Hoi An - A foodie haven

Hoi An is a small tourist town on the coast of Vietnam about half way down the country's coast. The streets ofhoi An are lined with shops, restaurants and cafes that welcome those passing with open French style shuttered doors. The old quarter is located alongside a river which floods several feet each year. As a result, the walls of buildings in this area are "patined" with moss - it lends itself well for photos.

Most of our time spent in Hoi An was planning where we would eat our next meal. The restaurants here take their cuisine seriously. We tried to take a cooking class however because we spent so much time sampling menus of those that offered classes, by the time we had made a decision the class was full! Not to worry, I've learned from Kirsteen: one of our favorite restaurants has a cookbook coming out in a few months. We're in!
Hoi An is known for it's tailors, so it was only appropriate that we had some clothing made. We both had casual jackets made. Jon was a bit demanding having to do 3 fittings until it was just right. I took advantage of a very interesting activity. Ipainted with a designer/artist on some silk and the following day had a dress made from my "art". This was an amazing afternoon and has been a highlight for me.
We left Hoi An with sadness. It is a beatiful place to spend time. Sitting watching people go by as we sipped iced coffees or quenched our thirsts with a "fesh beer" was a great way to spend our days.

Heading South - First stop: Nimh Binh

Leaving Sapa was relatively easy - 3 days of fog is not really that attractive.  We took a 1 hr bus, a 10 hr train ride, a taxi ride and then a 2 hr ride on a smaller bus... all this to arrive in Nimh Binh.  Nimh Binh is a sleepy town of 53 000 people... all of them friendly - well, at least that was our impression.
We met two new friends from England and Ireland, Rob and Rachel and spent some fun times with them.  Our first excursion was renting motos to ride to the karst hills of Tam Coc.  After taking the motos from the hotel, Jon's wouldn't start -- having a moto, I knew exactly what this means: NO GAS.  The woman tells us, "Don't worry, you can get to the gas station, it's not far" - now how's that for reassurance!  So we head out, only to run out of gas 1 block from the hotel.  Hmm... now what?  Well, some lovely vietnamese man was there to rescue us.  He is motioning to the exhaust, but we are not quite sure what that means.  We somehow figure out that he is going to push Jon while he is on his moto with his foot on Jon's exhaust - and I am to sit on his scooter.  Amazingly, it worked pretty well - we arrived at the gas station, he made sure we could fill up our tanks and headed off.  We offered to buy him gas but he refused.  NICE GUY #1.
The four of us then ride off to our first adventure: Tam Coc.  This area has been described as "Halong Bay on the rice paddies" by a certain guide book.  Since we didn't make it to Halong Bay because of the weather, this was going to be our perfect answer.  Finding Tam Coc, however, ended up being the better part of the adventure.  After the four of us (fairly intelligent people) couldn't figure out how to get there using the map that the hotel gave us we decided to stop for lunch.
Lunch was at a little restaurant run by a family (as most places are).  There are a group of locals sitting outside, always a good clue as to the quality of the food.  We walked into the place, filled with children-sized plastic chairs and tables and behind that, their living room - complete with carved wood chairs and... a tv.  They scurry around to clean up and start to serve us soup noodles. The man of the place gives Jon and Rob a little "cheers" from his moonshine to welcome us into his restaurant/house.  Moonshine is quite common here, they make this concoction from rice - some people call it Rice Wine, but really, moonshine is a better descriptor.  Our lunch is followed by conversations about soccer players from England.  The man states a players name and we all try to guess what he is saying - quite comical. 
When we leave he shakes our hands and smiles - we have met yet another great host.  NICE GUY #2.
Tam Coc is beautiful, we are rowed through the canals of the park surrounded by men and women shrimp fishing.  The hills are limestone that have been eroded by the heavy monsoons - projecting up from the rice paddies like proud figures.  Mountain goats could be spotted if you looked up high enough. 
The next day, of course pulling "a Brenda" and getting as much in as possible, we head to Cuc Phuong the first national park of Vietnam.  It is a huge park, 20 000 hectares in total.  Part of their project is to save some endangered primates.  This project is internationally sponspored and quite impressive in their attempts to release the primates.
We walked for 3.5 hr in the forest - basically a rain forest between mountains.  It was a beautiful hike and provided a much needed workout.  We saw some birds but mostly it was about the vegetation.
Once we arrived back in town, we had 5 hours to spend until our lovely sleeper bus would arrive.  Our travel agent friend, Ms. Chung, led us to a local restaurant (again another hole in the wall type place) that served bbqed duck.  She was adament that she would go there first and work out a deal for us - making sure that we didn't have to pay foreigner prices.  NICE WOMAN #3.
Our dinner was where the fun began.  We ordered our duck and beers.  But no one except the foreigners drink beer at these places.  Some army fellows give us a round of their moonshine, cheering us and shaking hands with full smiles on.  They love to hear where we are from - we can't communicate with them any further, but they seemed happy nonetheless.  They leave and we are thinking "How do we get that mooonshine anyway? "
Jon asks the young men behind us, after several hand gestures, sharades we find out that you simply ask for it.  Ok, we do and PLOP a 15yr old girl brings it to our table. It isn't as bad as we imagined - or maybe it was the whole environment.  Our night proceeds with lots of laughing as the four of us walk around the town and head to another place for more food.  When in Vietnam you can eat forever, the food is fantastic and most dishes are under $2.
At 9:30 we embark our sleeper bus.  A bit of confusion and the four of us step onto the bus.  The bus is filled with sleeping tourists who boarded two hours ago in Hanoi.  It looks like a bunch of sardines stacked in a moving vehicle.  Shoes off, hop into our "bed" and away we go.  We wave to our travel agent lady and wait to wake up in the next city.

Sapa in January = Maid in the Mist!

We arrived in Sapa after a fairly uneventful night on the sleeper train from Hanoi. Sapa is located at the northern part of Vietnam and is 1650m above sea level. At this time of the year, it is noted in several guide books that it is quite foggy. I guess my enthusiasm led me to overlook this minor detail. We arrived in Sapa after a bus schlepped us uphill for 1.5h in the dark (it was about 6 am) and foggy. And when I say foggy, I mean Maid of the Mist foggy!!! It was so bad that as we were searching for a hotel, we couldn't tell if it was a building that we were standing in front of or a hugh cathedral (yes, that actually happened).
It was so cold and foggy that we both had to buy new water/wind/cold proof jackets. It is beautiful there - we have the proof in the postcards that we purchased!
We did however manage to make the best of it. We met Ly, a 15 year old girl from the neighbouring village - a H'Mong girl. She stole my heart in the first three minutes of our conversation. In Sapa, the girls from the surrounding hilltribes come into town and try to sell their wares; it's a bit like being in the beach in Cancun- oh yeah, minus the sunshine.  Despite of these assertive learned behaviors these girls ( and women) are quite attractive (and I don't think it is just the curiosity of it all). So, Ly took us on a one day tour that began with a visit to the market to buy food for our lunch. It was quite a thrill to watch this 15 year old youngster bartering for the price of chicken on our behalf. At one point she told us to remain standing at the side- I think she was having troubles getting a good deal when she had four foreigners gawking and smiling at her every move. Oh yeah, snapping photos ever few minutes likely didn't help the situation either.
We walked for an hour or so until we reached her village and home. When we arrived her mom was busy getting the fire ready for lunch. We all (we were with another couple from Switzerland that we
met earlier in our travels) watched as our lunch was being prepared before our hungry eyes.
It's funny, all over the world it seems to be the same: the entertaining room is the kitchen.  Ly and her entire family prepared lunch. Their home, a humble, wood framed, cement floored large hut became our home for the afternoon. Like all families, they had pets, a cat and dog who remained snuggled around the fire the entire time - except of course when we ate. And like our pets, they were under the table waiting for juicy morsels of food to fall on the floor.
Our lunch date ended with a harrowing, nail biting motorcycle ride (sans helmets) through the villages back to Sapa. We were glad to be back "home" so that we could warm ourselves up in front of our portable heater.  In fact, the next days were spent trekking around villages in the fog followed by breaks at restaurants that had fireplaces. But don't get any ideas of romantic images, the fires were usually one or two damp pieces of wood spitting out water at it's ends as the centre bit released a measly few kilojoules of heat.
So, we've high tailed it out of Sapa and the Maid of the Mist and are now, still cold, in Ninh Binh.
Today we visited the karsts of Tam Coc and tomorrow we are going to a national park that has a primate rescue centre. Then we are off to south of the demilitarized zone, aka DMZ, to find the heat!! See you later fog!