It rained and rained and rained alllll night, I was convinced the place was going to flood! Breakfast this morning was pancakes smothered in fresh passion fruit which, David picked every single passion fruit pip out. He also ordered the wrong drink and ended up with pure hot lemon juice which he drank but with a struggle. After last nights drama we headed to the bank to lift money and make sure the one remaining card we had left still worked. SUCCESS we have cash (for now). Next stop, the tailors to see what they have to offer.
After walking in the rain we thought we had found the tailors which was recommended to us by our hostel. Apparently not as we found out a good 10 minutes later with Becky already picking out colours and material. They sneakily had a very similar name to the one which was told to us but didn’t offer the same service, we only found out when an Irish couple in the same shop told us of their same mistake, we left immediately. After finding the correct one a short 5 minutes walk away we headed on in. David was given a catalogue to look through while I showed them the dresses which I would like. Their response was “I can make that today”. Finding out the price was what we actually needed to know……..$125! We couldn’t spend that sort of money on having a dress made just because tailors are cheap here. Definitely if you needed a suit or a dress for a black tie event and you knew exactly what you were after or if we didn’t have to carry it in my backpack for the next 6 weeks it would be worth it! So We left.
As we headed towards the market when I spotted a lovely dress in a random tailors made of dark material with small flamingoes on. It’s a more smart casual summer dress. We went in to enquire, the different materials would determine the cost of the dress after trying to haggle they could make it to measure in the flamingo material for 70 US dollars, they wouldnt budge any lower. We left this shop again but I kept thinking about it, so we went back and I tried on the one in the entrance to get a better idea, I liked it and the material is so unusual that I decided to take the risk and I got measured up. Whilst I was doing this David decided to have a shirt made in the same shop. For the two items it is £74, whether the quality is there also we will have to wait and see! We go back for alterations tomorrow morning.
We booked onto a cooking course this afternoon, picked up at 120pm from the hostel and taken to the food market in groups to buy the ingredients. We all got given an extra poncho despite already wearing a waterproof because the rain was so heavy. We all had woven shopping baskets, the chef talked us through all the ingredients and let us smell all the different flavours.
We then got on a boat to go to the cooking school. This involved going in a bucket boat whilst wearing a traditional Vietnamese hat, the lady in the boat made us grasshoppers out of palm leaves. Some of the boat owners were spinning people so fast in the bucket boats that it seemed as though they were going to go in.
Just before hopping out we were handed a basic stick with fishing line on with a hook and fish head, to catch crabs in the reeds, David got really into this and although there was a crab on the end of the line he couldn’t get it out of the water. I was thankful that the creature wasn’t co-operating because it was bringing back childhood memories of summers spent crab fishing at Conwy when they all used to chase me instead of going back to the sea!!!
It was still raining and we were both soaked through! We then went into the cooking class where they showed us how rice is removed from the shell and ground into rice meal. We had to wear the apron and the cooks hat and we worked out way through cooking 4 courses, spring roll, crispy pancakes, noodle soup, mushroom and tofu noodles- we did the vegetarian options of course. After each course was cooked we could eat it straight away. For the dipping sauce on the spring rolls it had to be sticky, the lady assistant came across quite aggressive but I think it was just her accent, she was telling us to turn the heat UP! UP! 5 minutes later she came over shouting something and turning the flame off. Turns out she was telling us OFF! OFF! David got right into the noodle course trying to make fancy shapes out of the carrots and presenting it, I just got it cooked and eaten! The trip lasted over 5 hours.
We decided to get out of the bus back at the Old town market rather than our hotel because we hadn’t yet seen the centre; we both agreed it was the most beautiful town we had seen, coloured lanterns everywhere, boat trips all lit up, floating lanterns down the river, a very Romantic setting but we weren’t for stopping in a few bars tonight because yes, it was still pouring, and now soaking through to the knickers, even my waterproof shoes are foaming with the amount of water as I walk! it hasn’t stopped at all for over 24 hours now.
When coming to find the way home we had no clue, we hadn’t been to the town centre or the old town before and all we had was a soggy a5 map with no landmarks on it. We had to take a photo of the map with the camera because we were concerned it was going to disintegrate. We had to stop in a leather shop to ask directions but it turned out that we were on the right road just the other end. We were back within 10 minutes.
It was straight in for a hot shower then into bed to catch up on the blog.
South East Asia 2019 