Day 5 Vietnam

Bon Jour my little Pagoda’s

Another early morning wake up call at 6.15 as we were being collected by our new tour guide Dong (that might not be his name) who was taking us to cooking school!

Breakfast was taken al fresco at 7.00 and the sun was up – temperature was probably around mid 70’s…..dont be sad!!
I asked the nice man for a boiled egg – 3 minutes.
“10 minutes” he replied “No” I said…….”3 minutes”
“2 minutes” he replied –
I asked him if he could perhaps send someone over who spoke English…….
He smiled nicely at me and that was the end of that.
I had fruit!

Off we went into Hoi An as it was Cooking School day. “Morning Glory” We were in school by 8.30 where it was time to go to the food market to see what ingredients we would be using.

FIrst we passed the meats – just lying around on tables, next to big meat cleavers …there is no waste so every bit of whatever the animal is used. Tails, feet, hooves, tongues plus all the recognisable bits. Dog is a delicacy here, and at full moon it is considered lucky to eat it only for the first three days. Can you image being a child and waking up to find that Fido is in the porridge!!! No chance of finding him in the egg!

Next it was vegetable time……we learnt the difference between aniseed mint, lemon mint and mint mint…..clearly it wasn’t rocket science for obvious reasons!! Next came ginger, lemon grass and a variety of other grassy looking weeds – however did you know that if you cut yourself, Turmaric is the best thing to rub on you for cuts, burns etc!!! (not the stuff that has already been ground up – the twig thing it naturally comes from.) It was also a chinese medicine lesson as all these spices and grasses have other bodily uses!!

Next it was off to the fish market – not before passing the baby chicks…which were probably going to end up as ‘Chic-en’!!
Eels, makeral, snapper, tuna, calamari,white fish, dark fish – in fact whatever had been caught earlier in the morning. Our chef man said that the fresher the better – they prefer it when the tails are still flapping!!!

FInally it was off to the fruit market – dragonfruit, round looking balls which were from the lychee family, green oranges, custard apples and some other weird stuff that we had never seen before.

Funnily enough we didn’t select anything from the market – our menu had already been pre selelcted and decided and was waiting for us back in the cooking school.

What a brilliant experience – our Chef Lulu showed us how and what to do and then we all had our own cooking stations and made the same. Everything from scratch – nothing out of a packet – just us and the open road!!

FIrst we made soup, followed by spring rolls, followed by bbq chicken with a variety of herbs and spices, crispy pancakes and a mango salad. The meal was excellent and probably the best we have had since we arrived in VIetnam. Guess what you will all be trying when I get home!!!!! I think I may be progressing from Thai to VIetnamese!!!

By 12.45 we were finished and Dong was waiting for us to take us on a walking tour!! We saw a tomb or two, a bridge that was built by the chinese and used to have chinese on one side and japanese on the other. Dong calls them chineee and japanee – so half the time you haven’t got a clue what he is saying and tend to tune out!! Some old house that gets flooded on an annual basis and everything else that is there floats away…….the place is a fountain of history!!!

Fortunately it only took a couple of hours and Indy insisted on going into every art gallery along the way!!

Next it was Lantern time…..we were off to make chinese lanterns……we watched them make the frames all by hand and then we were given our own lanterns to ‘materialise’…..It was just like Blue Peter except there wasn’t one we had made earlier!! (and of course no Shep as he had already been eaten!) Obviously we will be bringing ours back as souvenirs – and then we will attempt to put tea lights in them and hope they don’t catch fire (apparently flame resistant) and then, no doubt, we will chuck them out!!!

Tonight dinner is in the hotel after an exhausting day and then we will most probably come back to our very beautiful suite, watch TV and go to bed. Hopefully tonight, the wild life will remain outside and Indiana can rest easy!!!! (as can I)

On that note – I bid you farewell.

Until tomorrow…….

Lots of love,

A x