An Lam Retreats Saigon River

It’s been a while since Mrs Smith and I have lain in a four-poster bed at 3pm, freshly bathed and clutching large glasses of Malbec, with no intention of moving until morning (save for a quick cocktail at sundown).

It's somewhat indulgent, but we feel it's justified for two reasons. Firstly, we’ve earned it: our arrival at the boutique hideaway on the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City is preceded by a night in a Mekong Delta homestay that takes the word ‘authenticity’ to its most extreme definition. Think hard wooden beds, a family that spoke as little English as they had interest hosting us, mozzies galore and a community of dogs barking every 10 minutes throughout the night. We learnt a lot about Vietnamese village life, loved it, and would probably not do it again. We are ready for luxury.

Secondly, An Lam practically purrs you into bed. Our Deluxe room is lavished with all manner of sofas and soft spots to recline and repose dotted around a number of rooms separated by a huge wood- and glass-panelled wall. Like all the best hotel enclaves, it takes about half an hour to explore the place, as we wander across polished wood floors to the sumptuous bathroom stocked with local toiletries, out onto the private terrace, and back into a closet of proportions that would make a Kardashian verdigris with envy.

Sensing our wine tasting is going to go on for the long haul, we pad over to the Electrolux espresso machine and are perusing the global sachet selections for a half-time caffeination when our butler rings. Sorry, did I not mention the butler? They come with the room. He wants to know how we are getting on, if we want clothes folded, that sort of thing.

Eventually we tear ourselves away from our pamper palace and explore the grounds. A grand wooden staircase – built by Mr Lam, the furniture-making former owner – takes us downstairs and past a glass-fronted kitchen in which chefs are whipping up delights for the evening. Raymond Blanc has apparently given his seal of approval in the past. Margaritas are served under trailing tropical branches and we hide among the bright bougainvilleas as the sun dips across the Saigon River, before retiring back to our room. I’d love to recount more of day one but this is a family website.

The following morning, after a phenomenal fuel-up on crêpes suzette and the kind of coffee that electrifies you into action, is a lot busier. A 20-minute speedboat bumps us through the river’s carpets of vegetation into Ho Chi Minh City itself and we are quickly thrust into urban life.

They have an interesting way of getting around in Vietnam’s largest city. It essentially involves jumping on a motorbike – with your husband or wife in tow, plus any kids you might have propped up on a stool between your legs – and zipping into a cascade of likeminded individuals, then driving at high speeds on any side of the road, pavement or roundabout you choose until you screech miraculously to a halt at your destination. It takes a while to get used to.

Several shops and museums (including the thought-provoking War Remnants Museum) later, Mrs Smith and I are hoisted unceremoniously onto the back of one of these bikes each for a breakneck street-food tour of the city. As we careen among kamikaze bikers across numerous suburbs, our meals go from intriguing (fried liver and papaya salad) to divine (pork and beef soup with lemongrass) to testing (grilled chicken feet) to downright offensive (developing duck embryo). The frog’s legs, on the other hand, are much better than we’d remembered, even if they do have a tendency to repeat themselves on the long and winding taxi drive back to our hidden hotel.

The food at An Lam offers no such surprises. In fact our only criticism would be that the schizo Gallic/Vietnamese menu keeps us in a permanent state of indecision. When you’re forced to choose between French toast and pho to start the day, you end up having both and extending breakfast far beyond its normal boundaries.

In fact, time does become elastic at An Lam. While Ho Chi Minh City operates at full tilt and Mekong tours zip you around the sites in a flash, this spot encourages you to stop, slow down, and perhaps read that Graham Greene novel set in Saigon’s sweaty streets. Even the river glides by at an admirably languid pace.

With our flight home looming, we know we can’t while away every minute in a luxurious trance, so we force ourselves into an air-conditioned 4x4 with a private guide – organised by the hotel – to visit the nearby C? Chi tunnels, the famous subterranean outpost of the Viet Cong resistance army during what locals refer to as the ‘American War’.

It's fascinating, but the hotel’s magnetic pull stops us from dallying too long. Having scrambled through the claustrophobic passageways, fired the odd AK46 and felt a queer sense of exhilaration as the guns’ cordite floated into our nostrils, and watched a brilliant piece of anti-US propaganda in an underground bunker, we are soon back at An Lam, face down on a massage table, receiving a pummeling in the Swedish fashion, and wondering how we can bring our butler home with us.