March 23 - Da Nang and Hôi An

What a day!  We docked in the port of Da Nang this morning and I had to be up early because I was booked on an all-day tour (more about that in a moment).  I want to say something about Da Nang first. The city lies on the central coast of Vietnam and during the Vietnam War it was a major base for the US Air Force and the South Vietnamese Air Force as well. Thousands of US troops began their tour of duty here and it was one of the last places from which the US withdrew.  I came here a little over 29 years ago on a cruise with my husband.  I shall never forget talking with one of our fellow passengers after our day in Da Nang.  That man had been a Navy SeaBee (the United States Navy Construction Battalions) who came to Da Nang in 1964 to help build the American base there. Somehow he had gotten permission to do a private tour with his wife to visit some of the sites he helped to build.  (That was rare back then because we all had to go on official ship tours.) On a sea day after that we were talking to him about what he saw, and what he told us was that everything he saw was what he and his fellow Seabees had built with no improvement or upkeep being done in the ensuing 30 years.  That impression was borne up by what we saw as we passed through Da Nang on our ship’s tour to Huê.  Everything we saw was dilapidated, mildewed and standard government style barracks and buildings.

Now that I’ve said what I saw in the past, let me tell you that what I saw on our way back to the ship was like something from another planet. We passed miles of high-rise luxury hotels and vacation resorts (timeshare condos) along a spectacular beach.  There were glitzy multi-story shopping centers and modern bars and restaurants.  Tomorrow is the Da Nang International Marathon (in this heat and humidity!!) so the place was packed with people who had come for that.  Meanwhile just past that area is the same kind of gritty warren of streets where the people who work at the glamorous beach live.  What a huge contrast!  Is this better?  I guess so because  people have jobs but our guide happened to mention (I don’t know if it was accidental or on purpose) that local people aren’t allowed to go in some of the places we passed.

I'm cheating here because I was in a bus and couldn't get a photo like this, but this is what I rode by courtesy of the internet.  Any big hotel name you can think of was represented here.

Enough about Da Nang because my destination was actually the old city of Hôi An where I was to take a Vietnamese cooking class.  There were 15 of us and we took off with our first stop being what I can best describe as a communal garden.  Our guide Phuong  told us rather a different story than Lee, our guide in Saigon did.  (I’ll talk about the differences more some other day.)  At this garden people were allowed to grow on a plot which I think was about 10 square meters which is a little over 100 sq. ft.  In the plots that we walked past we saw all kinds of herbs, lettuces and a few other vegetables growing.  People were tending their gardens and we stopped at one where the farmer was getting ready to plant some new herbs.  He dug a bed, put in some dried seaweed which was the fertilizer, covered it back up with dirt, and then with his thumb made little holes where he planted little individual plants which I think were basil.  Then with two watering cans he got water from the communal water supply and watered the new plantings.   For as far as I could see there wasn’t a single modern looking piece of equipment.

Next we drove to a soft noodle maker's workshop.  This man takes rice and soaks it in alkaline water.  To get the alkaline water he burns wood and puts the ashes in water.  After the rice has soaked, he mashes it and makes a dough.  In his workplace he showed us the two methods for making the noodles.  He rolls out dough into thin layers and either cuts in very thin strips with a very sharp, big knife or he uses a hand-cranked machine that looked just like an old-fashioned pasta machine.  He  then puts the noodles into bags and either delivers them by bicycle to other places in the town or people come to pick them up.  The only sign of anything modern in this ramshackle place was an electric fan on a stand. Upon leaving his shop we walked to another place that takes the soft noodles and dries them on bamboo baskets outside to make them hard.

The noodle maker followed by some photos of his workshop

Noodles drying outside in a courtyard

From the noodle-maker we drove into Hôi An where we had to leave the bus and take a very long walk into the old city.  Hôi An is a tourist destination because part of the city along the Thu Bon river is a well-preserved example of a Vietnamese trading port from the 15th to 19th centuries. Because of its historic status cars and buses aren’t allowed in, just pedicabs, bicycles and the ubiquitous motorbikes.  It was hot and humid again and the walk which might otherwise have been lovely was strenuous.  We walked through a market, which was an absolute waste (shades of Saigon).  Had we bought anything other than vegetables or fruit there to cook later I would have been reluctant to eat it. As it was we bought nothing. Then we  were off to our cooking class on the third floor of a very busy restaurant along the river.

The promenade along the river on our way to the school

At our class we each had our individual seat, gas burner and ingredients.  We made a spring roll with shrimp and a little pork and some fresh green herbs in rice paper.  I liked this enough that I might actually make them for dinner sometimes.   Next we made something that was a cross between a pancake and an omelet, then barbecued chicken rubbed with a bunch of spices and marinated in a combination of sauces, and finally a mango salad which we ate with the chicken.  I got the recipes should I ever want to prepare them.  I’m not a big fan of some of the spices we used so I don’t know that I’ll try them unless I vary them a little.  It was fun though and the teacher Tam was excellent.

My station with the ingredients for the rice paper spring roll

My creation.  It tasted better than it looked.

The classroom was open air with a courtyard next to it

My barbecued chicken with mango salad

After lunch we crossed over the river to the old city and some of the group went on a walk through a Chinese temple and a couple of old houses.  I stayed with a few others at a rustic café watching the throngs of tour groups go by with their leader at the front with a flag or sign leading the way.  It was hot, crowded and I was tired.

After our drive back through the beach resort of Da Nang which I wrote about above, we reboarded the ship after the all aboard time.  As we crossed the gangway they were getting ready to remove it and cast off. I had a very nice time but I was exhausted.  I missed the sailaway deck party and for dinner went down kind of late with one of my friends for sushi.  I did something unheard of then and went to bed with lights out earlier than I can remember in ages.