Good morning, Vietnam!

After exploring Cambodia, we purchased our Vietnam visa appointment letters and headed for Hoi An. Hoi An is located along the South Central coast of Vietnam. When we arrived at the airport, there was a slight confusion on how we would be paying for our visas since the counter processing them apparently didn't have any change. As we were trying to pay, a herd of Chinese people came rushing through, so in an attempt to beat them to customs, we threw down whatever dong (yes, that's the currency in Vietnam) we had, and made a mad dash.

Beer and beach - life doesn't get any better

Hoi An was my favorite part of our entire vacation. It has a quaint downtown area called the Old Town, and it is also right on the coast so it's easy to get to the beach. We stayed at a lovely homestay, the Loc Phat Hoi An, which was conveniently located between the Old Town and the beach. If you ever find yourself in Hoi An, I highly recommend the Loc Phat. We rented bicycles from the homestay for a dollar a day and biked to the beach the first day.

The cutest beach vendor

Like any beach in Southeast Asia, there were a ton of beach vendors trying to sell bracelets, sunglasses, and produce to us the entire time. We spent a lot of time in the water for this reason, well that, and to acquire a killer tan. The few times we were out of the water, aka buying another giant beer, this sweet, older lady kept trying to sell us a pineapple. As we got progressively more drunk, we finally purchased one. She sat down, whipped out this rusty looking knife, and cut it all up for us. It was one of the most delicious pineapples I've ever had, though that might be the tetanus talking.

Classic Vietnamese dinner at Bale Well

After spending the whole day at the beach, we went back to the hotel and booked a cooking class for the following day. While we were booking the class, this hippie backpacker chick came down to ask about buses between the cities in Vietnam. We talked to her for a little bit to figure out what else we could do in Hoi An. She recommended this restaurant called Bale Well. It was a little off the beaten path, but it was absolutely delicious and cheap. They just kept bringing out more and more food. My favorite dish was the Banh Xeo, or rice pancakes.

Market vendors

Another vendor

The following day, we took a Vietnamese cooking class. I have never taken a cooking class on vacation, and it turned out to be a ton of fun. The morning started with heading to the local market to buy our ingredients.

The market was super crowded

After purchasing our ingredients, we got a boat that took us to the island where the cooking class took place.

View on the way to the cooking class

Once we got closer to the island, they transferred us to a smaller boat; which I was pretty sure was going to end with one of us in the murky water, but alas, we made it to the other side as dry as when we started! They gave us those sweet little rice hats to block out the sun and began the class by teach us how to make rice milk.

Separating the grain from the husk. She made it look super easy. It was not.

After separating the husk from the rice, they put the grain into a stone mortar type thing with water, and cranked it around until it produced rice milk.

Making the rice milk. 

We then proceeded to start our beef stock for pho because it would take awhile to simmer. They taught us how to make four different dishes. My favorite part of the whole experience was that they gave us the recipes so we could make them again at home.

Fresh spring roll

The first dish was a fresh spring roll, which was actually a lot easier to make than I thought it would be.

Making Banh Xeo

The second dish we made was Banh Xeo, or rice pancakes. This was my favorite course, though it was the most difficult to make. It was hard to get the right amount of oil so that it was crispy but not drowning in oil. A little boy working there saved the day on this one.

Pretty much nailed it on the presentation though.

The third dish we made was Bun Bo Nam Bo, or southern style beef vermicelli. This was another one of my favorites and it was super easy. They tried to get us to make the dish look all pretty, but I was super hungry, so I just kind of slammed everything on the plate and called it good. 

The instructor's plate

My plate - NAILED IT!

The last thing we had was our beef pho, which is what most people think of when they think of Vietnamese food. It was good, but not exactly what I wanted to have when it was over 100 degrees outside.

Hot beef pho on a hot afternoon

After the class, we biked into Old Town for some beverages and shopping. We had a hard time finding a place to lock up our bikes because none of the stores would let you park unless you bought something there. One of the workers at the Japanese bridge told us to park in the temple, so we locked them up there and went off to explore.

Ninja turtle boats!

We had a few drinks overlooking the water, then set off to get some custom made dresses, which is huge in Southeast Asia. I didn't really find anything I liked, but the girls I was with did so it wasn't a complete lost cause.

Hoi An at sunset - so sad I only had my phone with me!

As I was taking a picture of the sunset, these two women carrying fruit approached us and put the wooden carrying frame on one of the girls in my group. We took pictures of her, and then they motioned for all of us to get together for a picture. They put their rice hats on us, and then proceeded to take our picture.

Blending in

We gave them the fruit back, and they started putting a random assortment of fruit into a bag and handing to us. Before we knew what happened, we were each holding a giant bag of fruit. Then they stuck out their hands, and we realized that we got played. We gave them whatever dong we had on us and they went off into the sunset. Totally bizarre, but that picture was one hundred percent worth the awkward fruit purchase.

Just sitting on tiny stools. In an alley.

After dinner, we walked around, taking in the sights and bar hopping. Maggie had been to Vietnam before, and she kept telling us about these tiny stools outside all the bars, so we were determined to have a tiny stool night. We found a restaurant that had them, but as soon as we told them we were only drinking, they banished us to the alley. It was kind of sad, but we at least we checked an item off our list.

We wandered around to a bunch of different bars, and around 2 a.m., decided to call it a night. Surprisingly, we remembered how to get back to our bikes, only to find that the temple was gated up and locked for the night. This posed a major problem because we were supposed to check out of our hotel in about six hours and head to Hanoi. We started banging on the gate, and suddenly a light flashed on inside and a woman came out. In drunk, broken English we tried to tell her about our bikes. We walked over to them and noticed the locks were different. This woman had changed the locks and then charged us for the key to the new locks! After going back and forth, we finally freed our bikes, made our way back to our homestay, and tried to sneak in like nothing happened. Flashbacks of staying out past curfew in high school ran through my head.

Halong Bay

The next morning, we took Jet Star, which I would prefer to never take again, to Hanoi. At this point, my stomach stopped cooperating with me, which was fantastic because we were taking an overnight cruise to the Halong Bay the following day. Hanoi was just another city and wasn't horribly exciting. After walking around a bit, we turned in for the night. We were laying on our beds, when we heard what sounded like a cat dying. Apparently there was a cat turf war right outside our window and it carried on all night. Luckily, we only had one night there.

The Halong Bay

We spent the last two nights of our vacation party cruising the Halong Bay. The Halong Bay is a collection of over 700 limestone islets. Unfortunately, it poured buckets of rain both days of the cruise, though we were very fortunate that they still let the boat leave the dock, as the day before they had not. We spent the first day kayaking and swimming (and covertly peeing) in the warm waters, and the evening playing Kings Cup with everyone on board. Our other shipmates were mainly from England and Australia, and they taught us a lot about world travel.

The following day was less rainy, so I was able to get a few pictures while we all relaxed on the upper deck of the boat. Once we returned to shore, we spent the night in Hanoi and then it was back to Japan. I loved Vietnam and had a great time. Hopefully some day I'll get to go back during a time of better weather.