After weeks and weeks of eating some of the best food on the earth, we finally got our chance to get our hands dirty and cook up some grub for ourselves! Our cooking class began with a trip to the local market, where our teacher took us around and explained all the ingredients while she bought the items for the day. We watch the vendors turn coconuts into coconut powder and milk, the butchers cut pieces of beef and chicken from large blocks of meat, and countless spices, veggies and tofu. We saw from ear mushrooms that are quite disgusting looking, and learned about all the different forms of tofu and why they colour it yellow (with saffron) - which is to give some colour in bland coloured dishes, such as pad thai! Each student in ... read more

In true Asian style, our train pulled into the station almost an hour late, but our hotel pick-up was waiting for us and took us straight to our hotel. Normally we would not have the luxury of this service and would spend the next 30 minutes dodging tuktuk drivers, bartering prices and scanning maps to gain our sense of direction. While this is all part of the great Asian experience, I must say, it was sorta nice to avoid the hassle for once. We stayed at the Winner Inn Hotel for 2 nights, as it was part of our "tour" that we booked in Bangkok. The woman who took care of us at the hotel was very nice and accommodating, even giving us the wifi password that was supposed to be hotel staff use only! She ... read more

HALONG BAY Let me begin by saying two things about Halong Bay: 1. It is beautiful. 2. Our trip there was completely disappointing. (Note: Mike says it was "overrated". I still say disappointing) We booked our Halong Bay boat trip in Hanoi at the Tourist Information Centre. We decided that since we had been under budget (gasp, is that even possible!) so far in Vietnam that we would splurge on this trip and pay for a 2 night trip on a nice boat and really relax and enjoy ourselves. We were promised luxury and delicious food, kayaking, caving, swimming, among many other things and were relatively happy to pay 139$ (not including drinks) each for a 3 day, 2 night cruise around the limestone giants of Halong Bay. We booked our cruise through Pheonix Cruises. It ... read more

We arrived in Hanoi with just enough time to get a taxi to the train station and jump on the first available train to Lao Cai. This is the closest that a train goes to Sapa. From Lao Cai we would take a minibus a couple hours to the small hillside town of Sapa. Sapa was probably our favourite place in Vietnam, despite all the attempted scams and touristy nature of the place – we had an excellent experience and did lots of trekking. Our train left at 8pm and arrived in Lao Cai at 4am. Word to the wise: there are 3 trains nightly to Lao Cai – take the LATEST one possible! We took the first one (first mistake) and had the longest morning ever being scammed by locals and waiting for the other ... read more

Nha Trang After a short stop in Da Lat of just a day, we were eager to arrive in Hoi An where we hoped to meet up with some friends so we spent just a few hours in the beach side town of Nha Trang. We took an overcrowded minibus on yet another windy, hilly, bumpy road with gorgeous mountain views. Travel by bus in Vietnam is very easy and affordable. You buy a ticket from HCMC to Hanoi with stops along the way and you can get on and off buses as you wish. The only trick is that you can only travel with the company you originally booked through. When we were leaving Da Lat, our company, Hanh Café, had no buses going that day, so they put us on the Sinh Café bus. ... read more