Cooking up a storm in Vietnam

Up early and into town for a cooking class was the first order of the day. We arrived at the Morning Glory restaurant and the mass was broken up into smaller groups and given traditional conical shaped hats to wear before we headed off on a walking tour of the local markets. The purpose of the hats is open to conjecture.

Possibly for a bit of local authenticity, more likely to as some sort of practical joke the locals like to play on the hoards who invade their cramped market space, bumping into stalls, taking invasive photos and generally getting in the way of commerce. We started off looking at some seeds and then quickly breezed through the meat section. At this point we lost one of the party due to an upset stomach. Luckily he did not follow us into the fish sections. He might have been OK in the fruit and veg but by then he was long gone. The remaining seven of us were very taken by all the sights, smells and constant stream of information pouring out of our knowledgable guide.

We then traipsed along the river looking like a clan of oversized, garishly dressed, camera wielding, backpack toting, sweaty locals on our way to the classroom. This was a very interesting experience. Somewhat difficult to stay awake after being so exhausted from the tour - however we persisted. The room was laid out exactly the same as Master Chef with about 50 eager students all willing and keen to wield the razor sharp knifes and create huge billows of flames from their individual burners and frying pans. It was a minor miracle no one got seriously hurt. All good fun though. A huge range of local herbs and spices was presented to us each one explained as to why they are used and what impact they have on the dish in question. Also a fair amount of information as to the general health benefits of some of them (not quite sure why you'd want to rub turmeric on your skin as I would thought it would turn it yellow after a while...).

We learnt and participated in creating 4 dishes and devoured them whilst doing so. Pretty hard to get it wrong being under the watchful eyes of the many helpers and all the difficult parts pre-mixed. Luckily were given the recipes as well. So if anyone would like to try them - by all means ask and we'll provide copies for you :). After the resulting significant lunch (pretty much the first we'd had on the trip) - we lurched back into the heat of the town to start re-tracing our steps to collect goods previously ordered. The longer we spend here, the more we think we know where we are going, however it seems that shops that were there one day are gone the next. This is either confusion created by a combination of heat, similar buildings, shop fronts, streets and people or some sort of weird parallel universe conjuncture where things are almost the same but change ever so slightly. I'm going with the second one. It seems impossible to to walk along any particular strip without drifting sideways into some shop or another to haggle over stuff we don't need. This ultimately resulted in 6 visits to various ATM's throughout the day. Whilst dotted all over they don't actually dispense enough cash to be of any significant value - they do however charge fees every time and thus we also keep the financial organisations happy as well (who'd ever work for bank? one may ask). Laden with goods we struggled from one end of town to the other (sometimes in circles) spreading joy and goodwill wherever we went. Back to comfort of the air-conditioned room for two hours recovery. No time for a swim, but enough for the esteem building event of walking across the road to purchase water and deposit laundry. There would be about 10 small business there feeding of the cheapskates who look for less expensive services than those provided in the hotel and when they spot someone actually walking down the driveway a flurry of activity occurs all along the strip. Lots of waves, smiles and pleas ensue.

And then back into town for more fitting, tweaking and a lovely dinner on a terrace overlooking the river and the swarming night time throng congregating around the ornately lit bridge. Needless to say, we are now somewhat wiser in regards to the source of the flavours in the local cuisine. Our stroll (aka . shopping) after dinner saw us swimming in our own clothes as the humidity and heat rose to new levels. Armed with yet another load of purchases we eventually caught the shuttle bus back the sanctuary where we prepared for our stocktake and pack up the next day.