Day 30 - Cooking and The Hell Train

Day 30 brings us to the third of four cooking classes I intend to do and Matt is still going strong joining me. Today's was with Thuan Tinh Cooking School and our guide was Mo. Mo reminded us that no one in Vietnam can say Matt's name. Should be very easy, just one syllable but despite repeating it he still gets Maths or Mass.

We went on the usual trip around the market though in a slight variation we all got cutesy shopping bags and picked up the ingredients as we went along. After two of these market trips I'm getting good at the ingredient identification portion - it's turmeric! Thai Basil! A kumquat! (I always was a swot). From the market we caught a large boat for about 20 minutes, then switched to a mini bus then to a rowing boat - all a lot of effort when the taxi back only took 10 minutes.

The cooking course itself was run by Ms Thy. She spoke very basic English with Mo translating for the most part but her well trodden mix of mime and chatter patter was hilarious and when you got an enthusiastic 'good! good!' you felt like a Master Chef. We started off making beef broth for a meal coming later. Really that involved holding ingredients over a gas flame then chucking them in a pan with beef bones whilst we did everything else.

Dish 1 was fresh spring rolls. Was made a dipping sauce then wrapped lots of pork, veg, shrimp and noodles in rice paper. Ms Thy made it look easy but our rice paper was sticking to things all over the shop. They looked alright in the end though and easy to recreate at home.

Dish 2 was my favourite of the day. Banh Xeo, apparently named as Xeo is the sound of sizzling in a pan. It a rice flour pancake with veg, pork and shrimp cooking into it then wrapped in more rice paper and filled with lettuce and herbs. We both successfully managed not to drop our pancakes whilst flipping despite it being done one by one in front of the class. The final pancake was super crispy though I don't quite understand the rice paper.

Dish 3 was a beef and noodle salad. We got to decorate our plates first. I did birds, Matt did his name in the hope people might learn to say it correctly. You could also try to set the pan on fire to cook the beef if you liked. I got a flicker but Matt was a pro. Though he won't be doing it in my kitchen (plus I think if you manage to set a pan on fire on an electric job something's gone wrong.)

Final dish was beef Pho (noodle soup) which was basically a construction involving out pre prepared broth. The course felt like a lot of construction rather than much hands on cooking but I think that's more the nature of Vietnamese cuisine than anything. It was still good fun and in a pretty surrounding, though bizarrely was saw probably 20 ducklings all swimming together which was cute but weird.

The rest of the afternoon was time wasting in Hoi An before our night train. We went to the spa. I had a facial and Matt a massage for which he got to wear very fetching silk pyjamas. (I've promised not to put it up online by private viewing available if the price is right). Then we moseyed around having some drinks and the best nachos we've ever eaten at a place called Hola Taco.

Then we went to the station for what I'll affectionately call the Sleeper Train from Hell. Our first Sleeper experience in Chiang Mai was fun. Private cabin, clean, wifi. I'm sure this time could have been worse but it can't have been far off. We joined the train at 11pm so it'd been running for a while. We booked a 4 bed bunk. What we didn't realise was that just because there's 4 beds doesn't mean 4 people and already in the room we're two women and two young children who'd clearly been using our bunks before we arrived and had left them in a state so we had to sort that in the dark. The train was mouldy, damp and loud. Add to that crying children in the night, the adults deciding 4.15am was fine to sit up and have a loud conversation and insisting that the door and curtains were kept open the whole time made it not ideal for sleep. Oh and one of the kids kept reaching up and poking me to the point I had to say 'no' in my sternest voice. They eventually got off the train at 6am (we were getting off at 8.30am) so we did manage about 30 minutes of sleep. Good job it's destination Nha Trang, a beach resort, so bring on the sun loungers.Read more