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| Hoi An |
Imagine you went to the kitchen and served up Vietnam as a meal. What ingredients would make up this fabulous country as Jeremy Clarkson describes it? There’d be lashings of motor cycles (there’s only 47m in the country!), ounces of coffee, rice and rubber, a lot of red flag with yellow star relish mixed in with those iconic conical hats, degrees of searing heat mixed with short bursts of Noah’s flood scale rain. Mix in a potpourri of Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, ancestral spirits and Ho Hi Minh worship, riddled with plenteous Vietnam War memories, and top it all of with some emerald green rice paddy, expansive river delta and terraced hills followed by sea bound limestone karsts, and you’d be well on the way to encapsulating the essence of this highly desirable land of eastern promise.
Vietnam airlines did us proud. I’ve never done an eleven and a half hour flight before. On the flights there and back I’ve crammed in a Vietnamese war film commemorating what those guys had to do fighting the Americans, one or two short programmes showcasing Vietnam, dipped a second time into ‘Churchill, Darkest Hour’ and rode the ‘The 15.17 to Paris,’ a slow burner based on the true story of the terrorist attack on a Thalys express in 2015, just the ticket for calmly wiling away the hours in a tiny flying tube in the heavens. I’ve listened to an album by a chap called Olly Murs interspersed with a bit of Johnny Cash from what I thought a somewhat unusual playlist. I’ve also done a bit of gentle leg stretching to keep the blood circulation going and done a bit of reading and writing. Meanwhile those elegantly dressed stewards and stewardesses did us proud in feeding and watering us with two meals and a flow of drinks and titbits.
Vietnam is a long, sinewy country, shaped like a letter S, that stretches along the eastern side of what was known in French colonial times as Indochina. In the north it hits China, to the west are Laos and Cambodia. At its northern end it balloons out into a voluminous head, about 1025 miles distant from the southern end, with the narrowest part being only 31 miles wide. Out to the east is the Pacific Sea. We arrived in the country in the south, later headed for the middle, then finished our sortie in the north.
A quick brain recalibration is needed to get used to the local currency, the wonderfully named Vietnamese Dong. There’s about 28000 to the pound, according to how good an exchange rate you get. There are actually small denomination coins, although I used just notes, and the 10000 dong note is generally the smallest you’ll use on the street, worth about 30p. Watch it with the assorted notes of different denominations, you don’t want to tip a waiter with a 200000 dong bill when 20000 might do just fine. All those noughts can be very confusing. I managed unusually to return to the UK with precisely no dong as I offloaded every remaining note I had at the airport for a Vietnamese flag tee shirt, getting a discount in the process!
First stop from the airport was Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City), Vietnam’s biggest city of ten million people and the signature tune of south Vietnamese capitalism. The name Saigon rolls off the tongue much more easily and indeed seems to be the preferred choice for many people, even the airport code is for SGN. The centre is packed full of modern buildings and sky scrapers but much surrounding residential settlement reveals that Vietnam is still very much a developing country rather than a member of the economic big league. We’ve just had an eleven hour and a half hour flight which means we arrive just as we should be going to sleep, yet it’s early Sunday morning in Saigon, Vietnam being six hours ahead, and the first thing that strikes you is that myriad motorcycles are sweeping through the streets even at this time.
This helps make Saigon a feast for the eyes. Vietnam has 47m motorbikes out of a population of 95 odd million and they all seem to be out on the streets at the same time. You have never seen so many bikes streaming through every artery and avenue, round every corner and out of every orifice, jumping up on the unsuspecting tourist and weaving through every gap. The ratio of motor cycles to cars seems to be the same as the UK, but the opposite way round!
After a rest at the hotel we took the coach to the Reunification Palace set in its own gardens, a nineteen sixties type concrete monstrosity with endless large rooms with big chairs and tables plus nice bits of decoration for important people like presidents and foreign dignitaries to sit in. It was the home and workplace of the South Vietnam president during the Vietnam war. There is also some jetsam and flotsam from the Vietnam war lying around outside like an American helicopter and the odd tank to remind us that Vietnam is a communist state and they beat the US. The top floor which would be a great disco venue is open to the roof from where you can get fantastic views of central Saigon and see just how much this city has developed. Here you do get the impression that Vietnam is rocketing into the first world.
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| Reunification Palace grounds |
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| View from the palace |
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| Bitexco tower with helipad 'lip'. |
Talking of great views some of us went to the Skybar in the Bitexco financial tower on our last evening in the city way up on the 52nd floor. This is known as Vietnam’s tallest nightlife spot and was named the second coolest skyscraper in the world by thrillist.com, no doubt helped by the presence of a helipad which cantilevers from the 52nd floor. Perhaps a great spot for a hot date but I felt somewhat underdressed amongst the trendy clientele. Here you can take a table by sheer glass windows to admire the glittering panorama, and walk all the way round for a mix of views. Saigon is known for its rooftop bars, rated as some of the best in the world. At street level those pulsating skyscrapers just pull you up into their bosom, especially at night. Just be ready for prices as high as the bar itself.
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| Nightscape |
We also visited the colonial style post office in the centre of town which is just about my favourite building in Vietnam, a beautifully French styled testimony to the country’s former masters. Although they had an ignominious departure from Vietnam they sure knew how to construct an elegant piece of architecture slap bang in the middle of the city on the same square as a large Roman Catholic Notre Dam cathedral. Here again, France left it’s mark on the country. Inside the post office you can shop for various knick knacks, and under the main atrium you can choose from a range of tasteful postcards and stamps before you run out of time to post them home. Incidentally, the post office was designed by Alfred Foulhoux, not Gustav Eiffel.
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| Saigon Post Office |
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| Inside! |
Urban Vietnam is a sight to behold, both in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi. Every street is a picture of industriousness, with shops selling tools juxtaposed with motorcycle workshops, mini supermarkets, souvenir shops, luggage shops, coffee bars and goodness knows what. Life spills out onto the sidewalks, with the locals eating and drinking outside at little tables slap bang in the middle of the pavement, wandering dogs (best to avoid!) and parked motor cycles jammed onto every available sidewalk space. Pavements here would have ‘danger, dodgy hole notices’ everywhere if they were in England, to highlight the drain holes, gaps, exposed cables and missing bits of concrete. Here, you just walk with care, and survive with grace, sometimes having to step onto the street as the pavement has disappeared under a welter of human activity! There’s always some enterprising local hawking their wares on the pavement edges, even out in the country!
If you fancy some retail therapy, try Ben Thanh market in the centre of Saigon, marked by a clock tower at the meeting of street Le Lai and Le Loi. Here at night one can buy all manner of things in a very Vietnamese version of a street market, as well as sit down for some street food. What did I buy? Not a lot, just a mere packet of coffee, not being quite as assiduous a shopper as certain others!
Our hotel Signature was very central and perfectly adequate although my door handle had an annoying habit of flying off at the slightest touch, and the whole lock was loose which meant trying your card three or four times before the door would click open. The bed was fine although a bit on the hard side for a Premier Inn fan like me. The view from the hotel window pretty well sums up Saigon, shabby threadbare apartment blocks share space with state of the art high rises, and the amount of construction going on indicates a Vietnam that wants to move into the big league as an Asian star. Go to the eighth floor for a really good cityscape view from the breakfast room, where you can get your custom omelette made on the spot while you wait.
One evening was spent at the fine looking Saigon Opera House where we watched a young acrobatic troop go through the gears to produce an outstanding performance using all sorts of props to demonstrate their athletic prowess, teamwork and timing. An assortment of poles and beams were used to elevate them to dizzying heights where everything depended on the commitment and strength of their teammates. Afterwards they treated us to a sing song on the foyer stairs, as various audience members sat with them for photos.
No visit to Vietnam of course would be complete without continual reference to the Vietnam war which left such a shadow on Vietnamese and US history. We visited the Cu Chi tunnels (‘The riverside suburb base for revolutionary activities’), a 75 mile long complex which was dug out by the Vietcong in collusion with the local rural community to wage guerilla warfare against the US. In one case I heard the Vietcong even dug right under an American airfield! Essentially the Americans wanted to stop the communists in the north of Vietnam and had the south on their side, especially the urban areas. The rural areas according to one of our guides were more susceptible to communist propaganda and the influence of the Viet Cong.
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| Nasty trap |
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| Hands Up! |
The tunnels were used to hide from the Americans and also to lay particularly nasty traps for those Americans who did enter the area. The Vietcong specialised in the sort of hidden trapdoor that you stepped on to find your leg had given way and been impaled on a hidden spike. Or there was the set of spikes that would spring down on you when you opened the door of a village hut. Slap bang in the middle of the attraction is a rusting American tank that was ambushed by the Vietcong. Now everyone wants their photo taken beside it. The Vietcong also made sandals that could be worn both ways so that they could leave a track for the Americans to follow leading them in the wrong direction. Very cunning! As was ‘the cover of secret refuge,’ a cleverly disguised hatch for a Vietcong to disappear down and hide away in a very small space, demonstrated by a number of our party.
We had the opportunity to walk through a small section of tunnel, or rather crouch like a giant hunchback rodent to get through, especially for someone like me who is north of six feet tall. These tunnels were designed for Vietnamese people, many of whom are small and sinewy and would have been able to scurry around a little easier. However the tunnels had their own problems for the Vietnamese, with scarce air, food and water, and ants, venomous centipedes, scorpions, spiders and vermin. A few metres of tunnel was enough for me, being sandwiched between people in front and behind. We also had the chance to fire live ammunition rounds from the iconic AK 47 and suchlike for those of us who wanted to stir up our inner Rambo. I fired ten bullets from an M16 having no idea at all how near (or far from) the target I was.
On another day we visited the Vinh Trăng pagoda/temple on the way to the Mekong delta which is a large religious site paying homage to Buddha. An extensive rectangular area positively streaming with people houses gardens, pagodas, and a temple, as well as three very large statues of Buddha, one of which is truly Gulliver size, lording it over the whole site, and displaying a distinctive laughing face. You have a chance to take off your shoes and go into the temple and observe the Buddhist monks chanting, before they process out to sit down at long tables for their food.
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| Incredibly large Buddha |
Religion in Vietnam is a mixture of different flavours, Buddhism, Taoism, Confusianism (more of a worldview) and of course veneration of ancestor spirits. Added to this has been the Catholic Church with the French influence and a small amount of Protestant Christianity. The countryside is scattered with family tombs indicating the deep regard the Vietnamese have for their dead.
The Mekong delta (nine dragon river delta) comprises nine river tributaries flowing into the sea from the twelfth longest river in the world (2703 miles). It is dominated by flat flood plains, the rice bowl of Vietnam. This boat and water experience unloads you at the river quay where you traverse one of these mighty tributaries to a delta settlement, a medley of tropical vegetation, walkways over rivulets, villages with their wooden huts and country lanes. Here we sat round tables sampling local confectionary and health products, then decided how many dongs we would exchange for said produce. Later we were shown how the coconut is processed, from cutting open the shell and extracting the juices to the making of sweets. Our minds were then exposed to the more weird and wonderful, coconut wine and the truly stomach churning snake wine. The sight of dead snake coiled in what can only be described as swamp liquid in some sort of preparation bottle was a truly bizarre point in this roller coaster of a holiday. Better dead than alive as at least we didn’t meet a live cobra, a snake that can actually be found in this area!
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| Snake oil |
There were chances however for us to develop our love affair with nature. Some of us were able to hold a rack full of bees for the camera, whilst a live python was produced for serpent lovers to drape around their shoulders. For those of us into less threatening creatures a carriage ride pulled by donkeys was laid on.
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| Edge of the food spectrum |
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| Culinary artistry |
We did enjoy a canoe ride through the mangroves back to the main boat. Paddled expertly by a Vietnamese lady complete with conical hat, we rode the narrow channels of mud brown waters between overhanging vegetation and sleepy settlement, steering our way past fellow craft and passing the odd berthed canoe with its occupant stretched out for a nap, racing to the finish line with another boat load of fellow travellers.
Everywhere the shadow of the Vietnam war continues to cast its shadow, a conflict that had the US commit 549000 soldiers at its height. We paid a visit to the War Remnants museum in Ho Chi Minh City (a Trip Advisor survey made it a world top ten museum visit) which gives the background and history to the Vietnam conflict from the early days when the French struggled to maintain colonial rule, increasing US military support and then of course a huge upgrade in US firepower to defeat communism. Outside are numerous items of military hardware, from tanks to
planes, demonstrating the formidable weapons the Americans had at their disposal that were still insufficient to defeat the Vietcong. Being in an organised tour meant you had to tear yourself away whilst still in the middle of the Vietnam story.
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| Top Ten visit! |
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| Outside War Remnants Museum |
Having finished with Saigon and environs, we flew from Hanoi to Da Nang, in the middle of the country, from where we got the coach to Hoi An, an ancient port and now popular resort teeming with tourists from China, Korea and the west. On the way from Da Nang by road one can see the effect that tourism is having in Vietnam, with signs of big construction in the air. We drove past China beach, once the playground of American troops in respite from the war, but now a major development with high rises and a fully functioning beach culture. Nearby are the remains of one of their airfields. Incidentally after the war it was common for pieces of military hardware to be left lying around all over the country, but much has now been cleared up.
Vietnam is a roller coaster of a ride for food, with a high standard of culinary delights throughout. Our introduction to Hoi An was no exception and with a visit to an excellent restaurant with some seriously exotic fare. Hoi An is known for its ‘diverse and excellent food.’ This was lunchtime, and I made the serious error of ordering a starter and main which meant I had two dinners, the starter being almost as big as the main. I managed it but was on the edge of extreme gluttony mode. Then there is the coffee, Vietnam being the world’s second biggest exporter of coffee after Brazil and the world’s leading exporter of robusta beans.
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| Tra Que village |
Nearby Tra Que village specialises in fresh vegetables. Here we had a tour of the farm, exercising our sense of smell on the various herb and plant samples shared with us by the sinewy young man who took us round. The locals demonstrated how to action two watering cans at the same time, and the finer points of using a hoe. Here we did a cooking class and also experienced a massage, a first for me. We sat in a line and a group of local ladies gave their full attention to pummeling and manipulating our legs and feet, finding the sweet spot on the sole and making me wince somewhat!
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| Hoi An river |
The old town of Hoi An hugs the riverbank and follows a grid iron street pattern, a medley of shops, cafes and restaurants with a few temples and pagodas thrown in which seems to have been protected from high rise development. Here of course is the famous Yaly couture tailors of Top Gear fame who have no less than three shops in the centre. Some of us went down to get kitted out with various items of sartorial elegance, and I found myself sucked into the tunnel of being measured up for a suit before I could think of any good reason not to. What I hadn’t bargained for was the full body scan wearing no more than a pair of boxers and a stretchy speedo type pair of briefs to go over them. Hold your middle aged spread in lads! I was on a roll and ordered two shirts and a pair of shoes as well. This was nothing on one of my fellow punters, a fellow Brit not in our group, who threatened to hoover up the entire week’s production of Yalys as a jacket order developed into a string of shirts and shoes.
We had a day off before moving on, so I took the opportunity to write some postcards, an activity I’ve lapsed in on more recent holidays. But this is Vietnam, a bit special, friends and family would appreciate a bit of news from the east. I found out later that the arrival of my postcard at relatives in Liverpool caused significant excitement! A trip to the tailor at 1 punctuated the day, unfortunately they wanted me to come back at 5 for a final adjustment, which shortened my beach fun. I still rented a bike for a criminally low price, speeding between town and beach. The Lotus hotel had its own private beach, shame about the weather that had clouded over in the afternoon. By the time I arrived at the beach almost everyone in our party had gone, having done the morning beach shift. Incidentally Hoi An is the place to be in Vietnam. Located on the coast in the middle of the country, it’s a far cry from the manic activity of Saigon and Hanoi, a place for cool people to hang out. Hoi An is like taking a long cool bath, a respite from the frenetic pace of urban life, or perhaps like a rest in one of the numerous hammocks scattered around the country.
Our hotel, the Lotus Hoi An boutique hotel and spa, lies on the street Cua Dai east of the town centre, with a regular shuttle bus service into the town. After visiting the tailors for a fit, two of us decided to walk back to the hotel. An interesting route as the very long street was an absolute buzz of activity with a whole range of interesting vendors selling all sorts such as gardening equipment, massages, which proved to be very popular with our group, cafes, restaurants and supermarkets. Trouble was, it was a long straight street which looked kind of the same all the way along. We walked a significant way but it seemed the hotel kept shifting away from us. We were actually on the right road, but somehow overshot the hotel and ended up heading into unfamiliar territory. We learned later that we were well on the way to the beach before we turned round.
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| Dragon river bridge |
It was soon time to move on. On the way to Hue by coach, the old imperial capital, we stopped off at some interesting spots. We passed through DaNang, the fifth largest city in Vietnam and one of Vietnam’s most important port cities as well as being deliciously close to some good beaches. Here is the dragon river bridge, an impressive structure with massive yellow painted tubular steel structures forming the outline of a giant dragon along the line of the bridge, which apparently breathes fire and water each Saturday and Sunday night at 9pm, but we missed that fun! However we did have the chance to walk over its 666m (eek dodgy number!) length.
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| Vietnamese coracle! |
Another internal flight took us to the capital Hanoi. Hanoi itself I found a more interesting experience than Saigon, despite the endemic drenching rainfall. The centre of the old town is a pleasing mixture of French colonial architecture and more modern development, interspersed with stretches of water such as Hoan Kiem lake (the Lake of the Restored Sword). When we arrived in the city centre by bus in the sun it looked very inviting. Once settled in the hotel we spilled out into the local ‘green cars,’ which weave through the manic city centre traffic with only the odd application of brakes. Just a shame that our time in Hanoi was very limited, that’s the nature of this type of ‘getting on to the next place’ holiday.
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| Pastel Hanoi |
To rev up the Vietnamese cultural experience we went to the Thang Long water puppet show in the middle of Hanoi, at the north end of Hoan Kiem lake. Puppeteers cleverly use a small reservoir of water as a stage on which to propel a whole medley of puppet characters who ‘do their stuff’ on water, recreating scenes such as the ‘Dragon Dance’ and ‘Children playing in water.’ The puppets make their appearance from behind screens at the back of the pool, effervescently swish around for a minute or two only to disappear again behind the screens. Musicians sit up to the right and left of the pool acting as lifeguards for the show with their continual musical accompaniment.
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| Those water puppets |
Our last day or two in Hanoi also coincided with the quarter and semi finals of the Asian Games football tournament. We watched Vietnam beat Syria one evening which upped the Hanoi heartbeat as people spilled onto the streets with the flag for all the world making it feel like they’d won the World Cup. A day or two later some of us packed into a cafe to watch the semifinal between Vietnam and South Korea, a World Cup team who were a class or two above Syria and had beaten Germany in the summer. The Vietnamese gave their full blooded support to the team and we added our cheers to their decidedly deafening celebration when they scored a goal from a free kick to reduce the final loss to 3 - 1. In the end South Korea best Japan 2 - 1 in the final. Had a coconut drink at this cafe, literally drunk out of a coconut shell, sweet and cool, although not my absolute favourite drink. Apparently locals advice you not to drink coconut water after 5pm as it has diuretic properties which may disturb your sleep. However before 5 its great for rehydrating!
Halong Bay, a natural world heritage site up in the north east and a four hour ride from Hanoi, is a pretty special treat to finish the holiday, innumerable rocky limestone outcrops (karsts) jutting out of the sea and scattered over a vast area. This is real James Bond territory, the sort of spot for Mr Big to have scooped out some hidden lair in one off those outcrops or under the sea. All in place for James Bond to jet ski his way into the lair dressed in suit and bow tie and place a few sticks of dynamite in appropriate places. Our assignment was simply to disembark from our yacht for a spot of kayaking or boating, or to visit the odd cave between bouts of eating, drinking and sleeping. Even drenched in mist and rain this is a special visit. Thankfully the weather cleared overnight and views were much better in the morning.
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| Halong Bay scenes |
Back in Hanoi on the last day we visited the Ho Chi Minh complex in the morning, an altogether more sombre experience, centred around the life of the Vietnamese communist revolutionary leader. Here stands the Parliament building as well in the shadow of the elevated and colonnaded mausoleum in which the body of Ho Chi Minh (Bringer of Light) lies perpetually in State. It’s a good idea not to joke too much here as we file along obediently being herded by a very earnest and sober coterie of guards and guides through various buildings and enclosures. In the mausoleum itself a continuous flow of humanity files round three sides of a large chamber, in the middle of which lies the embalmed body guarded by four sentries. The leaflet quaintly describes this part of Hanoi as Ho Chi Minh’s ‘vestige in the presidential palace area,’ pleasantly green with stretches of water, and here you can see House number 54 where he lived and worked from 1954, and the cars used to serve the great man.
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| Ho Chi Minh mausoleum |
On the last afternoon the persistent rain could have been somewhat off putting for anyone who fancied a city tour. One could relax and catch up on sleep in our very acceptable Skylark hotel just north west of the city centre. However we were nearly six thousand miles from home and it would be an arrestable offence not to take advantage of the opportunity to see as much of the city as possible before leaving for the airport. Four of us went on a city trek, bearing down on the old city through drenching rain, skipping from sidewalk to road and back to dodge the motorcycles and overcrowded pavements. We ended up promenading down the edge of the lake and eventually finding St Joseph’s cathedral, a pretty impressive baroque style building, not over embellished inside as you get with so many Catholic Churches on the European continent, the cool light interior a welcome relief from the soaked humidity outside. Contemporary music wafted into the building from outside making us wonder where the disco was.
Next stop was the ‘Hanoi Hilton,’ Hoa Lo prison, (30000 VND entrance fee) the infamous prison where American POWs were kept in the Vietnam war, a dark, dank complex used by the French to keep the local rebels in order before it was used by the North Vietnamese communists. John McCain was kept here after being fished out of a lake in Hanoi that he had the misfortune to land in. He had been on an airforce mission to knock out a power plant and his jet was hit by a SAM. Spiralling down at 550 miles an hour, McCain ejected and landed in Truc Bach Lake in the middle of Hanoi, from where he was fished out by 20 angry North Vietnamese. The rest is history. An unusual twist in this holiday story was that McCain, who rose to be the 2008 republican presidential candidate against Barack Obama, died aged 81 at the very time we arrived in Hanoi. His mother is still alive at the ripe old age of 106!
Overall, what's the deal? Vietnam is a cool visit. A trip like ours was non stop, with little time to hang around studying a full set of museum artefacts or to laze on the beach for a couple of days. However we saw a lot in twelve days, encompassing the length of the country. You could always take it easier on a second visit, spend a week in Hoi An, mosey around Hanoi hopefully without the rain, and get to really fall in love with the country. But it was an excellent first taste.
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