Amanoi

‘There’s a serious problem in Vietnam,’ I told Mr Smith, ‘chocolate isn’t part of the culture.’

In the midst of eating our way from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh, we’d consumed more varieties of banh, com and bun than the second Nguyen dynasty emperor had kept concubines, and cravings for the sugary comforts of home felt like withdrawal symptoms. Thankfully we’d checked into Amanoi in the Ninh Thuan province, on Vietnam’s south-central coast, just in time for afternoon tea.

Like a cartoon pie on a windowsill, the view lured me straight to the hedge-lined terrace. Set on a cliff in Nui Chua National Park among shrub-covered hills and sculptural boulders, I squinted across the vast South China Sea to see if I could glimpse the Philippines.

After recovering from my awe I ate, not chocolate, but banh can for the first time. The little rice-flour cakes are made in a terracotta version of a poffertjes pan, each hole with it’s own lid. Cooked over coal, they were crisp at the bottom and aerated like crumpets in the middle, sprinkled with pork, chicken, fruit or – Mr Smith’s favourite – cooked with egg. By the time he ordered his third helping, staff were giggling.

The same afternoon-tea view greeted us at our ocean-view pavilion, with the added bonus of a northern aspect across to Vinh Hy Bay fishing village. One evening during our stay, Amanoi drove us to the local resort, where we slurped a casual seafood and noodle hot pot and gorged on cha gio spring rolls for the equivalent cost of a few large coffees.

Our pavilion – like the 31 others with views of the lake, mountains and some with private pools – was incredibly private and designed to look like a temple. Its slate-grey tiled roof ducked behind the undulating landscape as we were chauffeured around the property in a buggy.

Inside, a comfortable king bed lay temptingly between a desk looking out to the ocean and a mini-bar with a coffee machine and a lime, should we need garnish for sunset drinks. The television swivelled 180-degrees from the bed to the sofa, where a coffee table with a tropical fruit bowl and hand-written note welcoming us to the Aman family as Ong and Co Smith.

In the bathroom, our square bathtub separated his-and-hers sinks with a small forest outside the floor-to-ceiling windows and the high-pressure rain shower, bless it, opened directly to lounge chairs on the balcony. Not a speck of dust was out of place – there was even a wide-brim straw hat to borrow and a matching fedora for Mr Smith.

We could have spent time lounging by the infinity pool or on the private beach. We could have attended the daily meditation and yoga classes on the waterlily-speckled lake. We could have watched a film under the stars, cycled, cooked, trekked, toured, and done some watersports. Instead, we did nothing. I’d like to blame the high winds that blew sand into our faces when we were getting the grand buggy tour, but I have a feeling that in the event of a gentle breeze, we wouldn’t have changed tact.

I can count on one hand how often we emerged from our sanctuary. Both mornings for breakfast – where we sipped tea and coffee, health-oriented juices and smoothies, and picked something from column A (a cacao chia seed pudding with goji berries) and column B (bun ca fish noodle soup one morning, an omelette loaded with crab meat the next). We left our room for dinner and ate plump pomelo salad studded with tiny, succulent scallops and, upon the chef’s recommendation, the local catch. Its fillets were promptly cooked in banana leaves and the rest made into a delightfully sour soup, served with rice. When we couldn’t finish it, the chef appeared beside our table, head hung in genuine apology. When we returned to our pavilion, there was a pouch of local coffee to take home on the bed.

‘Aman’ is a Sanskrit-derived word for peace while ‘noi’ means place. The tranquillity of this ‘peaceful place’ abounds at the spa facilities surrounding the lake. Although we wished we had more time and deeper pockets to indulge in a spa house (available for a day or half day), I felt that visiting Amanoi without at least one massage would be like visiting Egypt and skipping the pyramids. I chose an essential oil for my namesake Amanoi massage – something spicy with clove and cinnamon – and the next 90 minutes were a blur of deep relaxation, half-sleep and the occasional escaping snore. Mr Smith had the traditional Vietnamese option, the hollow pop, pop, pop of cupping strangely relaxing to hear. After facing the harsh reality of getting up, a buggy drove us back to our pavilion.

I slid open the door like a blissful zombie and was met with dimmed lights. The bath had been filled and pink gerberas floated on the warm water. Twenty candles lined the edge of the tub and staff had gone to town with scattered rose petals. Even the flowers beside the sinks had been changed to roses. As I switched out of mindfulness mode to capture the scene on my phone, Mr Smith called from the edge of the turned-down bed.

‘Babe,’ he swooned, ‘they left us chocolate.’