Chaser comedian and TravelDAZE MC Chris Taylor takes on his hardest assignment yet as our Guest Travel Writer in this three-part series on Vietnam. Here is Part 1.

THE VIETAGE

In the world of travel, there are most definitely train people. You know who I mean. The kind of people for whom the idea of a perfect holiday is a few days on board The Ghan, or a luxurious canter across Russia on the Tran-Siberian Railway.

Vietnam has always been a country of trains, but it’s only now, with the introduction of The Vietage, that it’s making a serious play to attract travellers for whom train travel is unthinkable without fine-dining, private cabins and waiters in white gloves brandishing bottles of Champagne. It’s unashamedly high-end, and irrepressibly wonderful.

The Vietage Treatment Area.

I’m riding The Vietage with my wife from Da Nang to Quy Nhon, a 6-hour trip south through the picturesque farmlands of central Vietnam. The trip can be taken in either direction, and a new service running between Quy Nhon and the coastal resort town of Nha Trang has just been added. “Sorry to interrupt,” says one of the unfailingly polite Vietage attendants, popping his head into our cabin shortly after we pull out of Da Nang station. “But when would sir like his massage?”

This isn’t a question I ever expected to hear on a train. In fact, I can say with some confidence that in all my years commuting on the Strathfield line in Sydney, nobody once has ever asked me when I would like my massage. (Just one of the many failings of NSW public transport.) But here on The Vietage every guest receives a 15-minute massage treatment in the train’s dedicated wellness room. And it’s highly recommended: there’s something about the gentle rocking of the railway carriage, working in concert with the skilled hands of the masseuse, that casts a more relaxing spell than usual.

I fall asleep within minutes. I try to fight it but can feel it’s useless. I’ll soon be snoring face-down on the bench, producing a roar to rival the locomotive’s engine beneath me. Any other masseuse might regard this as an insult, but mine, shaking me awake at the end of my 15-minutes, has the diplomatic tact to tell me it’s a compliment. Proof, she insists, of her gift for relaxation. It’s possible the two gin and tonics I consumed before the session might have played a part too.

The Vietage Bar Host.

Did I mention the gin?

It’s a big feature of The Vietage experience, with a dedicated menu highlighting a range of Vietnam’s finest local gins, including Song Cai, Saigon Baigur and Lady Trieu. They pair as well with tonic as they do with the rice field scenery, which unfurls outside my window with the pleasing rhythm of rolling paintings on a Zoetrope.

The Vietage is the brainchild of the Anantara luxury hotel group, which developed the train to provide an upscale transport link between their resorts in Hoi An and Quy Nhon. But you don’t need to be an Anantara guest to enjoy the privilege. Anyone can buy a ticket. On my train the majority of passengers are heading to the Zannier Bãi San Hô resort, which has become a serendipitous beneficiary of Anantara’s vision. As the cabin attendant clears away the plates from our 3-course lunch, and hands us a couple of chocolate petit fours in the shape of a train, my wife and I agree we don’t want the journey to end. The six hours have flown by in a hedonistic whirl, and we could gladly stay on board for six more.

“I hate to say it, but I think we’ve become those people.”

“What people?” my wife asks.

“Train people.”

And it’s absolutely true. We’re never catching planes again.

The Vietage Exterior.

ZANNIER BAI SAN HO RESORT

Not quite yet on the map

Thankfully a world of equal pleasure awaits us at our destination. The Zannier Bãi San Hô resort is a one-hour drive south from the Quy Nhon train station. Opened less than four years ago, it lies in the Phu Yen province of Vietnam, a region that’s still relatively undiscovered by international travellers. In a country that increasingly heaves under the weight of its tourism, and where many places risk being loved to the point of vandalism, it’s hard to overstate the attraction – and relief – that comes with happening upon an area that’s not quite yet on the map.

That Phu Yen still manages to fly under the radar is especially miraculous given how stunning its coastline and beaches are. And the Zannier group hit the jackpot by winning approval to build its 73-villa resort on the region’s most exquisite beach of all.

By the way, don’t let that 73 number scare you. It’s a number completely at odds with the intimate feel of the place, and the designers deserve every plaudit available for the environmentally impeccable sleight of hand they’ve used to conceal each villa within the landscape, barely visible to its nearest neighbour.

While most of the villas are elevated on the hillsides overlooking the beach, we’ve booked one of the villas located right on the beach itself. The villa comes with its own private pool, presumably for those wanting to take a dip without the arduous inconvenience of a 15-metre stroll to the ocean. I’ve never thought of myself as a particularly beachy person, nor for that matter as a pool person, but I soon surprise myself by spending whole days moving happily between the two.

“Do you think it would be excessive to have a 5th swim before lunch?” I ask my wife. Normally we’d have to go to Scotland to get this wet on a holiday.

We have a late lunch of fried pork spring rolls and a prawn, pomelo and avocado salad at Lang Chai, the resort’s beach hut restaurant located metres from the waves and built on wooden stilts in the traditional “fisherman’s village” style. It’s a gorgeously designed space, simultaneously rustic and chic, consistent with the unimpeachably good taste that runs through the entire resort.

Our lunch is served to us by a waiter called Bach, a cheerily bookish young man with indecently good English. The restaurant isn’t busy, so Bach is able to talk to us at some length, offering a string of mini lectures on Vietnamese culture, with a keynote riff (at my urging) on which region of the country does the best fried spring rolls.

“That’s easy – the North,” says Bach, without missing a beat. “But I was born in Hanoi, so I have to say that.”

Food is everywhere you look in Vietnam.

Discussions about food occur easily in Vietnam, because food is everywhere you look, and all of it is worth talking about. This is doubly true at Zannier Bãi San Hô, where breakfast alone can be a 4-hour event: one hour to consume it, and another 3 hours to gush about it. The buffet offerings are so copious that they could feed a small country for a year. Pork ribs sit alongside donuts; egg noodles and roast lemongrass chicken share a table with freshly baked crepes; there’s even a DIY banh mi station where you can customise your own version of Vietnam’s famous bread roll. In another corner, crouched on a low stool, a woman is pouring batter onto a hot cast-iron griddle to make fresh banh beo, a small rice and tapioca cake topped with prawn, scallions and pork floss. This is Coachella for foodies: a literal smorgasbord of hot, cold, sweet, savoury, healthy, sinful, magnificent foods all in one place.

Returning to our table with my plate piled sky-high (please, don’t judge), I’m met by Bach who casually places two menus on our table.

“Perhaps you fancy something from the a la carte menu as well?”

As well??!

We restrict ourselves to tea and coffee, which prompts a new mini lecture from Bach about the history of Vietnamese coffee. When I compliment Bach on his erudition, he looks almost apologetic, bashfully telling us that he’s an “old soul” trapped in a young man’s body. We start to pick his brain about the best coastal walks in the area, when he’s called away to help pull a new trailer-load of waffles into the breakfast room.

Best not expose your bare banh mi

By the time we’re back in our villa, the temperature has begun its customary climb, so a dip in the pool seems like the obvious option. The only issue is that all of our bathers are still wet from our previous multiple swims.

“Who said we need bathers?” asks my wife, beginning to disrobe.

“But… but we’re not those kind of people,” I protest.

“We weren’t train people before yesterday. Maybe today we’ll become skinny-dipping people,” she says, leaping freely into the pool.

I self-consciously follow suit, allowing myself a rare moment of holiday abandon, when all of a sudden, I notice Bach standing at the side of the pool.

“Um,” he blushes, “I just came to tell you about some good walks in the area.”

My wife and I frantically manoeuvre to conceal what we can.

“We were interrupted at breakfast,” he says. “So I just thought…”

“We’re not those people,” I assure him.

“Sorry?”

“Nude people. We don’t normally…”

“Yes, yes, I understand. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have…”

“It’s fine. Really.”

At this point, nobody knows where to look.

“Maybe I’ll just leave the list of recommendations in your room.”

And with that he quietly slips off, doubtless as mortified as we ourselves are. I pull myself out of the pool, silently dry off, and make my way into the villa. Inside I notice that, beside the list of walks, Bach has also left two small keepsake gifts with a note attached: “Thank you for allowing me to teach you about Vietnam.”

It’s a gesture that’s movingly consistent with everything Zannier’s foray into Vietnam aspires to be: thoughtful, humble, sensitive and beautiful. One of Vietnam’s least visited pockets may also just happen to be one of its best.

Image: Courtesy Chris Taylor.