Hoi An

Just a four hour bus ride south of Hue is Hoi An. Hoi An is a larger city and is situated on the coast. It has a lot of character and is known for its culinary delights and tailors.

I explored the markets and bought tons of fruit. I was able to try dragonfruit for the first time, which had a really nice, light flavor. It also looks wicked cool.  Mangosteens are an ugly brown fruit that you cut through and eat the white fleshy center. It may be the best fruit I've ever tried. Also up there on my list are lychees. I love them like I love cherries. That is saying a lot.

Since I love to cook, I was excited to see all the cooking classes available to learn traditional vietnamese cuisine.  We rented bikes and rode to the vegetable village, where all the fresh greens and veggies are grown for the city.

Then we were given a tour of the market.

Finally, we were allowed to do some cooking! We made pork spring rolls with a sweet chili sauce, mackarel in a clay pot and a fantastic green mango and carrot salad. The dressing was made from lime juice, garlic, fish sauce and a few other wonderful things. I find it interesting that in vietnamese cooking they basically use all the same ingredients for each dish, but just change up the proportions slightly. You wouldn't think that would affect the flavors much between the dishes, but it does.

As I was in Hoi An I had to have clothes made. I found this job with some adorable seamstresses. They showed me books and books of designs. All I had to do was point at something and pick out fabric, which they had draped around the shop. The measured me and promised the clothes within 24 hours. Now that's service.  The first fitting did not go well, everything was too big, but they assured me they would fix it. The second fitting was much better. I was really impressed with the quality of the clothes. All together I had them make me a jacket, a dress, a pair of jeans and a cute fancy top. I miss looking fancy when I go to the occasional club while backpacking. I also had a pair of silver strappy sandals made for my feet. The woman traced the countours of my feet and measured them. It was a really cool experience. I wish they had this type of thing in the states.

New years was spent in the usual fashion. The night was stated with fresh beer for 4,000 dong a glass (about 20 cents). We headed to a not so great bar called Volcano Club. I think it could have been a really good place if the crowd had a different makeup or was bigger. We spotted a beauty parlor across the street and Jordan decided she wanted to dip dye the ends of her hair  again. While we were waiting for her turn, we met a pair of backpackers who were really fun. The kept bringing us drinks at the beauty parlor and we even talked one into getting a mohawk, hahahaha. They took us to a cool bar for the actual stroke of midnight, Before and Now. All in all it was a good random new years.