Vietnamese Coffee (and a near-death experience)
Cafe Sua (Vietnamese iced coffee) as ordered on Cat Ba Island
Vietnamese coffee is so special that it deserves its own separate blog post. An amazing blend of thick, rich french press coffee on top of a bed of sweetened condensed milk, it is the perfect combination of rich, bitter, and sweet.
Sweetened condensed milk holds a special place in my heart; as a kid, it was the key ingredient to my mom's secret "Hello Dollies" recipe (aka magic bars.) It was a special treat we made around the holidays and although the recipe only called for one can, Mom always had to buy two because my sister and I would usually have half a can finished off the end of a spoon "just a taste" before the baking even began.
Cafe Sua, as it's called in Vietnamese, has quickly become my favorite mid-morning (and let's be honest, mid-afternoon too!) tradition. Yes, the coffee is good, but the cafe culture is strong in Vietnam. As I'm typing these lines, I'm on my second hour of nursing a Vietnamese coffee while taking advantage of the free wifi and cushy couch overlooking the ocean. I'm surrounded by a handful of locals as well as tourists doing the same thing.
While I'm on the topic of iced beverages, I can't help but mention the inherent danger in drinking unfiltered water (even in ice form) in a third world country with known parasitic aquatic invaders. While I would never think of drinking tap water in Southeast Asia, there's just something so alluring about a cold drink on a hot, humid day. Maybe it's the familiarity of the drink or just the strong desire to feel refreshed in the oppressive heat, but there's something incredibly disarming about ice served in such an awesome drink. I LOVE me some Vietnamese iced coffee! I must be averaging 2-3 per day at least.
And this alluring, frozen concoction is precicely where I began my long, dark journey to food poisoning where I was 100% sure that I would die alone in a cheap hotel in a third world country. It all began when I arrived in Cat Ba Island, Vietnam and was waiting to check into my hotel. The room wasn't quite ready yet, so I found a coffee shop next door and had a coffee and a wifi and delved into some free internet bliss after three days hiking in the rice fields with no internet.
I came to Cat Ba Island seeking adventure sports and was revved up for a week solid of rock climbing, kayaking, and hiking when I realized I was running for the bathroom more often than running for exercise. After having met someone the week before who had come down with Dengue Fever from a mosquito bite, I was 100% sure I had it thanks to a WebMD self-diagnosis. I'll spare you the gory details of my 2.5 days of complete incapacitation and my exercise confined to sprints between the bedroom and the bathroom, but let's just say that it's been a long time since I was crying for my mommy.
Being sick on the road alone SUCKS. You just miss all the creature comforts of home, and even though they don't ACTUALLY speed your recovery, there's just something extremely comforting about experiencing near death from your own couch/tv/toilet. It put me in such a bad mental funk that I checked on seeing how quickly I could return to New York and was positive I would cancel the rest of my year of travels. Add to that the annoyance of looking for normal drugs (Tylenol and Gatorade) in a foreign country where English is limited and the frustration just mounts. But it's amazing how quickly your outlook can change with your health. My Dengue Fever self-diagnosis turned out to be simple food poisoning, probably from contaminated ice in my Vietnamese coffee. Two days of American antibiotics, generic Tylenol, some salt tablets, and a boatload of sleep has me feeling like a whole new person who can't wait to get on a rock face and plan my next adventure!
What is your single best traveling food experience? Have you ever been sick on the road? Tell me so that I know I'm not the only one!!!