We arrived in Hoi An Tuesday and are already on our last night. It has gone by quickly, but long enough; time to move on. When we arrived the city was so busy. On Thursday I figured out why. A huge festival had been on and the city was overrun with visitors. Never having been here before we didn't realize there was a festival until it was over. Now that it is over though, something else has moved in. It seems like the Vietnamese version of "the Voice". Contestants sing on stage and music is blasted out into the crowd. Judges sit in the front row. The music is soooo loud.
We are staying in the Old City. It has beautiful architecture. Many buildings have the original exterior, but the interior has been renovated into chic restaurants and shops. Hoi An has historically been home to tailors. Today, there are hundreds. From what I have seen the quality is hit and miss. Most try to sell silk, but it feels like polyester to me.
Luke and I went to a Vietnamese cooking class yesterday. Our instructor was quite lively and liked to use American slang and sayings that are not so trendy anymore. She was fluent in English, but spoke so quickly I had a hard time understanding her. She insisted she was 29 plus 1, not 30 years old.
We rode bikes to her local market where she showed us many ingredients used in Vietnamese dishes. She kept saying the importance of eating pig legs, but I couldn't catch why she was saying this. Finally I realised she meant that eating pig legs produced shiny boobs. I didn't know this was important. That is just one thing I learned yesterday.
According to Vihn, every food has a health purpose behind eating it. I don't go for a lot of these beliefs, but quite a few things left Luke and I giggling. Many things were for my for my or my boyfriend's cholesterol, or something else, but I am still not sure I understood everything.
Not having refrigeration at home makes daily shopping necessary. The food is fresh.
There are no grocery stores in Hoi An. I find the market shopping exhausting and too much work as everything seems to be negotiated. Luckily with the heat no one is very hungry. On the not so lucky side, my 3 boneracks do not have any weight to lose. We eat breakfast at the hotel and even by supper it is just a light meal.
Back at Vihn's family home (converted into a cooking school), we set out to make 4 dishes. One of the most common dishes, Pho (pronounced fer), is beef broth with rice noodles.
Luke and I both had aching stomach yesterday, but we tasted everything we made. The boys had the leftovers when we arrived back at the hotel.
Next up was lemon grass chicken. Luke thought Vihn was bossy getting him to read the steps aloud. I thought she was entertaining. She kept calling me Mommy-Girl. "Mommy-Girl, you not listening to me. Not like that Mommy-Girl."
Then, crispy pancakes made with rice flour and turmeric, filled with bean sprouts and quail eggs. The pancake was wrapped in rice paper with shrimp and herbs. Delicious!
Lastly we made fresh spring rolls.
This is the first cooking I have done since I left Australia. Daily hand washing of laundry has replaced the cooking. In Hanoi I sent the clothes out to be washed. When they returned smelling worse than when they left I decided to set up my own laundromat.
With the down time in Hoi An we have planned the next few weeks of our trip. A couple in our hotel have travelled extensively, especially in SE Asia. They have given us good tips for navigating Angkor Wat. I booked flights from Saigon to Luong Prabang in Laos and from Vientiane to Phnom Penh, Cambodia. We realized the overland time by bus through Cambodia to Laos and then out to Thailand would be too time consuming.
With Asia being so crowded, Nate has not even asked to play tag since we arrived. What has been his daily staple request is now not possible. They wrestling continues.
Today being Saturday the hotel has filled with many families. The boys just came back from a quick swim in the pool. They could not understand the amount of spitting going on into the pool and along the side. Not sure if any one will go in tomorrow. I need to explain to them that people are not being rude or trying to disgust, it is just a habit they will have to get used to in Asia. Not Singapore though!
