Onto the Next Adventures: Cookin' up a storm in Hoian

What a treat! After wanting to leave Vietnam early (see Get me Hue outta here post), we found something to stick around for. The city of lanterns has stolen or hearts (and our Dong) and we've enjoyed every one of or 6 days here. Other than spending most of our time poolside and at the tailors having clothes made (yes, this is the clothes and shoe making capital of the world), we also managed to fit in the Full Moon Festival, a cooking class, and many, many great meals under the thousands of lanterns in Hoian. Definitely a place to come back to again and again:) Next time with an empty suitcase...

Hoi an - city of lanterns

Young girl selling candles to float down the river for "good luck."

Lantern shop. At least a couple dozen of these shops in town.

Town lit up by lanterns every night.

Lanterns hanging over every walking street. What a pretty sight!

Hundreds of floating candles released into the river every night. More during the Full Moon Festival as seen here.

Poolside daily.

With temperatures reaching into the low 40s during the day, this was the best way to stay cool:)

Shawn's lady.

He would pay a visit to this local store a least once daily to stock up on water, snacks and the occasional beer or two. She liked my hat so she modelled it for the photo.

Our cooking class started out with a buffet breakfast of typical Vietnamese dishes.

Dumplings, rice paper cakes, Pho, and fried banana coconut cakes. Yummy!

After breakfast, we took a small boat ride to the local market to learn about the key ingredients in Vietnamese cooking. Rice noodles, meat and fresh herbs just about sums it up.

Back at the school, we learned the skills of making some of the key ingredients that go into these delicious foods. Tasting them was another part of the fun.

Above: making fresh noodles (top left, bottom right), learning how to make the Hoian speciality White Rose dumplings (bottom left) and of course taste testing.