Whats cooking?

Well we did - a little bit, but fortunately it was much cooler today - only 31oC. Thank goodness as slaving away over a hot gas burner really takes it out of you!

We had a choice today - Demilitarized zone or find something else to do.

We didn't much fancy another day tour with lots of time spent in a bus and we kind of felt we had done all the 'war' stuff we could cope with - there is so much more to this country.

So we mooched around for a bit yesterday and pondered our options. The lovely lady in the hotel suggested two things

1) limestone caves (again a drive away and we've seen quite a lot of stalagmites and tites in our time so didn't really fancy this)
2) Hot springs spa (Martyn about keeled over - on average 35oC and the suggestion is that he gets into HOT water?!!! this option was not for us)

and then we found a cooking class. The only mistake we made was having breakfast before we left! Fortunately however they did doggy bags so we've just eaten the spring rolls we made for our dinner - very yummy.

SO yes, Masterchef here we come. We started with a trip to the market, which was great because although we've visited a fair few markets this time we were actually buying stuff. We came away with bags loaded with beef, pork, shrimp, rice paper, dried and fresh noodle, peanuts, sesame seeds, salad and some other stuff. We managed to avoid the pigs snouts and buffalo tail fortunately.

Then the cooking started. We made Hue style pancakes (one each). 10 fresh spring rolls and 10 fried spring rolls and beef noodle soup. Oh and some peanut dipping sauce and a chilli sauce. All very yummy. We had posh aprons and tall white chefs hats and everything.

Raymond Blanc has nothing on us......although I suppose it was a bit more Ken Hom.

Back to hotel for a small nap (oops) and a bit of a Hanoi planning session followed by a cyclo trip around the Citadel. We haggled for our fee and eventually got what the hotel owner had said was a good price. We were supposed to get an hour but after half an hour we got off and walked - we felt really bad for the guy who was pedalling us around. At least Tuk Tuks have engines!