Hoi An day 3

This morning we went on a cooking class. I was advised by our host not to eat breakfast and I'm so glad I didn't as we made so much food! Unlike my other cooking class, a lot of the prep work was done for us, we mainly added seasoning, herbs, garlic & ginger and that sort of thing and cooked it all up. We assembled and deep fried spring rolls, chopped up a papaya salad (made with green papaya so not super sweet), cooked up a tofu and aubergine claypot and fried a yummy tofu and bean sprouts Vietnamese pancake. Was all delicious, star of the show for me was the spring rolls. We rolled them up in a mesh like rice paper which I hadn't seen before, but it made then super duper crispy!
Full to the brim, we were whisked away to the nearby river and adorned a Nón lá (hat) and boarded tiny circular boats called coconut boats. Vietnamese fit up to 8 people in one, but we were pretty content just us two and our lovely driver. We floated through palm fronds, stopping round one of them to do a spot of old fashioning crabbing. We successfully got three, one of which escaped into our boat! The smaller ones had bright orange claws, and the larger ones purple. After releasing our crabby friends back into the water, we bobbed back down to the van, with some drivers vigorously spinning their boats. We asked the lady not to do the same for us haha.
In the afternoon we ventured back to our favourite cafe, and then used bikes from the hostel to cycle to the beach for a quick dip in the sea!
Found some craft beer in the evening, from only an hour up the road, based in Da Nang. Surprisingly it was pretty much the same price as home! £4 for 400ml glass, but it was very tasty. We didn't venture far from our homestay and went for dinner in a restaurant opposite the bar we were in. Was quite a 'fancy' place, but still only cost us £12 for a starter, two mains and a side!Read more