Day 9: Hoi An to Ho Chi Minh

Hoi An is truly a lovely city and we have only seen part of it. Will have to return. The old town is closed to vehicles for key times during the day and it makes the experience quite superb. These 'flower barrows' are wheeled into the middle of the street to indicate road closure to traffic.

Today, it was Cooking School which started with a guided tour of the food markets led by one of the chefs from the cooking school.

There were detailed explanations of various foods on display.

.... and then we boarded a small motor boat to head for the cooking school.

Travelling along the river, one sees the beauty of the town, which, incidentally, was inundated by floods only 5 months ago, so it has recovered quickly. A beautiful town.

A traditional fisherman.

The 'Red Bridge Cooking School' is quite a way downriver. (The blue dot east of Hoi An)



... and surprise, surprise! it has a red bridge.

We took a quick tour of the garden because much of the produce is grown there.

Then some instructions from our chef for the day..

..... including the angled mirror on the ceiling.

Then we had to cook the item after a demonstration. There were 24 stations around the space, each with a small gas cooker. There were several support staff, either supervising or bringing out provisions and implements or cleaning up. Of course, after we cooked the item, we then were expected to eat it.

Some decoration was required.

A very slick, professional and enjoyable production and when we heard it was owned or setup by someone from Melbourne, it helped explain the workflow, the organisation, even the evaluation sheets at the end.

Returning to Hoi An, we had time to gather a few last purchases before meeting at the famous and much-photographed Japanese Bridge.

Rubbish collection Hoi An style. 

The bus trip to Danang airport took us past the 15 - 20 km stretch of beautiful coastline, covered with high-end resorts and hotels. Very mixed feelings about this. It does create employment both in construction and then maintenance and staffing of these hotels but will it kill the very thing we come here to see? Hmm! Not sure what to think.

Anyway, before long it was the departure hall at Danang airport, which, no surprise, looked just like any other departure hall.

We landed at Ho Chi Minh airport and the heat and humidity was intense, even at 8pm at night. 

Traffic was as expected. Just as well it was only Sunday evening, so was not as busy as usual.     

Our bus had to reverse into a narrow driveway for our hotel, from a busy street teeming with scooters and cars so what does the driver do? In the words of Nike, just do it! The traffic waited patiently (mostly) and some even managed a wave and a smile. All in a day's travel in Saigon, which, incidentally, is the preferred name for the city for most South Vietnamese.