clare does coffee.

mya cafe 166 văn cao

“Oh, xin chào, Clare,” the security guard says as I pull into the parking area. “Bạn khỏe không?”

“Tôi khỏe,” I say immediately.

From inside, Huong calls out to me. “The usual, Cah-LARE?” Even after all this time, she still has trouble with my name.

This is a routine that we’ve been practicing for more than a year now.

I think the reason I keep coming back to Mya is mostly down to habit. I inherit this from my father. We’re both people who get stuck in the same rut, the same routines, and either don’t want to or don’t see a need for change. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. Habit brings me here.

The usual arrives after a few minutes. Kimbab trung and sinh to chanh leo. I have a chat with the waitress for a few minutes as she sets it down. She’s a new addition to the cafe, and is studying English. I tell her about Australia, and about my life here.

“What is Sydney like?” she asks.

Like my ex, I want to say. Expensive. Hot. Distant. No matter how much you love it, it will not love you back. 

“Sydney is different,” I settle on.

I pay 35,000vnd for my smoothie and 25,000vnd for the kimbab.

“See you tomorrow, Cah-LARE,” Huong says, handing me change. “Hẹn gặp lại.”

zenith yoga cafe 16 Đường Thành Cửa Đông

If I could afford to spend the rest of my life in this cafe, I would. Already, I’m working out the budget in my head: pay double what I pay now in rent to live in Hanoi, spend a week’s worth of food money on a single meal, triple the normal coffee price. My mental checkbooks scream in agony. My stomach cries out for attention.

Don’t be stupid, stupid, my conscience finally speaks up. Think of Haiphong. Think of your life. Think of Europe. Euuuurope.

So it’s decided. I will walk out of this cafe after my meal. I will go back to Haiphong as rich and sensible foreigner. I will continue to save towards Europe.

cafe green bit 27 đường vòng

I'm here truly by accident.

Today I had meant to head out to find a cat cafe described to me by one of my students. The address I was given, 15 Nguyen Cong Tru, didn't make sense, so I kept heading up the street. I figured I'd get back onto a street I knew and head into the city centre from there. Instead, my road popped out onto Ho Sen Lake, an area of Haiphong I've been meaning to explore. A circle around the lake brought me here, to Green Bit.

On the outside, I'm reminded of a hipster type bar, with lots of plants and a second level terrace. Inside, it feels like an English fisherman's cottage. The walls are white and brown wooden beams run along the ceiling.

"Where are you from?" the waiter asks me after I order a coconut coffee. I tell him I'm from Australia, and he just smiles. As I sit down, Somebody That I Used To Know begins playing. He shoots me a cheeky grin.

There's only three other people in here, but it is 3pm on a Tuesday afternoon. There's a couple sitting at a window seat, and a younger man across the cafe. He reeks of weed. I know this because, for whatever reason, he decides to sit next to me.

"Hello tay," he says. "What's your name?”

My name is Piss Off. "Kate," I say.

"Where you from?”

Where you not listening earlier, mate? "England," I say, in my best Australian accent. Eyyynglaaahhhn.

"Do you have husband?”

I hold up my hand, thanking my decision to wear jewellery today. It's a cheap silver ring. "Yes. His name is William." His brother's is Harry. His grandmother is Queen Elizabeth. Piss off.

"Oh." He doesn't look deterred. "Do you have boyfriend?”

It's at this point I get ready to level my crude Vietnamese swears at this man. It's also at this point that my coffee arrives.

**

My coconut coffee is nothing special. That's often the way it is in Vietnam. It's all good, not great. Don't stand out.

I down it in a few sips and go to pay (25,000vnd). I don't really feel like sticking around.

My Place

20 Le Hong Phong

“Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver.” ― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

It’s Saturday morning in Haiphong, and my tutoring student is fifteen minutes late for our class at My Place. That’s not a problem, though, because this means I get fifteen minutes to people watch. Yes, finally, I get to be the observer, and not the observed, because Parkson is the domain of the tay.

There’s four other foreigners in the cafe and I don’t know any of them. This is the hangout of Apollo teachers, so that’s hardly surprising (Apollo staff are notoriously unknown to the wider Haiphong foreigner community). The rest of the tables are filled with locals. The table next to me is a group of loud, middle aged businessmen chain smoking like there’s no tomorrow.

At first, the prices turn most people away from My Place. Coffees start at 50,000vnd — double the price of any other cafe — and a sandwich, the cheapest option on the menu, food-wise, is 70,000vnd. It’s not really within the price range of your average person. And, to be perfectly honest, it’s quite expensive for what it is.

But you’re not paying for the food here. You’re paying for the experience, to be part of this world inside Parkson, where foreigners relax between classes and the wealthy locals discuss business deals. When you go to My Place, for time it takes you to drink your overpriced coffee, you are an elite.

Vietnam, especially Haiphong, is obsessed with image. Poorer countries like Laos and Cambodia are looked down upon by Vietnamese. I think it must be due to their history — the idea that being better than somebody is a nice idea. That isn’t to say that image isn’t important in the West (because is so is) but it’s especially an issue here. People are so concerned how people perceive them, being perfect and ideal.

As I wait with my strawberry sorbet milkshake and tuna sandwich, life around this little bubble of Haiphong elite goes on. There’s three xe om drivers taking a break outside, cigarettes in hand. An old lady pushes her bicycle of fruit along Le Hong Phong. Later that evening, when I go to the market for my weekly fruit and veg shopping, I spend 47,000vnd — 13,000vnd less than what I paid for my milkshake.

Bắc Việt Coffee 3 Hồ Sen

“The opposite of love is not hate. It is indifference.” ― Christopher Pike, Black Blood

I really, really want to love this cafe.

And I really, really want this cafe to love me back.

Bắc Việt Coffee just looks like the sort of coffeeshop I’ve spent months looking for. Close enough to home, cheap, gorgeous interiors, recommended by a friend (thank you, Cuong).

But no matter how hard I will myself into loving everything in this multi-level cafe, Bắc Việt does not reciprocate.

The security guard outside makes a big show of handing me a ticket, and calls me a tây in that slyly amused way every foreigner hears at least once a day. Oh, Westerner, what are you doing in this city? Are you lost? I just put on my resting bitch face and let that do the talking. I learned a long time ago that, even for all my ideals, the best thing to do when something is pissing you off in this city, you walk away.

Inside, the cafe is decorated to resemble a sort of bohemian retreat. I’m always a sucker for textures, and there’s an exposed brick wall, a day bed, blue walls and bamboo framing — perfect. I take the day bed, and, after a moment of hesitation, kick off my shoes and stretch out. There’s no one else in here, so why not?

Nobody wants to take my order when I sit down. When my "chị ơi”’s finally get the attention of the two waitresses sitting ten metres away, there’s no xin chào, just a menu (not in English, but that’s not a problem). Customer service isn’t that big over here, I know, but when a group of Vietnamese students come in a few minutes later, they at least get a smile. When I order my coconut coffee and cheesecake, I get nothing.

My coffee arrives a few minutes later. It’s nothing special.

The cheesecake comes wrapped in plastic. It’s dry and tastes old.

For some unknown reason, a waitress wanders over and turns on the speakers next to me. Loud V-Pop floods the room. This, combined with the traffic noises from the open window, is enough.

Once when I was fifteen, I thought I could make someone love me by showering them in endless devotion.

He was perfectly indifferent.

I have to pay downstairs, and there’s no one at the counter. All the staff are sitting around the cafe on their phones. I (loudly) place my wallet on the counter — that gets someone’s attention. My bill is 50,000vnd. There’s no words spoken between us, the indifferent staff and I. They do not say “have a good day”. I do not say “see you again.”

**

Secret Garden Cafe 9/231 Văn Cao

“And the secret garden bloomed and bloomed and every morning revealed new miracles.” ― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

I think Secret Garden is the most perfect example of why I love living in Haiphong. It’s fifty metres down a little alley off Văn Cao Street, in the downtown area of Haiphong. You don’t know about it unless someone tells you about it — it’s not a place you just stumble across of your own. Everyone here is here by recommendation. And that’s why it’s so, undeniably a cafe representation of Haiphong. You have to find out about it for yourself. You have to go looking. You have to ask questions. And the community answers.

I lived one minute away from Secret Garden for three months and never knew of its existence. I never asked. I moved over to Lach Tray Street last June. It wash’t until November that a friend took me here. I lived in Haiphong for eight months and never knew about what is now my favourite cafe. Now that I look back, it’s not for lack of walking around or not going to cafes — it’s that I never asked anyone, “where’s a good cafe?”. It’s so easy to be caught up in your own life and imagine that you know everything. None of us know everything. Especially not when it comes to Haiphong. Now I always ask questions to everyone I meet. What cafes do you go to? Why do you keep going back? Can you take me there?

It’s so green.

There’s so much green.

I’ve lived in Haiphong for one year now and just about the only thing I miss is my garden at home. I miss green grass and green plants and looking up into treetops. Haiphong is decidedly an in between colour, somewhere around grey and brown and yellow — the colour of the summer’s smog clouds that hide the sky away from March to September. It’s the colour of late afternoon traffic. It’s the colour of faded 2000vnd paper notes crumpled at the bottom of my wallet. Old, yellowing, and just a little dry.

But not here.

Secret Garden Cafe is a paradise hidden just off Văn Cao. It’s a tranquil, atmospheric hideaway. And it’s alive with green.

You can sit in love-seat benches under overhanging vines. You can sit in the glass-paneled indoor room with low tables and cushions to sit on (shoes off, Japanese style). The word ‘zen’ comes to mind. The waitress almost seems out of place with her loud “OK” after taking orders. But this is her world, her paradise, so who am I to criticise?

I’ll be the first to admit the coffee isn’t that special. My usual order is a sữa chua cà phê (yoghurt coffee) and hot churros. There’s not much in the way of food, just cafes and sweets, and the menu is in Vietnamese, but the waitresses speak enough English to help you out if you’re not sure what cà phê dừa is (it’s coconut coffee, which I highly recommend, by the way). Always make sure to specify if you want your coffee hot or cold — this goes for all of Vietnam, though, because hot coffee doesn’t seem to be the standard.

Orders never take too long and there’s free wifi to entertain yourself (as of today, the password is 20092015). There’s a WC which is clean and stocked with toilet paper (always a bonus). Inside has an air conditioner so when summer arrives (which will be soon) no one has to drink their own sweat along with their coffee. When you’re finished, head up the stairs to the house and pay. Be mindful of the white dog. He barks.

My bill comes to 53,000vnd — 28,000vnd for coffee and 25,000vnd for hot churros. It’s a very standard price for Haiphong. “Hẹn gặp lại, Clare,” the waitress says in her booming voice so out of place in this cafe. I don’t know how she knows my name. “Hẹn gặp lại, chị,” I reply. See you again, sister. “Have a good day.”