moon.

Short on time, I signed up for a VIP tour. A BIG day.

Cost was CAD $31.40 for 8 hours of non-stop entertainment. That’s VIP in Vietnam. 😀

Best was my Easy Rider motorcycle driver / guide, Mr Hieu. 60 years old — but hyper and energetic as a teenager.

We had lunch at one of his personal favourite spots, not a typical tourist only restaurant.

Mr Hieu been guiding this tour since 2002. He was handpicked as my driver by the hostel where I stayed.

Here’s something of the standard itinerary:

Datanla Waterfall
Pongour Waterfall
Elephant Waterfall
Linh An Pagoda – lady buddha
Cricket Farm (happy water and fried crickets)
Silk Factory
Mê Linh Coffee Plantation & Weasel (Civit) Coffee … (NO, I did not drink weasel poop coffee)

Mr Hieu added many extra stops unknown to any other driver. Like this inexplicable giant chicken in one village.

He did his best to get me hooked up, as well, knowing ALL the single Vietnamese women en route. 😀

BEST was the Pongour Waterfall. I flew my drone here as Vietnam is yet to get organized enough to post signs disallowing them.

NEW was taking something called an “Alpine Rollercoaster“. Over 2,400 meters, the Datanla coaster is longest in Asia.

There was some extra cost for this. Well worth it.

Safe? I dunno. Signs say you can crash one into another. BUT I appreciated having brakes so I could slow down and not fly off at the turns. 😀

With its year-round cool weather, Da Lat supplies huge quantities of temperate agriculture products.

We visited a mushroom farm. VERY interesting.

We saw every stage of silk production. Fascinating, as well.

Almost every tour in Vietnam includes a giant Buddhist statue. Many are female.

The image of Quan Âm as a maternal figure of mercy and compassion evolved through the blending of Mahayana Buddhism with Vietnamese folk traditions, including the veneration of mother goddesses.

Best tour of many I took in Vietnam.

Visting Nha Trang, Vietnam

On October 12, 2025October 16, 2025 By Rick McIn food, travelLeave a comment

I was going to skip the beach / tourist city, Nha Trang — but I’m glad I stopped over for 1 night.

It’s very inexpensive. AND tourist friendly.

After visiting the beach for about 20 minutes, I had a DAY.

Monkey Island
Mud Bath
Gourmet Barbecue Buffet

Local cuisine is most famous for fresh seafood and barbecued pork rolled in rice paper.

I tried a buffet which offered a LOT of meat, fish, and seafood at very low price.

I was convinced to sit down by the small grill in every table.

Cook up what you want. Pork bellies were my favourite.

I added much of what I cooked to my personal Pho. Keeping everything hot.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Nha Trang in 2025 is overfull with overweight Russian men with wife / mistress. Many signs include Russian and some businesses provide tourist services mainly for the Russians.

Unwelcome in many nations, in 2025 Russians are vacationing in Turkey, Thailand, China, the UAE, and Vietnam.

This city is very popular with Koreans, as well.

BEST time to walk the beach is early morning or in the evening.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Clown Town by Mick Heron

On October 11, 2025October 8, 2025 By Rick McIn books, TVLeave a comment

Clown Town (2025) is 9th in the Slough House series of books.

Like the rest, it’s worth reading for the outrageous behaviour of Jackson Lamb. And the smart, funny, cutting dialogue.

Plot? … well don’t worry too much about the plot in these books.

This time around, MI5 First Desk Diana Taverner tries to keep secret an old scandal that might come to light.

Jackson Lamb refuses to help. But his crew of Slow Horses somehow get involved anyway. Something to do with an old book of Cartwright’s grandfather.

In the end, Lamb takes action.

The TV series is better than the books. Season 5 is streaming now.

Monkey Island, Vietnam

On October 10, 2025November 5, 2025 By Rick McIn ethics, travel1 Comment

There are a number of “Monkey Islands” in Vietnam. I visited the one out of Nha Trang.

… or was it Donkey Island? 😀

Monkey Island, Nha Trang, has more than 1,200 monkeys.

Few rules, I’m afraid.

Tourists feed them directly, risking scratches and bites.

I took in the “animal circus“, as well. Noting that dog tricks seem perfectly acceptable — but that monkey tricks seem abusive. No logic there, I’m afraid.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

The HIGHLIGHT by far was watching some of these beasts entertaining themselves by jumping into water. High diving!

There was no food reward for this. They were doing it strictly for FUN.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

And I did this stairway strictly for FUN.

My 1st Mud Bath

On October 9, 2025October 8, 2025 By Rick McIn travel1 Comment

Surprisingly, I’d never been in a mud bath after a lifetime of travel.

There were several to choose from out of Nha Trang, Vietnam.

I picked THAP BA MUD BATH and was quite impressed.

There are a number of options to choose from. I went with …

hot mineral mud soak (20 mins)
hot shower & car wash shower
hot mineral water (30 mins)
hot shower

No cameras, of course. So I asked A.I. Nano Banana to recreate my experience. 😀

In reality, the mud soak was warm, muddy water. Not mud.

Still interesting.

I got my own private tubs. You can share with others, if you like.

After your routine, hang about the lovely facility. Enjoy the pool.

Don’t Visit Bà Nà Hills, Vietnam

On October 7, 2025October 8, 2025 By Rick McIn product complaints, travelLeave a comment

Clickbait title, for sure. 😀

Millions of tourists each year ignore my advice.

Sun World Ba Na Hills is a hill station and resort located just outside Da Nang.

The BIG attraction is the Golden Bridge opened 2018.

You’ve seen it on Instagram looking like this.

The reality is that the bridge is constantly packed with hordes, many of whom would happily throw you off in order to get the ideal photo location. To them I say …

I DID throw some competitors over the edge to get my own iconic pic.

Best advice is to go to one of the less crowded Golden Bridge imitators in the Philippines, China, or elsewhere. 😀

I got mine already. Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

In fact, I found more hands in the resort. Since I was alone, I’m assuming this area was not open to tourists. Oh well.

Criticism of Ba Na Hills, referred to by some as “Fairyland,” centers on it being an inauthentic, overcrowded, and overly commercialized theme park, with visitors finding the environment fake, the food uninspired, and the Golden Bridge experience ruined by throngs of people.

At one point I concluded, this is what TrumpLand would look like, if a theme park. 😀

Of course if Vegas kitsch amuses, you’ll have some laughs.

The super popular tour from Da Nang starts with a visit to a gift shop en route. What else?

Surprisingly, I quite enjoyed learning about pearls and precious woods.

You take a cable car up to the mountain peak. It’s the “longest non-stop single track cable car“, at 5,801 metres. In fact, this attraction has 6 cable cars now. They need more.