Forums > Food & Drink > Vietnamese food I went to Vietnam in 2005 and was just WOWED by the food there. I rarely eat soup out, but I had Pho in a hole in the wall place in Saigon that was so beautiful that I took a picture of it. I am going to return to Vietnam next month and mostly what I will eat is the local food.
I am an American who lives in Hangzhou in Zhejiang and just joined this board to ask some travel questions for Xishaungbanna and Laos. This thread got me thinking about western food.
Concerning food, I will say that I have been in China for 11 years and have travelled from the East Coast all the way to Kashgar and in my opinion, over 90% of so called "western food" just sucks. I once had "Mexican food" (not Caoco's) when visiting in Kunming that was god awful. I waited forever for it, almost left and then when the food finally came was miserable. It was so bad I walked out without paying with them chasing me down the street. I got away from them but I refused to pay for that sh*t and didn't. Yeah, I may have been in the wrong, but I wasn't going to pay for that.
However, by looking at your events list to the left, Kunming has it going on much better than Hangzhou.
The Chinese do not know how to make it correctly and it most always comes out bad, greasy, oily and weird, not to mention expensive. Not only that, the less than 10% of places that do manage to make a good product goes out of business!
Also, all the "western" restaurants have the same crap. Pizza, hamburgers, speghetti, chicken wings etc. All of it of dubious taste. I am a slow learner, but I have just about stopped eating in these type of places, especially in tourist areas (Yangshuo being a good example of gut rotting tourist garbage food). If nothing else, it is good to eat the local food, it's cheaper and its better for what it is.
I don't hate all Chinese food, some of it is very good. I love rice. It's just the people who run these places do not know how to make the product correctly, and they have to conform to the "Chinese taste", while most of the Chinese themselves, even the educated and urbane ones, refuse to eat anything new. It's maddening.
I read recently online about Chinese travellers taking a tour of Europe, places like Greece, Italy, Spain and France and what was ironic but so true was that the tourists ate CHINESE FOOD and did not try the local food. Rice and meat and noodles, dofu, the same crap they can eat back home. Chinese are picky eaters and will refuse to try anything that they do not know, period. Some will.
Getting Away: Chongqing
发布者I have never been to Chongqing, except passing through it in the middle of the night by train on the way to Chengdu.
Chinese cities are fun to visit. They all have their "local color" and things that make them different from the rest. Two years ago, I went to Guangzhou. GZ was a funky, dirty place. But there were things about it that were great, especially the long hukou like alleys that went on forever. It was fun exploring those. There were other things that made the city interesting and I enjoyed myself. I would not want to live there though.
Getting Away: Vang Vieng
发布者I am going back to Laos this summer after being away for seven years. Will be going back to Vang Vieng. I am shocked about how large Vang Vieng has gotten by the look of the second picture with the balloon in it.
Even back in 2004, I could see how this could happen. My guesthouse had signs in many languages including Thai and Hebrew. The place was famous way back when.
I have been on that river several times and it is a relaxing, fun ride, but one has to respect the river. I was sober (and I was) and accidentally tipped the intertube over trying to stay near the bank so I can stop at the beer stop where the river takes a curve. I hit some branches and out I go.
It was scary, because although I could swim and keep my head up, the current disallowed me from swimming to the bank, with the proprieter of the beer shack to throw me a line and PULL me in (I am a big guy). Got to the bank and discovered my hotel key and the money I brought went down the river to Cambodia. No beer for me.
I would not swing or slide into the river either. I watched those kids do that (I was in my late 30's then and they averaged about 20) and then it did not look safe. In my opinion, Beer Lao is delicious, and it is easy to get drunk out of and do foolish things.
As the article states, there are other things to do there, caving is one of them. I went on a local tour and went into a cave and got all muddy. There was another cave deep in a cavern where I elected not to go. Above me however, I saw the BIGGEST bee hive I have ever seen. There must have been thousands of bees living in there and if they were disturbed, we could be killed from the stings. And then there were the butterflies by the hundreds if not thousands.
Unlike a lot of backpacker places, the food is good basically because of the ingredients the locals put into it. I remember a simple "fried rice" dish served to travellers that was really a work of art. The French taught them how to cook while the Czecks (under a Communist friendship program) taught them how to make beer.
Laos is strict about two things, one that a Lao citizen cannot sleep with a foreigner unless they are married and the law is strict about this, to control the sex trade. A second thing that foreigners may not like is that the bars have to close by 11 PM, by law. The local people in Laos (as in Cambodia and the region) wake up early in the morning, and also that the kiddie foreigner needs to go back to the guest house and sleep off the 12 hours of Lao Beer fury.
It is easy to escape the 20 somethings and their partying. I hope to teach at the school near the Organic Farm. I may want to rent a motorbike and see the countryside (again). It is a beautiful place in a beautiful country. I am looking forward to it and wish I were there already.