According to the DSM-5 aka the bible for all things mental illness/disorder/health related, caffeine intoxication is recognized as an official pathology now. I didn’t think it was possible, but after inadvertently consuming a QUADRUPLE-ESPRESSO’s worth of coffee a few days ago in Vietnam, I was able to personally verify this was indeed the case.

Locally grown coffee beans at Phuc Long in Ho Chi Minh City. Credit gluttonous traveller

The day started off taste-testing local joe at Phuc Long, the Starbucks of Saigon (and perhaps other parts of Vietnam). While it was clearly a chain, I wanted a foolproof idea of local flavor and heard it was a good place to pick up beans, my go-to travel takeaway gift, so off we went. A few sips of the bitter stuff - I ordered the black coffee because they didn’t offer the option of milk on the side with the non-black option (there were only 2 choices) - was all I had post breakfast, followed by some meandering in the local outdoor markets. By 11am it was already 90 degrees plus. Not unbearable just yet, but less than ideal. We returned to the hotel afterwards to prepare for lunch with a local Vietnamese acquaintance, Anh.

credit to destinasian.com

Anh brought us to Cuc Gach Quan, a cozy restaurant designed by an architect initially as a pet project which then blew up after Brangelina dined there on a recent visit. And with good reason: EVERYTHING we ate there was DELICIOUS. Softshell crab salad, spring rolls, fresh squeeze guava juice. Everything. This is when I ordered another coffee, because here they offered to separate the milk. I learned that this was made with the strength of 4 espressos about halfway through, at which point I had emptied the coffee into the glass of condensed, sweetened milk to attempt to dilute.

This turned out to be a huge mistake. Little did I know, I would be spending the next 90 minutes in a hopelessly lost cab, winding around the boondocks of HCMC and nearly hydroplaning in the mid-day thunderstorm that seems to occur in every SE Asian city we’ve been to. Temperatures drop drastically, and combined with air-conditioning it is suddenly a very uncomfortable cold, wet, experience. I was extremely dehydrated despite the water I dutifully chugged, and simultaneously felt the need to dry heave and pee and sleep at the same time. We gave up on our driver after clocking $25 USD (that’s a LOT for a taxi in Saigon, especially one that fails to get you to your final destination- typical rides were between 50 cents and 3 dollars) and stopped at the first coffee shop we saw with English signs. To nobody’s surprise, not a single person at “December cafe” spoke English, but we still picked up waters and used their facilities anyway. For some reason the ladies’ room was out of commission so I was faced with two options, a urinal or the drain…not even a squatter in the men’s toilet. Attempts to vomit into the urinal proved unsuccessful (you’d think it would help because the whole ordeal was smelly and disgusting) but the latter was made to full use. Details will be withheld from this blog post to prevent grossing any readers out further and to save myself any lingering PTSD from that day. Yuck.

We had just about given up and told the next cab driver we found to turn back to the hotel in city centre. Somehow, the next thing we knew, the cab was slowing down and we pulled into a dark alley. The driver had not understood our instructions to return to the hotel, ubt to our first pleasant surprise of the day, we had arrived at our destination: the Marou chocolate factory! Albeit being an hour late, Sam, Vincent and Robert greeted us with friendly smiles and were excellent hosts. The team of faiseurs took us around on a tour of their chocolate factory, from grinding the beans to mixing in the molds and finally packaging in their golden ticket like wrapping (Willy Wonka much?) A few weeks back, they were just names we had found on the internet per a friend’s recommendation, but by the end of that (very long) day we had found kindred spirits in the expat entrepreneurs who were also pursuing their dreams.