SE Asia 2014: Day 8

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Wow, what a full day! Let's get started.

First, a note on the weather. As you have probably gathered, while temperatures have been suffocatingly hot here in southern Vietnam, in terms of precipitation the weather has been good, with only brief spots of rain. Today, however, we awake to angry, overcast skies.

Buffet breakfast at the resort and then we are off on the bus to explore Hoi An, considered one of the jewels of Vietnam's cultural heritage. The unique combination of Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese influences in the old town have earned it a UNESCO heritage site designation. Hoi An's survival was a result of several factors. First, it used to be a major port, but the river gradually silted over and the town literally became a backwater. Second, its proximity to Danang during the war combined with its low strategic importance meant that it escaped the damage inflicted on other areas. Finally, a Pole named Kaszmierz Kwiatowski fell in love with the town and worked tirelessly to have it proclaimed a UNESCO World Heritage site, which finally happened in 1999. Currently, the visitor entrance fees paid for museums and heritage homes are partially funnelled back into preservation activities.

But exploring the ancient town in depth is reserved for the afternoon itinerary. This morning we are going to school–cooking school, that is. We are dropped off at a thoroughly modern facility in the old town that doubles as a restaurant and cooking school. We are assigned a guide, who leads us to the town's local market, a 10-minute walk away. The market is bustling, in fact packed, with both locals, street vendors and tourists. Somehow, motorbikes and porters carrying impossible loads push through the crowd. A riot of colours, sounds and scents.

There we learn from our knowledgable guide about the various ingredients used in Vietnamese cooking and how to choose them. We start with vegetables: lemon grass, cilantro, ginger, garlic, galanga, lotus root and leaves, morning glory, chrysanthemum, banana flower, carrots, and much more. It's interesting that in several cases, they have "western" and "vietnamese" varieties of vegetables, where the "western" style is milder; garlic and ginger are examples. Some intriguing cutting tools are shown and quickly purchased.

Then we move to a fruit stall and learn to identify a multitude of Vietnamese fruits: mango, melon, papaya, guava, jackfruit, ramatan, logan, durian, pomelo, orange, grapefruit, and others that I have forgotten. Violet is on the lookout for the fabled red dragon fruit, but our guide confirms that there is none here.

Next we move to the meat and fish area, which is under a large but low (for me) tent. We see mostly women but some men binding up bushel baskets of live crabs, cleaning shrimp, cutting up fish. We learn how to tell male and female crabs apart, how to tell if shrimp is farmed or wild, and how to tell definitely whether a fish is fresh. (I'll sell the secret to each of these to you for a price.) Of course, there is also a variety of meat for sale, mostly chicken, pork and beef, but also cat, dog, and some things we're not sure about.

We are pestered incessantly by vendors, but I have to say that they are less annoying than some of the Chinese ones we ran into last year. Generally, if you ignore them or say "no thank you" and turn away, they leave you alone. However, I do get tricked today by a lady carrying fruits and vegetables on the traditional Vietnamese balanced pole. When I snap her picture, she immediately rushes over and starts tugging on my shirt for money. I realize that she and her ilk are tourist plants who are deliberately walking by tourists and looking photogenic.

We return to the cooking school and spend about a half hour observing some techniques of traditional Vietnamese cooking, including making rice chips; frying sesame seeds, peanuts and shallots; making rice paper; creating rice flour; and more. There's a section of the building where a selection of "gourmet" items have been prepared and are available for sampling, including silkwood salad, frog curry, and steamed monkey brain. Yes, I try the silkworm salad, which actually contains fried silkworm cocoons. They taste like a combination of nuts and smoked oysters.

Cooking class is held upstairs. We are seated on benches at tables with the raw materials and tools we will need at hand. Our instructor demonstrates how to prepare each dish, aided by several assistants who move around the tables. As in other cooking classes we have attended, a large angled mirror allow us to see exactly what our instructor is doing. We start with a rice-paper roll. The trick is to have the rice paper slightly moist. Next we marinate some chicken with a variety of spices and herbs and skewer it. It's taken away to be BBQ'd for us. We next attempt a "Vietnamese pancake," which is actually more like an omelette and is actually quite challenging to do right. Lastly, we peel and shred mangos to make a green mango salad. By the time we have finished devouring our delicacies, our chicken is ready and we wolf that down, too. Everything is delicious, and we are ridiculously pleased with ourselves.

Cooking class over, we meet our local guide for Hoi An, who instructs us to call him T.V. We return on foot to the ancient village for a walking tour. There are many highlights. First, the Japanese Bridge, a famous cultural landmark built in 1593, which is guarded by monkey gods on one end and dog gods on the other, and which includes a shrine. Next we visit an ancient house inhabited by the same family for a dozen generations, where the entire family is involved in the craft of silk embroidery, followed by the stunningly beautiful Cantonese Assembly Hall (one of several Chinese halls) where there is not one but two incredible dragon statues. Then we drop in on a silk factory and shop and once again hear about the lifecycle of the silk worm. This particular shop specializes in incredible reproductions of photographs done in silk using tiny thread knots. Vi and I succumb to the beauty of one piece of art and we purchase it. We also visit the Quan Cong Pagoda, dedicated to the legendary 3rd-century general, and the Hoi An Museum of History and Culture.

So far today, there have been a few short bursts of rain and wind, but we've been lucky to have been mostly under cover at the time. We take a break at a local bar with a happy hour. I am not much of a beer drinker, but I have to say that a cold beer in a frosted glass is just the ticket when you have been walking in high-30s weather and oppressive humidity. We have tried several local beers and they are quite good. BTW, the Vietnamese work for beer is "bia". I joke that they must have borrowed it from the Ozzies.

The remainder of the afternoon is focused on shopping. T.V. takes us around to what he judges to be the best stores in the categories of our choice. We are in a silver jewelry store when the heavens open and a massive deluge erupts. Miraculously, outdoors life goes on. Motor cyclists magically sprout ponchos and wares are quickly pulled back from the street to shelter. We wait until the rain has lessened to the point where you can see your hand in front of your face, then troupe to the bus, getting extremely wet in the process. The streets have quickly filled with water (no underground sewer system in an ancient town) and our footware and everything else is thoroughly soaked.

Back at the hotel, we shower and change before supper. The weather seems to be lifting. We take the bus to a nearby restaurant, named The Fields because it is situated in the middle of a field, but the last road is too narrow for our bus, so we have to walk it. It's a beautiful location al fresco under a tent, but by the standards set so far, the meal is mediocre. Halfway through supper, there is another brief but intense downpour, but happily the rain stops in time for the walk back to the bus.

It's late and we are wiped. It's been a grand day.

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