The Best Coffee in Vietnam

(PICTURE: Huyen inside the store. Notice the trophies in back.)

Huyen and I met up with Hien's cousin Yen in Buon Me Thuot. Yen took us around the city and showed us where to buy the "best coffee in Vietnam." The next day, Huyen and I went to the coffee store and watched as the owner made his secret blend of coffee using four different beans. On the wall of his shop was a trophy saying that indeed his coffee was the best in Vietnam. Even cooler though was a large plaque on the wall with a letter from General Giap congratulating the owner on being a former soldier who has excelled in business.

You can't actually try any coffee at the shop as it's not a cafe. We bought some bags of the coffee but haven't tried it yet as we're waiting to share them with Huyen's family. While we were in the store though, a cafe owner was also there buying big bags of the coffee. The owner explained to us that most good cafes in BMT use Huong Giang coffee and mix it with cheaper Trung Nguyen coffee, the most famous coffee brand in Vietnam.


(PICTURE: Grinding the secret mix.)

Coffee

(PICTURE: This cup of extremely strong drip coffee had no press, unlike everywhere else in Vietnam.)

For most of our drive through the Central Highlands, we were surrounded by two crops: rubber and coffee. I was never a coffee drinker before I came to Vietnam, but became converted pretty quickly over here. I'm not a caffeine addict by any means but simply love the taste of an iced coffee with sweetened condensed milk.

The most famous place in Vietnam for coffee is Buon Me Thuot. When you're there, it's pretty obvious why. Surrounding the city are fields upon fields of coffee. Heck, everyone we met seemed to have at least a couple of their own hectares of coffee. In the city are more coffee shops than anywhere else in Vietnam. Coffee has done well for BMT because it's pretty obvious that it's a very rich city.

That said, the best cup of coffee we had was a few hours north of BMT in Kon Tum. In Kon Tum we had a very strong drip coffee that had no press (picture above). Usually inside the top part of the coffee dripper is a press you can push to make the water go through the grinds faster. Here, they just had double the amount of grinds and nothing to rush the process. The coffee was great and very strong.


(PICTURE: There were coffee farms everywhere and even just random bushes wherever you would stop. This one was at a roadside rest stop we drank coconuts at.)

Dragon Fruit

(PICTURE: A field of dragon fruit.)

One of my favorite parts of our trip was to see all of the changes in agriculture as we drove from the north to the south. Around the beach in Mui Ne were fields upon fields of dragon fruit. This is perhaps the most interesting fruit I've ever seen grow. Basically, the farmers erect a concrete pole in the field and then strap on some dragon fruit leaves. The leaves grow like vines around the pole and then sprout lots of fruit.


(PICTURE: The fruit sprouts at the end of the leaves.)

Huyen pointed out that it is so weird how such a moist fruit is grown in such a dry area. There seemed to be no water anywhere near the fields yet dragon fruit is always very juicy.

(PICTURE: A dragon fruit. One of the more interesting looking fruits in the world.)

My poor helmet

(PICTURE: A reflection in Cao Bang.)

Nice picture, right?

Well, I thought so. That's why I stopped on top of a hill to take this shot. Per my usual picture inspired moment, I pulled over to the side of the road, removed my helmet, placed it on the side-view-mirror, and dug through my bag to find my camera. As soon as I removed the camera, I heard Huyen make some noise that sounded sort of like, "Whoooaaaahhhhhhh whoaahhh". What she was reacting to was my helmet falling off the mirror and rolling down a very steep hill into the water below:

(PICTURE: My helmet about thirty feet below us.)

There was no way to climb down to the water because it was extremely steep. The only place to get to the water level was about fifty yards downstream. I immediately gave up on the helmet and said that I would buy a new one in the town we were staying in. The road we were driving on was very back road and I decided I could make it thirty minutes without a helmet. However, my wife isn't a quitter like me. Huyen said we had to get the helmet since it was a very good helmet and we wouldn't be able to get another like it until we reached a major city. I agreed to give it a shot and went off to find a long stick. Huyen's plan was to throw rocks at the helmet and help guide it towards the river bank. As crazy as that sounds, it totally was working until it was about fifteen feet away. At that point it started to drift across the river...

...and that's when the only fisherman we saw all day came miraculously to our help. This guy was floating upstream on a bamboo raft and quickly turned course to get my helmet. You should have seen the look on this guy's face. Confusion would put it mildly. The guy kindly retrieved our helmet, gave us a wave and continued on his way.


(PICTURE: The fisherman getting my helmet.)

The helmet was drenched with water that didn't seem to be the cleanest. I drove back for about twenty minutes with no helmet on as to let it dry. Then when we got closer to the town and traffic, I put on the helmet without the drenched insides. That night we washed and dried the padding and it was practically good as new. However, throughout the trip, whenever I'd put the helmet on the bike, mosquitoes seemed to flock towards it. Maybe it was my shampoo...

Highway Rest Stops

(PICTURE: Nothing like taking a driving break.)

You've got to give it to the Vietnamese, they know the true definition of a highway rest stop. Once you hit the center of the country, there's places all over the road that have hammocks waiting for you to take a little snooze. There's really no way to better ail a sore butt and back then to swing in a hammock for thirty minutes while downing a coconut.

Guilt

(PICTURE: The Arlington of Vietnam.)

As an American, the hardest place to mentally travel through was the center of Vietnam. It seemed that every road we were on would have some monument or cemetery dedicated to those who died fighting America. It often seemed that the small the town, the more people who had died during the war.

On multiple occasions, Huyen and I were passed by vans filled with family members who had just recovered a body from the war. Furthermore, there were lots of roads we drove down that had bomb craters in the fields. One time on the road, there was a sign that warned people there were still land mines in the area. At another point, a woman told us that the area around us had all been doused with Agent Orange during the war.

Right around the DMZ line is a massive Army cemetery with over 10,000 people interred there who died fighting America. Huyen and I had stopped here to pay our respects and to see if by any chance her uncle's name was written anywhere. The cemetery was organized by provinces and we quickly found Ha Nam but couldn't find Huyen's uncle's name. We ended up going to the center of the cemetery, lighting some incense, placing some sticks on random graves and then leaving. It was pretty somber.

Warning: Beards scare children

(PICTURE: A common reaction to my beard.)

The first time I met Viet Huong, my nephew, I learned an important lesson: Beards scare children in Vietnam. At that time, I had a solid scruff working, nothing compared to the full-on beard I've been sporting during the motorbike trip.

A lot of children have looked at me with pure puzzlement as if to say, "Why isn't that monkey behind bars at a zoo?" Some kids have even smiled at me and waved. However, those responses always change the second I get within five feet. Once I get close, well the fear starts. I can't tell you how many little kids cried on this trip because their mothers tried having them meet me.

The kid in the picture above was at a motorbike repair shop we stopped at to fix a flat tire. At first he was about ten feet away with his older sister. The two of them were staring at me, completely transfixed. I decided to go over and sell hello to them which got this little one absolutely wailing.

I just hope my one day half Vietnamese kids aren't petrified of daddy if he doesn't shave for a week or two!