Goochickant, aka vaguely ridiculous meals I have enjoyed

For Christmas Marie and I drove up to Edinburgh, in the hope of our first Christmas away from New Zealand being a white one. Sadly this did not eventuate, so we consoled ourselves by attacking a goochickant. That is, a deboned goose stuffed with a deboned chicken stuffed with a deboned pheasant. Who dreams this kind of roast up, I want to know. As per the photo, you serve this by slicing vertically through the roast to yield a serving of layered poultry.

Overall verdict: strongly positive.
Pros: very tasty, and I somehow managed to cook the innermost pheasant without drying out the outermost goose.
Cons: It is not the kind of thing you want to eat every day, as the sheer size is vaguely ridiculous. Especially for three people, haha. More thoughts and the cooking techniques below the fold.




The roast prior to cooking, just to give you some idea of how big this was. Also, these birds have been mostly deboned so it is 5kg of pure meat. Mmmm bird flu.

We roasted the megabird covered in foil for a total of five hours (followed by resting of 20 mins), with basting every hour. The liquid I used for basting was the poultry fat which came off the bird, so I was basting with pure fat. At least goose fat is the good type of fat (is the good one hydrogenated or unhydrogenated? I forget). Temperature of roasting: 180 for the first hour, 150 after that.
I used the Nigel Slater technique for vegetables of putting the roast on an oven rack and the vegetables underneath, so the fat from the roast dripped onto the vegetables (potatoes, kumara, garlic, onions, parsnips, carrots). As there was a lot of fat coming off the roast the vegetables started to caramelise due to the combination of low heat, much fat, and long cooking time.
In fact, every time I basted I took more liquid from the vegetable tray than I replaced, so by the end of the roast I had a pint glass full of excess meat juices. And this was after I used some of the excess meat juices for the gravy, which was adulterated by 300 grams of cranberries which Brendan had procured from somewhere and red wine. Purple gravy is good.



The goochickant was served with the aforementioned vegetables and gravy, and also some brussel sprouts to put some green on our plates.
We didn't manage to polish the entire roast off on Christmas day. We got about halfway through, so the menu for the next few days is goochickant sandwhiches, goochickant salad, goochickant insert method of eating cold meat here.

I had previously heard that three bird roasts sometimes dried out the outer bird. I think the way we avoided this fate here was a combination of a)covering the bird, b) cooking at a low temperature for a long period, and c) frequent basting. I have had goose once before, and it was a little tough. In the goochickant the goose was nice and tender, so crisis averted here.

While I enjoyed this roast immensely, I don't think I would have it again next year in the same iteration. Part of this is the novelty value of a three bird roast, which is now gone. Also, I think I would like to make my own version next time. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall of River Cottage fame has a recipe for a ten bird roast. For this he doesn't stuff nine whole birds into the tenth one, rather he takes the breasts from the nine smallest birds and puts them into the largest bird. Rather than ten birds, I could strip the meat off a couple of smaller birds, and put them into a goose. Britons like their birds, you can procure everything from partridges to pheasants at the numerous farmers' markets, so getting hold of exotic poultry is not really an issue.

London calling (Simon)

I haven't written here for a wee while. This is not because I have been cowed into a socially disengaged coma by the sheer size of London. Although it is enormous.
Rather, London has been great thus far, and I am trying to take it all in. Because we are going to be here for the medium term I am trying to re-establish a routine, and so far it is working out mighty fine. More below the fold.

In terms of the obvious (flat and job), our arrival was helped immensely by our friends Katherine and Daniel -well mostly Katherine- finding a fantastic two bedroom apartment for the four of us to share. The move in date was a week after our arrival in London, and it is within three minutes walk of Kings Cross St Pancras tube/train station. There is an alcove off the lounge which is ideal for friends to doss in, so if you are coming over to London for a visit (say from your house just outside Greytown) you should look us up.
In terms of our immediate surrounds, there are a number of takeaways, bars and a supermarket within a couple of minutes walk.

I found a job fairly quickly working for an IT recruitment company (where I don't have to wear a suit or tie), and Marie has just started as a conference researcher for a publishing company. I am on a four month contract at the moment and Marie has a permanent role, so from here on in we should be pretty sweet. Both Marie and I are able to walk to work in 20 minutes, so we don't have to endure the indignity of rush hour Tube trips.

For a month on the ground I think that is pretty good going. The only tourist attraction we have done thus far is the London Eye, on the grounds that we will have time to see the rest of them next year. I have signed up for the waiting list to climb up inside Big Ben, hopefully we can do that in the new year...

One thing I have noticed about London is the anonymity. I have been walking most places for a month, and I have seen one person I knew. I think this is one of the things which makes NZ appealing- yes in NZ I saw people I knew when I was hungover in the supermarket looking for orange juice, but this is reassuring in hindsight. I don't know why.

A large advantage of living beside Kings Cross is that there are direct trains to Paris in just over two hours, not to mention the rest of continental Europe and all of the United Kingdom. I have already made a booking for a Parisian restaurant the weekend of my birthday, so that is something to look forward to in February. You can get on a sleeper train in the evening and wake up in Venice, so that will be a nice weekend at some point next year. We were going to get the fast train up to Edinburgh for Christmas, but the train tickets were twice as expensive as either flying or hiring a car. Why is it that the most environmentally friendly mode of transport is the most expensive?

To sum up, life is pretty sweet. The only minor downside I can think of is that it gets dark at about 5pm, but that just gives me an excuse to buy a new heavy coat with my first paycheck. And a scarf and some gloves.

Angkor Wat

Angkor Wat is magnificent. Rather than try to write about it, I thought I would do a series of captioned pictures instead.






The Bayou has about seventy large Buddha heads carved into the side of a series of outcrops. It is quite funky.
























Buddha Buddha Buddha Marie Buddha Buddha















This is Ta Phrom, which is where some of the scenes from Tomb Raider were filmed. For those of you who have no interest in Tomb Raider, the main appeal of this temple is the trees which are growing over the temple. In some places the trees are actually holding the temple together.














Marie captured this spectacular fashion crime at Ta Prem.













And finally, a series of doorways which I thought made for a pretty photo at one of the final temples we visited.

Phnom Penh

As you can probably tell by the frequency of Marie's posts, Marie has been using the wifi in our room in Bangkok to write blog posts. I used this time to watch the Bourne Ultimatum & Ultraviolet. Bourne Ultimatum is a good movie, if you like that kind of thing, and Ultraviolet is pure B grade ridiculousness. Anyway, I think the last post I had written was up to our arrival in Cambodia, in the capital Phnom Penh. Our time in Cambodia was severely abbreviated from the original plan due to us spending more time in Vietnam than anticipated. Thus we only had 3 nights in Phnom Penh and 4 nights in Siem Reap, which is truncated in comparison to our 4 weeks in Vietnam.

Point of preceding paragraph: Despite only spending 3 nights in Phnom Penh, I really liked this city and would consider moving here if I could find a job to keep me (and my betrothed) in the lifestyle to which I have become accustomed. At this point a job as an research economist with a particular focus on Cambodian economic development (and resultant need to spend a lot of time in Cambodia) is looking really attractive.

The most surprising thing about my receptivity toward Phnom Penh was that we spent one of our two full days here going to the Killing Fields and the S-21 museum at the site of the main detention centre. If anything should turn me off a place it would be these two locations. For more detail please see below the fold. Warning: disturbing content to follow.


The Killing Fields just south of Phnom Penh was the main execution site for the Pol Pot regime, where an estimated 20,000 people were killed and buried in a series of mass graves during the senseless purges of the 1970s. People were rounded up and killed for infractions as minor as wearing glasses or previously holding any kind of highly skilled job, on the grounds that such people were not the correct calibre of people to carry out the revolution and accompanying reversion to an agrarian society. Our guide explained that anyone identified as a doctor, lawyer or other 'intellectual' was rounded up and killed. The killers first used bullets to execute their victims, but then realised that bullets were too expensive so resorted to methods such as:
a) tying a group of people together, pushing them into water and then shooting one so the others were pulled down and drowned;
b) in the case of young children or babies, swinging the children against a tree until dead or throwing them up into the air and catching them on bayonets; or
c) using a length of palm frond as a machete, from a species of palm tree which has a series of sharp thorns along the frond.
As we walked along the paths between the mass graves we stepped over clothing and bones which had been exposed by the elements. And I am not talking about isolated fragments, these were strewn everywhere. The overall effect was completely and utterly shocking, and yet at the same time it was a very tranquil space. No photos to be posted.
After the Killing Fields we went to the S-21 museum, which is on the site of the regime's former head interrogation centre and prison. As a macabre touch, this site was a school before its conversion. The most moving exhibit here was a series of rooms, which simply showed the photos taken of the people bought here for interrogation before being sent on to the Killing Fields. The easiest western equivalent I can think of here is of a booking photo which is taken when someone is arrested. There was room after room of photos, with the total number of photos probably upward of three thousand. The thing which really affected me was when I started to look into the victims' eyes. Only a few of the victims showed any fear- the most common expression was a sense almost of resignation at their fate. As with the Killing Fields, I can't understand why this slaughter occurred.
As you can guess, the combination of these two memorials was a complete emotional wipeout. Despite this I think these sites are a must see.

The next day we went on a Khmer cooking course to cheer ourselves up. If you have been keeping score, you will realise that this makes cooking courses in all four countries on our trip. If Napoleon said that an army marches on a full stomach, my paraphrase would be that I like to travel on a full stomach. The highlight of the Khmer course for me was making Fish Amok. This is a mild fish curry, steamed rather than fried, which is steamed within a banana leaf shell. Khmer food in general is not particularly spicy, as the Khmer cooking heritage predates the introduction of the chili by the Portuguese in the 16th century. Another interesting recipe was sausage with pork and chicken mince, wrapped up within a banana flower prior to deep frying.




After a full day of cooking and eating neither of us were particularly hungry, so we went to a rooftop bar looking out over the river for a relaxing drink & people-watch. This is the scene for the photo at the top of the post (when blogger behaves itself). From our perch we saw six people travelling on one scooter!
I should explain that from Hanoi onward Marie and I have been trying to spot as many people as possible on a scooter. Three was common in Vietnam, and four was rare. She saw five in Ho Chi Minh city, and I saw four on a bicycle in the Mekong Delta. Cambodia blew Vietnam out of the water for scooter passenger density. In Cambodia four was common, and five was rare.
Also, the variety of cargo which is transported by scooter has to be seen to be believed. We have seen people with large fridges strapped to the back of their scooters, and a passenger holding a full size door upright between the driver and himself.

My new 11th Commandment: Thou Shalt Not Convert

As we are coming to the end of the holiday and thus the end of our money supply I must admit to being increasingly worried about the cost of things, like meals and accommodation. I have to remind myself not to get annoyed and how stupid it is because meals are still costing far less than at home. However today I made some slightly alarming conversions regarding our recent accommodation and our soon to be new flat in London...

Our lovely friends Katherine and Daniel have done all the hard work for us and found what looks like a fantastic flat, very centrally located - I am not sure how to pay you back guys but perhaps we'll just have to cook every night (actually that might be a punishment). I should note that they are also taking a gamble living with us - Matt managed five years, I am not quite sure how.

But back to the conversions, first, we have just stayed 5 nights at Treehouse on Ko Chang - there will be a separate posting on this. OK so there was no phone, let alone internet, and no TV or even a fan in the room and the showers are literally a tub of water and a bucket BUT it was all clean and one could easily while away the days on the beach without too much effort. Turns out that I could while away 4 months there (without any kind of long stay discount) for the cost of one week rent at our new place!!

Second, I am writing this from a great hotel that we stumbled upon
Citichic it ticked all my check boxes for the last two days in Bangkok aircon, cable, huge plasma screen, wifi, bath, hot shower (surprisingly uncommon), nice sheets and duvet (very rare - the nice that is) roof top pool, gym, lift (again surprisingly uncommon), central, quiet and helpful staff. I commented that I could easily live here - well for the price we negotiated compared to our new place I could, a week here is the same as a week of rent - of course I would have to find a job here that allowed me to!!!

If this sounds a little like I am grumbling, it shouldn't, it only serves to remind me how lucky I am to be able to travel around SEA living and travelling comfortably and how lucky I am to be able to live in a great place in London - bring it on I say - its just that until I get my first pay cheque I will obey the new 11th Commandment: Thou Shalt Not Convert and perhaps an 11.1: Thou Shalt Not Compare the Prices in London to SEA or in fact anywhere else in the world.

Clever Monkey

Here is proof that our Simian relations are closer to us than we think.

The monkey got more hoops in than Simon and could so more push-ups and sit ups than both of us.


He was also better at climbing trees and pulling down coconuts - as I have never tried this I am not sure if he is better than me - I suspect he is.

Proof of so tall and big big status...

Here it is if you don't believe us...
Photos were taken in the old quarter of Vietnam.
You so tall


Big Big

Paradise at a cheap price...

During our trip Simon and I have been lamenting the rise of big resorts and the disappearance of small affordable (for people on a budget like us) hideaways. Two of our best finds have been on the beautiful island of Pho Quoc in Vietnam and in the soon to be completely destroyed by resorts island of Ko Chang in Thailand.
Pho Quoc
Simon and I flew to Pho Quoc with just over a week left on our Vietnam visas. I could have easily been deported for overstaying - The island was great and very cheap, but most importantly it was a world away from the busy streets of the rest of Vietnam and the constant attempts to extract money from you.
Initially we stayed at the Thousand Island resort, mainly because it was on the beach we wanted to stay on and they offered to take us there for free. Despite the great pool and concrete sculptures the place wasn't really for us....



We walked along the beach and found the only two simple bunglows amongst a sea (no pun intended) of large scale resorts. For the princely sum of $7US we stayed here:
And we pretty much spend the whole time doing this:
I made great dent in my stack of books and walked away decidedly more freckled than before. Simon, meanwhile, having already read all of his books, was left considering learning German - as there seemed to be no books in English anywhere.
I am not sure why people stay at the resorts - ok I do know why - the pools, the aircon, the nice sheets, the great (though expensive) food the lack of strange insects in the room etc but we were on the same beach and swam in the same sea and if we really wanted the pool we could buy a beer at one of the resorts and enjoy it as much as we liked.
Ko Chang
Three years ago I stayed on Lonely Beach on Ko Chang an island in Thailand. It was still mostly backpackers but the resorts had begun to creep in. Spared the Tsunami in December 2004 Ko Chang has undergone a dramatic transformation. I took this photo then:
This has been replaced by this at Siam Beach Resort I am sure it is lovely but to me it looks like a concrete jungle.
We quickly abandonded the not so Lonely Beach and headed for Long Beach and the Treehouse a newly established bungalow type place. It was very remote, sitting in the back of a 4WD ute which was only just managing the tricky combination of rocky roads, steep hills and tight bends we were wondering if it was all going to be worth it. What we found at the end was the most genuinely relaxing place that we have found on the entire trip.


With no phone, let alone internet and power only between 6pm and 1am it is a great place to just get away from it all. Adapting to the "showers" was difficult, I found that washing your hair using only a bucket from a tub of water hard but who needs to wash hair in a shower when there is sea and who can complain when the open air (but not open!) showers are amongst the trees and the sun is pouring in on you. Lying in a hammock looking out to deserted water I wanted to spend much longer here



and for 150Bt ($5US)I could have - but the d-date of 4 November and our flight to London is calling...

The tale of a boy and a motorbike...

Once upon a time there was a boy called Simon, well isn't really a boy - more of a man given that he is nearing his 30th birthday...



Simon decided one morning that the time had come for him to learn how to ride a scooter (motorbike) you see he had never driven one before and he thought that the conditions on a remote Vietnamese island would be ideal - it had everything - narrow rocky uneven roads and large tooting trucks ready to push you into a ditch.
Simon had a wise girlfriend and she cautioned him against it, but the idea of speeding along the roads with the wind in his hair was too much.
The bike was duely presented to Simon, a shiney new black number with red racing stripes down the side - that will make it go faster Simon thought!
So he got on the bike, asked the man "how do you start it?". After learning this crucial lesson and noting where the breaks were he bunny hopped up the rocky drive out of site of the wise girlfriend and straight into a ditch and a tree covered in barbed wire.

Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh City & Zero Degrees of Separation in Chau Doc

In one of my earlier posts I talked about how the Hanoi was incredibly busy. Well, Ho Chi Minh City (or Saigon as I will call it because it is less characters to type) is like Hanoi on drugs. They have tourist police whose main duties appear to be helping foreigners cross the road, on account of the insane traffic. I actually preferred Hanoi to Saigon, and I can't quite put my finger on the reason. It may be because Saigon is so big that it is just another crowded polluted megacity. Hmmm sounds like London.....


The Reunification Palace in Saigon was the seat of the South Vietnamese government up until they collapsed in 1975. If you ever see a photo of the final helicopters evacuating the Americans out of Saigon, it is evacuating from the roof of this place. The palace has been kept in the same state as when it was overrun by the North Vietnamese. I found out that the head of the South Vietnamese government liked to collect animals. The photo at the top is an attempt on my part to capture a row of animal heads. Also, please note the stuffed leopard on the left.

After the somewhat dry Reunification Palace, we then went to the War Remnants Museum. To give you an idea of the ideological position of this museum: it used to be called the Museum of American War Crimes up until a few years ago. This museum had an extensive collection of planes, tanks and bombs from both sides of the US-Vietnam war.
It had an exhibition on photo journalists from around the world who died covering the conflict, including the last photos which they took. This was quite moving. There was also a section on the effects of Agent Orange and other defoliants, including a couple of deformed babies in formaldehyde, which was nearly unviewable.

Next we left for Phu Quoc, an island off the south east coast of Vietnam which is due south of Cambodia. Note that the Q is pronounced W, not K. I will let Marie tell the story of my accident there, all I will say is that my scooter riding ability is much less than I thought it was. Also, the Vietnamese like to wrap their trees in barbed wire.

Examples of why New Zealand is too interconected below the fold:

After spending an idyllic week sitting in hammocks, we came up through the Mekong delta into Cambodia with an overnight stop in a little border town called Chau Doc. We were about to go out foraging for dinner when we bumped into our old flatmate Paul, who we had lived with at 127 Hanson Street, in the hotel foyer. We hadn't been in contact with him for about six months, we didn't know he was travelling in Asia, he didn't know we were travelling in Asia.

New Zealand is a village.

This is the worst example we have come across. Other examples of NZ interconnectedness we have encountered on our travels as follows:
1) In Luang Prabang we met an expat New Zealander in the guesthouse lobby. After talking to him for a while, we found out that his last name is Rayner, which is Marie's mum's maiden name, and that he & Marie's parents both went to the large (2000+) Rayner family reunion a couple of years back. Plus, we worked out that his sister's ex-husband taught me piano.
2) I was on the beach in Nha Trang, and I wanted to buy half a pineapple. The old lady only sold whole pineapples, and there was a guy standing next to me who also only wanted a half. We agreed to split one. Chris turned out to be from Wellington originally, and he was returning to Australia from the UK with his Aussie girlfriend. We saw them again in Saigon, and again in Phu Quoc. We got chatting, and couldn't initially establish a connection. Then we realised that his oldest brother was friends with Dan Kalderimis, who we are going to be flatting with in London. Also, we had met Chris's oldest brother at Dan's wedding a couple of years back, and Dan's father was Chris's doctor.

Trains, trains, trains

We caught a train from Nha Trang to Ho Chi Minh city. But not just any train, this was the recently inaugaurated 5 Star Express. This train was nearly brand new, having started in Decenber 2006 which is very new for train rolling stock. Marie pointed out that the carriages may have been refurbished rather than new rolling stock, but I am not quite enough of a trainspotter to be able to pick the difference. They might just have been dirty...
My trainspotter contribution is that the Vietnamese break up their ballast (the rocks under the railway sleepers and track) by hand with picks, whereas in western countries this is done by machine. Also, the train was motoring along - faster than long distance trains in NZ- so either the Vietnamese track network is in exceptional shape, or they do not have the same level of safety controls (and the resultant speed restrictions) as in NZ. For my sake, I hope it was the former.

I counted 25 passengers spread throughout the eight carriages (with varying prices and standards of seating), and 24 visible service staff. Marie commented that for the staff it was like her summer job working on the NZ interislander ferry: very few passengers, so you can sit around or sleep for most of the time.

We were in the lowest level of seating, which was still very comfortable and double decker. There were another couple of levels of nicer seating, and the flashest seats were sold by the compartment, where you pay 2.4 million dong for a compartment which seats up to four people in very plush comfort. That sounds like a lot of moolah, but it is equivalent to USD 150. I reckon if you were travelling in a quartet and making your trip in a higher level of comfort than our current trip, then USD 150 for four people for a eight hour train ride is not too bad.
I managed to get the following photos of the the lower grade seating, but by the time I went back to the compartment area they realised that riff raff were able to enter so they had locked the door.






To give you an idea of the entertainment options on this train: there was a dining car, and a separate 'multi purpose' carriage. I saw mention of a massage train in some of the promotional material, but I couldn't find this particular carriage. The multipurpose carriage operated as a disco from Fridays through Sundays, and played movies the rest of the week. Disco on a train!


When we went into the dining car the six staff promptly got up from where they had been sitting, and tried to look like they were doing something- it only takes one person to pour our beers (into plastic cups, haha) and a second person to fetch a rather tasty grilled mackeral, so this is the definition of 'make work'.

Nha Trang

After Hoi An the original plan was to head south to Ho Chi Minh City. Then we realised that the Hoi An- Ho Chi Minh bus trip was 22 hours, so we stopped off in Nha Trang, a beach resort type town about halfway down, for a couple of nights. Which turned into four nights.


The prime attraction at Nha Trang is the beach, which is the focal point of the tourist area. We spent three days lazing on the beach, without needing to leave it for any of our daily needs. At one particular seaside bar you can rent a lounger under a thatch umbrella, with the only condition being that you don't consume food or drink from any other sellers on the bar's section of beach. Did I mention that this bar has a pool, in case you get tired of swimming in salt water? And it also brewed its own beer, five different varieties?



For lunch, we walked up the beach to where old ladies were grilling crayfish over hot coals, purchased a large crayfish (or a selection of smaller crays, crabs, whelks and scallops if we wanted a bit of variety), ate it sitting on the beach, and then wandered back to our lounger. I tell you, Nha Trang was a real drag...



As an aside, please note the glorious mullet on the right, captured in Nha Trang.

The other attraction of Nha Trang was the nightlife. In Hanoi the city closed down around 1030-1130pm, whereas we could stay out to the early hours in Nha Trang without too much effort. Marie managed to beat me two- nil at pool, which I attribute to me being 'tired and emotional'.

On our last full day we went out to the local mud baths, and spent a few hours impersonating hippopotami. Pictures of us cooling our blood, and wallowing in glorious mud as follows:

Hue & Hoi An

One of the difficult things about a blog with two contributors is trying to work out a free flowing thread of discourse. For example: if Marie talks about Hoi An does that mean that any thoughts I have on Hoi An are redundant, and vice versa? I think I will just stick to commenting about things on our trip which interest me- hopefully this will not make for too much repetition between Marie's and my posts.

Anyway: my last post was about Hanoi. From there we caught a twelve hour night train to Hue. We were planning to go to Halong Bay, which everyone says is beautiful, but unfortunately tropical storm Frances came through and sank a bunch of boats the day before we were due to go out. Rather than wait for the storm to clear, we decided to head down to Hue.

For me, there was one primary reason to go to Hue: the Demilitarised Zone just to the north, which marked the boundary for a number of years between the Vietnamese Communist forces in the North and US affiliated forces in the south. The picture in the top left of this post is from inside the Vinh Moc tunnels. These tunnels were just north of the Demilitarised Zone, and were used by communist forces to assist in the resupply of nearby artillery placements. The artillery placements happened to be on an offshore island within range of the US emplacements, so any time they were running low on supplies the villagers from the Vinh Moc area would resupply them. By rowboat.
Now you don't have to be Donald McNamara to realise that this resupply depot would be extremely vulnerable to US air strike. Thus the Vietnamese got around this problem by building a tunnel complex large enough to sleep 200 people, with the depth underground ranging from 12 metres to 25 metres. There was a maternity ward down there, with I think 12 babies delivered underground.
The tunnels themselves were small but not to the point of claustrophobia. The average height within the tunnel complex is anywhere between 1.6 and 1.9 metres, so I couldn't stand up at any point underground. It is definitely worth a look if you are in Central Vietnam.

The other thing I found of particular interest in Hue was within the old Imperial City. I think the Imperial City was very impressive until the French and then the US took turns bombing it, so there is not too much left standing now. However, there is an area where you can put on the vestments of Imperial Emperors or Empresses. Very touristy, but dress ups is fun. Pictures of our dressup fun and my thoughts on Hoi An below the fold:








I think Marie covered the highlights of Hoi An quite comprehensively- made to measure tailoring and food. One point I would like to add is that I think Hoi An has a lot going for it. We spent 4 nights there, and the only reason we moved on to Nha Trang was that it rained constantly. Not that the rain was bad as it was 25 degrees and not windy, it was just wet. We were never bored in Hoi An, but there were a couple of things we didn't get to do because of the weather.
For example, on our first night there we wandered down to the waterfront, where some enterprising soul had put out a bunch of paddle boats for tourists to make fools of themselves in. Not just any kind of paddle boat mind you, these were in the shape of swans. Now I am not sure how your brain is wired, but when I see swan paddle boats, I can think of only one thing: swan boat racing in the cool evening air, washed down with a bia hoi or two. I am not sure whether the optimal timing of this racing would be before or after dinner- really there is no downside, this is swan boat racing we are talking about here. Unfortunately this was not meant to be as there were no dry evenings, so this will have to wait until next time along with a trip to Halong Bay.

More about eating

Enjoyment at eating establishments is a common theme of our travels and blog posts. With the torrential rain and flooded streets of the last 3 days Hoi An has proved no exception.
On our first night here we went to something of a Hoi An institution, Cafe de Amis. Along the river near the market this place only serves a set menu (about 6 courses)for 40,000 VND (about $5US), with a choice of meat, seafood or a vegetarian menu. The menu changes every night and is whatever the chef/owner Mr Kim decides to cook that night. Apparently if the menu is the same you eat for free. Mr Kim is more front of house these days I think, he was very attentive to all the guests, explaining the dishes and showing us his book with recommendations from visitors - including for us all the ones from New Zealanders. He even greeted and farewelled us with Kia Ora and Hare Ra.
The three of us (we were with an Australian girl K) ordered three different menus and all were delicious in thier own way - the only problem was the number and size meant that getting through all of them was near impossible (and made my clothes fitting the next morning a little difficult).
Our other major discovery was a wonderful place called Cafe 43. I noticed it is in the newest addition of Lonely Planet, but unlike many of the other places they recommend it has not suffered what Simon and I have termed the "Lonely Planet kiss of death" where sufferers are afflicted with very poor service and/or have turned into something akin to a family restaurant (Cobb&Co/Valentines for NZers). We went there three times and I honestly don't think it will change - the food is fantastic and the family are generous, inviting and very humble. Our second visit was for a cooking class, where they took us behind the scenes and taught just Simon and I to cook up dishes we chose from the menu - awesome I now know the secret to their delicious steamed fish in banana leaf!! If you go there make sure to talk to their daughter, she can write English very well but doesn't get to practice her English and is too shy to ask. We found out so many more interesting things about Vietnam from her.

Blogger in Vietnam

We have concluded that blogs are blocked in Vietnam, as we have been unable to access our site or any of the other blogs we regularly read. But all of you at home say you can. However, we can access the blogger website and add posts. This means that if there are problems with the posts we can't see them. Hopefully Cambodia will be ok...

Hitting the shops Hoi An style

So we made our way from Hue to Hoi An - I love Hoi An but my credit card and baggage allowance do not!
Hoi An is a small town best known for its tailoring. Apparently there are about 200 tailor shops and just about everyone you talk to has some kind of "relative" that is a tailor who there are very keen to recommend. This makes knowing who is good and what price is a fair price an absolute mine field. Everywhere you go you hear other travellers talking about the bargins they got, I have just overheard a Brtish girl saying she got 6 suits for 100pounds...

I am writing this post as I count the cost of what Simon and I have purchased. Not the costs of the clothes themseleves but the costs of shipping them. Simon is behind me doing the organisation keeping the Vietnamese staff busy taping up boxes and recording what is going in. Most hotels and many of the better tailors offer a shipping service (the organisation not the cost as a free service).

We gave a test shirt to a couple of tailors and at one that I thought was slightly better I got a dress made from a picture and pants copied. In the end my intuition was right and we went with B'Lan. Lan is wonderful, she didn't do a hard-sell and was professional to the end. On day one we spend 4 hours choosing clothes from pictures (or our own heads), choosing fabrics and getting measured.

When we came back the following evening all of the clothes were completed, no matter how complicated, and only a few of the clothes we ordered needed alterations, and they were so small that we were unable to see why changes needed to be made. But she insisted and the product was better as a result. She even called her brother the tailor (her actual brother, not just a "relative") and got him to come down to the shop to talk about the finer points of making the underarm area of Simon's suit jacket sit slightly better.

She also took on a role as my defacto mother, noticing that I have a cold and was a little tired and insisting that I drink some hot lemon and honey for "medicine" and wanted me to take lemons away with me.

In total we are sending about 20kg of stuff. This includes clothing, detailed below, very cheap DVDs (cheapest/best in all of asia) and various nicknacks.
Lesson for the future: come to Asia with lighter bags and spend less.

Simon
1 x 3 peice suit (and a pair of extra trousers) in highgrade cashmere and wool
3 x trousers
1 x fine velvet jacket
6 x work shirts
5 x ties
3x casual shirts

Marie
1 x suit (and a pair of extra trousers) in highgrade cashmere and wool
7 x shirts
3 x trousers
1 x waistcoat (to go with trousers)
1 x wool dress
1 x wool jacket
1 x cord jacket
3 x 70% silk pashminas

hmmmm I think that is all, there may very well be more. All of this was less than $1000, I am trying to forget how much, it will make enjoying the rest of the trip and not worrying about money easier. For perspective, I have to remember that the last suit Simon bought at home cost more than all of this and was not in such good fabric.

For those of you in the UK, please remind me that I am swearing that I do not need to buy any clothes for 6 months at least.

For those who come after me I would recommend talking to other people about who they have gone to and think about the following:
- does the shop tout for business (ie yell at you as you walk past "please come in and buy something) despite the official ban on touts...
- do the people in the shop know anything about clothes or are they just sales people?
- are they doing a hard sell or trying to up-sell you?
- are they honest about what will look good or not - a half hour in a tailor shop does wonders for your self esteem - "oh you so beautiful" "it look so pretty - very beautiful"

Hanoi

My first imprint of Hanoi - the major city in the North of Vietnam- is that it was splendidly chaotic and busy. After spending about 4 days there I see no reason to change my initial impression. We didn't cover too much in our four days- a few museums, Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum, getting lost walking around the Old Quarter, and spending most evenings sitting on the street at a bia hoi establishment, but I enjoyed this place a lot.




One of the things which struck me about Hanoi was how much happens in the street. The street is not just a method of walking from A to B, it is also somewhere to eat, to drink, to sell and to buy. You might say 'Simon that is a foolish statement, those things happen in the street back in NZ as well', but in Hanoi's Old Quarter these things are happening in every street. The picture at the top of this post is me attempting to gain nutrients from a chicken foot in a roadside restaurant. When I say roadside, I mean chair on kerb and feet in road. The pictures on the right show a couple of crowd shots to show what level of frenetic activity I am talking about. If you look very closely you might see a couple of things sticking out in these two pictures.

My favourite roadside innovation is the bia hoi - fresh beer- establishments which are dotted through the Old Quarter area. Someone will set up camp on the kerb with a keg of draught beer and a bunch of plastic chairs. You take a chair, park it either on the kerb or in the street near the kerb, and order beer by the glass, at 2000 dong (Yes the Vietnamese currency is the dong, bahahaha) per glass. As the exchange rate is about 12000 dong to the NZD, each glass costs 15c. If you wanted to get pedantic then you could argue that the beer isn't very strong- maybe 3% alcohol- but this is for the best as we were dehydrated most of the time so full strength beer would not have been optimal. There is one particular junction in the Old Quarter where 3 of the four corners of the intersection have bia hoi dispensers. And the best part is that the entertainment is laid on for you in the form of the passing foot & motor traffic. Neither Marie nor I have yet seen 5 people on a scooter, but we kept seeing 4 people.

We were going to head out to Halong Bay for a 2 day cruise, but unfortunately a tropical storm came through right when we were planning on going out in the boat so no Halong Bay this time.

Pictures of more highbrow endeavours as follows:



Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum was a must see. In the mausoleum itself there were three guards scattered around the walkway, and another four ringed around his coffin. Quite a lot of security, considering the guy is already dead. In addition to the mausoleum itself, you could also see his house, his cars (Uncle Ho drove a Morris), and a museum dedicated to the struggle for independence. Several writers have pointed out that if Uncle Ho actually spent much time at his house the US military would have bombed it heavier than Afghanistan, so I am not sure how much time he spent there. Having said that, it is a pretty house.

The museum had a ground floor setting out the struggle for independence which I could understand, and a second floor which went through the struggle for independence via abstract art. On the second floor I gave up trying to fully comprehend and just went along for the sensory ride. I have done a bit of reading regarding the photo on the right, and as far as I can tell: the Ford Edsel crashing through the wall was one of Detroit's greatest ever motoring failures. In this context the car represents the failure of the US military to conquer the Vietnamese people. I think. This whole modern art gets a bit confusing for me sometimes.




The 'Hanoi Hilton' is a museum on the site of a former prison which is most known in the west for being the site of imprisonment of US pilots during the US-Vietnam war, with its inmates including John McCain. The (arguably questionable) picture on the left is my impersonation of a desolate inmate.










For assorted pagoda/ Uncle Ho pictures please see below.