Our cooking class began with the tour of the local markets and explanations of the various fruits and vegetables on display such as dragon fruit, and of course the walk through the meat section, which included on display, skinned frogs and a man de-shelling live crabs.

Next stop was the cooking school located above a restaurant. We were told there would be a mini test at the end and a pass was required to receive a certificate. All very serious. There was only 3 of us in the group. We were accompanied by an interesting ‘ocker’ Australian by the name of Paul (no not Paul Hogan) who had brought his disabled son to Vietnam for dental surgery (much cheaper than in Australia). We cooked Vietnamese version of tomato soup (very different to Campbell’s), crispy fish spring rolls with dipping sauce, clay pot pork and steamed rice. It was a lot of food to eat at 11 in the morning. It was finished off with bananas in coconut milk and sesame seed – a favourite Vietnamese dessert. We passed our mini test (just), were awarded a certificate and given a pair of chopsticks as a gift and were asked to recommend the cooking class to our family and friends.

The rest of the day was really about filling in time (walking, shopping, swimming, blogging) before our evening flight back to Sydney.

Our journey has come to an end but it is a journey that perhaps raises more questions than answers. The experiences have been great, the people have been wonderful, the Thai belly has been minimal, no signs of malaria sickness (not yet anyway).

However, these are countries that have had a turbulent history and many people remain poor with limited or no access to medical services. Development is happening but who benefits the most? – big business – the executives and government officials while the worker gets paid abysmal wages. Is corporation the new colonisation? And the people just get on with trying to make ends meet and keeping their family together and remaining locked into superstitions and cultural norms that seem incomprehensible to us in the western world. Furthermore, what global warming might do to these struggling simple villagers is frightening.

Our time here has been short but it has given us some wonderful experiences and a small window into the lives and culture of the Indochina people. Not matter what life throws at them they carry on, free of grudges and resentment, to do the best for their family and their country. This is what binds them together.

Our favourite place – Luang Prabang in Laos – beautiful setting, quaint, not touristy, just an authentic subsistence village life.

Our best experience – probably the challenging day of being thrown into the countryside of Cambodia on various modes of transport – ox-cart, canoe and narrow motorboat, not forgetting the canoe trip through the swamp.

We will need to return to our photos again and again to remind us of all that we have done in the space of 2 short weeks.

Thank you for following us on this trip through the blog.

We hope you enjoyed our daily diary and photos.

The verdict??… Acceptable compared to the alternatives in Vietnam. ‘Gloria Jeans’ has successfully transplanted their product to Vietnam. (For better or worse)

Lunch was at a ‘french villa’ tucked away in lush gardens beside the Mekong. Lunch included elephant ear fish with curly carrot stuffed in its mouth as decoration (see photos). We think we spotted an ABC journalist also having lunch – Paul Barry. Our group consisted of all Aussies – a family of 4 from Sydney and a couple from Rockhampton. There seems to be many Aussies here. I haven’t heard too many American accents. I wonder why that is?!

After a swim and recuperation time back at the hotel we ventured out to find another Vietnamese restaurant for our last night in Vietnam. The highlight of the evening was not so much the food, but who walked into the restaurant as I was devouring my lemongrass and chicken dish –Margaret, a colleague from work. I knew she was in Vietnam but we never thought our paths would actually cross. Of all the “jin joints in Saigon”, as they say, she happened to walk into our restaurant. Couldn’t believe it.

Back to the hotel for another night of falling asleep listening to the honking bikes and cars on the streets of Saigon.

John & Liz Photo & Video Gallery

Enjoy…

The tunnels & history (from the Viet Cong perspective) was fascinating, and I actually crawled thru 20 metres… Liz opted out to carry my backpack to the other end. There was around 250km of underground tunnels & rooms.. an awful lot of work in digging the tunnels out, which were dug over 30 years after WW2. See photo gallery for more photos of the tunnels.

We then continued onto another large temple site the ‘Cao Dai Temple’. Cao Dai is an unique Vietnamese religion that merges 3 religions – Catholicism, Buddhism & Confusium. The Cao Dai Temple is like a Walt Disney fantasia of the East. Its exterior is decorated with multi-colored dragons of all shapes and sizes competing for space with a number of swastikas. Above the main entrance is the all-seeing holy eye, the symbol of the Cao Dai sect. We stayed in the gallery to watch the people have mass & prayers, which happens 4 times a day.

Lunch was a pre-arranged meal at a local restaurant, obviously set up for tour groups, and food was sub-par Vietnamese (ie: I think it was meant to be Vietnamese??).. very ordinary, and disappointing.

The long 2 1/2 hour drive back to Saigon on very bumpy roads was a bit uncomfortable, but we survived.

For dinner, we got adventurous, and decided to walk 15 minutes across the town at night to a recommended street stall style Vietnamese restaurant, crossing many streets, still packed with commuters on motorbikes. Basically many different cooking stalls around the edge of the alfresco area, prepare different dishes off the common menu & the waiters work all this out… food is very authentic (after our lunch experience). Some of our usual favourite Vietnamese dishes were not on the extensive menu, so we had to be adventurous in our selection and we ‘won some & lost some’.. however saved by the standard Banana fritters & coconut ice-cream. Anyway it’s all adding to our memoirs, and we made is safely back home.

Liz has done well with Lipton black tea or green tea being very nice in most places so far… We even got our normal Twinnings Peppermint tea in many venues.

Interestingly, even though there is now American diplomatic ties with Vietnam, there has been no McDonalds or Starbucks here.. Only an occasional KFC.

Today involved a tour of some of the main sites of the city. It was a bit like visiting Canberra but with high humidity, sudden downpours and bustling traffic.

First stop was the War Museum – which particularly focussed on the Vietnam War and America’s involvement. It was pretty depressing. Quite graphic photos were shown of victims of bombs, torture and agent orange. Of course it was pretty much told from one point of view but it was hard not to be dispirited by the violence of war, the loss of lives on both sides and the atrocities committed. The use of agent orange on the landscape and the civilians is hard to justify.

We had lunch in a city restaurant – yummy Vietnamese food once again. The restaurant was a short walk from our hotel. You know how in the city of Sydney on the pedestrian crossings ‘LOOK RIGHT’ is written on the road for the benefit of international tourists so they don’t get run over. Well they need that here in Vietnam – but ‘LOOK LEFT’ for tourists who do the same here (not mentioning any names).

After lunch we were given a tour of the city post office built by the French in the late 1800s and the Palace, also built by the French. The palace has quite a history – being a palace for French leaders and then South Vietnamese leaders and finally Saigon City leaders. It was a bit like visiting Old Parliament House – seeing the president’s office, the dining room, the meeting room for national dignitaries, the meeting room for international dignitaries (including past Foreign Minister Downer from Australia), the bunker to escape the bombs etc. It was so humid the sweat was just pouring off us. We were glad to get back to our air conditioned room for a rest. Our hotel is also in the French style having been built in the 1930’s.

Tonight, we took an evening cruise down the Saigon River enjoying a typical buffet dinner, and the on-board local entertainment … pretty average food as usual, however the entertainment of musicians & dancers were quite good… even a roaming magician.

This holiday has definitely had a focus on boats, which is great as I love boats, though it means you constantly have this swaying motion even when on land. Our boat ride today took us to a pottery making village. The village is quite poor and struggling to survive as the young people are not interested in the pottery making profession and move to the city for other job options. We were given a demonstration of pottery being made on a manual potter’s wheel by an 87 year old women who has been making pottery since she was 17 yrs old. She made it look easy. The power for the potters wheel came from a younger woman who used her foot to keep the potter’s wheel spinning. I was then given a go (see the video in the photo gallery!!). My pot was placed on the shelf with other tourists pottery attempts, to be on exhibition for years to come, so if you ever visit the pottery village in Hoi An make sure you look for my pot – it is decorated with the letters ‘L I Z’.

The other highlight of the day was John being measured by a tailor for a new suit. Hoi An is a centre for silk making and famous for its tailors. He was measured (see photos!) at 9:30am in the morning, a first fitting check at 4pm, a 2nd fitting check at 5:15pm and then delivery to our hotel room at 9pm – all on the same day… (Aussie tailors have a lot to learn about customer service). Although the Vietnamese staff sometimes work 14 hr days to meet the demand.

After a rejuvenating swim in the hotel pool, we ventured back into the town for some shopping, good bargains to be had, but one very quickly tires of the pressure placed on you to buy something every time you stop to look. Dinner, again, was delicious Vietnamese food, sitting on an upstairs terrace overlooking the river and the street below lit up with Chinese lanterns – very pretty.

After dinner, as the nightly torrential rain storm hit, we took cover in local art gallery, and ended up investing 3.8 million in original Vietnamese artworks… hopefully a sound investment for the future.

We really are having an extraordinary holiday, some wonderful experiences.

Our boat took us to a floating fishing village (home to 200 local fisherman & families) that operates in Ha Long Bay. We were transferred to small bamboo boats and rowed around the islands and the fishing village. We stopped in at the floating school and saw the teacher in action. However, only primary school is provided. To go to secondary school the children have to go the mainland, a 4 hour motorboat trip. This rarely happens and the children become fishermen like their fathers or oarswomen for the tourists. We also stopped in at a pearl centre where they showed you the intricate method of planting and caring for the pearl inside the shell mulusc. Of course there were some lovely pearl necklaces for sale for many US dollars.

Back on the boat we headed back to port and treated to an early lunch. If you get the chance to go to Ha Long Bay it is definitely worth it, a beautiful place, possibly one of the 7 natural wonders of the world (see http://sevennaturalwonders.org/) .

The rest of the day was spent driving back to the airport to catch our flight to Danang. All I can say is that it was good to finally arrive at the airport in one piece. Along the way there was lots of crazy overtaking of trucks!!

Our flight to Danang, in the central Vietnam was pleasant, and then a 40 minute car ride to our hotel in the old city of Hoi An…. So an afternoon of travelling was a bit tiring.. however our river side resort is reasonably new and very comfortable.

As we cruised, we enjoyed a Vietnamese lunch, and then arrived on a secluded beach to explore caves which were till recently, homes for fishermen & their families … Liz went swimming & then we paddled in kayaks around the small islands… real paradise. Our sailing continued (well motoring really, the sales are ornamental) and we dropped anchor in a quiet area between all the islands.

Liz did some fishing for squid (and she caught a small one), although as the full moon rose, there was too much light, so the squid were not attracted to our lures.

Another traditional Vietnamese degustation meal of many, many courses followed, and then we all retired to our cabins for the night. A very pleasant day.