8.3.23

Happy Womens Day to all those wonderful women we know and love from near and far.

Lauren & I opted for banana pancakes for breakfast today. Not the best move, it seems that pancakes are only cooked on one side in Vietnam, apart from the Banh Xeo savoury ones. Chocolate sauce hid the gloop but no disguising that texture.

John had noodles. We’ve been teasing him since as he had no time to peel his prawn before we had to jump in a taxi to go and meet the minibus for our My Son temple trip.

You know you’ve had a busy holiday when there’s no time to peel a prawn.

We should have all started our day earlier as by the time we’d eaten and the taxi arrived we were cutting it very fine.
I forewarned the minibus guy, who then wanted us to meet somewhere else, I said no and we made it with 2 minutes to spare.

My Son was an hours drive away, everyone else on the bus was doing a tour, we did a tour 9 years ago, we didn’t understand anything that was said and hated being captive in a group.
This time was great, having time to stroll at leisure and enjoy the ambience.

We even played Pooh Sticks. I won consistently, best of 3.

Time for coffee before meeting the minibus at midday for the journey back.

Back in town we had a lovely lunch, I had passion fruit juice. I’m definitely going to buy a few passion fruit to take home.

I’ve been reminding John that he needs to go for a run, he has a half marathon in April, so he went back up to Coco Island to get changed and planned to meet us later on Cua Dai Beach.

Lauren and I began walking but soon got distracted by the many tailors and fabric shops. We’d been severely bombarded by Emma at the central tailoring market but after asking around realised she was over priced.

The next we knew we’d ordered 3 dresses at Blue Lantern Cloth shop.
One navy spotty wrap dress for me, a dark green silk mix one shoulder and a cream and orange patterned dress with a front split for Lauren. I rang John and asked him to bring a favourite dress with him to have 2 made the same.

We caught up with John not long before we reached the beach. He had already been there and run back again to find us!

We didn’t stay want to stay there long as it was shady and chilly by now so just sat for a while eating ice cream.

One of the many sellers that are always around everywhere made a beeline towards us.
Oh gawd, just leave us alone we thought, as we smiled and said hello.
Next thing 30 minutes or so had passed, her English was perfect and she offloaded about her unhappy marriage with her beer drinking, sofa slobbing husband, who never helps with the 3 kids, so we ended up buying trinkets from her.

We discussed it being International Womens Day, I said she should be strong, leave him, get a new husband.
She said in Vietnam it’s very difficult and that a man never takes on someone else’s children.
So sad to think she’s pounding the streets like this. And yes, it may well have been a sob story to make a sale, but sadly I don’t think so.

We walked all the way back to the tailor shop to take my dress in to be copied.

Time to eat. While looking for eateries Lauren suggested a detour down a side road near the Post Office. It lead to Bale Well, a restaurant in large garden full of people with a fab atmosphere.
There is just a set menu, it just keeps coming to the table. They showed us how to roll the items in rice paper and how to remove the little banana leaf ties at the end of the skewers.
We had Banh Xeo pancakes, satay pork bamboo skewers, spring rolls, chilli sauce, satay sauce and the most delicious grilled pork skewers any of us have ever tasted.
It all came with a huge dish of greenery, a plate of kimchi and the rice papers.
It was so good and went well with 70p beers.
At the end was a trio of deserts, a powdery orangy one, a chocolate mousse and a creme caramel.

The set menu is just £4.90, dearer than our usual evening meals, but much bigger, we left saying ‘omg, my stomach, I can’t move’. Well Lauren & I did, John could have eaten it all over again I’m sure.

We said we would definitely be back.

We stopped for antihistamines afterwards as Lauren had a bit of an incident a while ago and hadnt realised the spring rolls contained prawns… Thankfully all was well.😳

Absolutely stuffed, we got a taxi and went off to bed, no card games, all too tired after another very fun packed day and more fun to come tomorrow.

Night night from wonderful Hoi An 😍