Cooking, shopping and War

Almost our last day in Vietnam. It was sad to see Cam and Penny leave last night, but not so bad for Bill and me as we will see them again in a fortnight, in Korea. It was so great having them here with us, they were lots of fun. Cam is an object of admiration wherever he goes - all the wee kids follow him about, and he's very nice to them all too, must be the teaching experience. Penny and Charlotte have been partners in crime at the markets, held back only by the thought that they have to carry it all!

Yesterday Charlotte and Penny elected to go shopping, and the rest of us went to a Vietnamese cooking class. It was great - we had a class of our own, and we were very successful, even me although I did fail the test of remembering the ingredients at the end (they gave me my diploma anyway!) We made tofu, and spring rolls, tomato and egg soup, and caramelised pork in a clay pot, and we ate it all at the end - one of the best meals we have had!





Later in the day Hannah persuaded us all to go for a massage, at a place just under our hotel. All of us except Jiggs went - we had sauna, steam room, full body massage and extra foot massage all for $11NZ. It was pretty hilarious! First of all we were sent to little rooms with a towel and told to take off ALL our clothes (we girls kept our knickers!), then we were sent for a shower. When we had showered we were not sure what to do next, but we all suddenly realised that it was all men and women in together! Cam had been just wandering around naked, like they do in Korea, until he spotted us and quickly jumped into the spa where he sat pleading with Penny to bring him a towel. At the same time we realised there were naked Vietnamese men in the room, so we all scampered into the sauna and crammed in there together until the coast was clear to escape. After that we were sent to individual rooms and had a fairly standard (it seems) Vietnamese massage, with lots of digging in of fingers into lower back and buttocks, and upper arms and thighs. I'm not really quite sure why we do it....

Today we have been to see the Cu Chi tunnels, some of the hundreds of kilometers of tunnels dug by the Viet Cong to hide in during the Vietnam war, and after that we went to the Vietnam War museum. It was all quite chilling really, desperately sad, and quite sickening. Amazingly the young Vietnamese people seem not to harbour a grudge against the Americans, and say they prefer to look to the future than the past. The tunnels were quite amazing, and a highlight for some (but not all) of us was being able to fire an AK47. Bill just about hit the target!


Last day tomorrow - time for serious shoppping!