Luke's 16th birthday spent in an exotic location, Tam Coc. I asked the girl at the hotel the night before if there was somewhere I could buy a birthday cake. She said they could order one for me. I was curious what a cake would look or taste like since we have seen little in the line of desserts except for overly processed packaged products, fruit and sweet rice.
The girl assured me they could get a birthday cake. I thought this would be a good idea until she told me it would taste like squid. I think there was something lost in translation between birthday cake and fish cake. I went to a corner store and bought the only thing that resembled a western cake - some individually packed chocolate cupcakes. We had seen these left at temples as gifts for the gods, they must then be a good offering for a birthday. Perhaps not. The product did not taste like the picture would lead one to believe. Dry, chalky and dense. No complaints though from the birthday boy.
Breakfast of pancakes.
At 9:45 PM we were to board a train to Hue. A driver took us to the station for 9:00. We met more Canadians in that train station than at any other point on our trip. I was wondering how much we had overpaid for our train tickets after taking to these Canadians. The train pulled up at the scheduled time and we were shuffled in car 11 - I guess the luxury car. Jack and I have had many overnight trips on Asian trains and they never looked like this! I guess we paid for the luxury ticket. I was raving about the cabin and Levi was teasing me how I lament constantly about the show Tiny House Hunters and now I was thinking this cabin was luxury. He agreed though that he like the "open concept living".
As Jack said, Luke did get a car for his 16th birthday, a train car.
The train ride was 11 hours, arriving on schedule in Hue. We were wondering how the train system would work, apparently it is punctual.
