A discovery. My terrible heartburn (which I have never had in my life but has been plaguing me for days) and asthma has been caused by the MSG in all the food we have been eating. Or maybe I am just blaming the Vietnamese for getting sick. But totally plausible, yes?
In any case, in my final day in Hoi An I lazed by the pool, not having the will or energy to do much else. Everybody else went to the beach, I decided the beaches were better at home. I ended up eating lunch down the road from the hotel at a street stall owned by a little Vietnamese woman who used to live in Gymea. She reminised about life in the shire, which I found incrediby amusing, sitting on a plastic stool drinking soup in an alleyway in the middle of Vietnam. She agreed Cronulla was the better beach.
Ater another swim, the British kids came back red-raw (they just get so excited about that sun, don’t they) and we decided to head off to a Vietnamese cooking class in town run by a woman named Vi who pretty much owns half of Hoi An (a tailor owns the other half). It was really interesting to learn all about the spices and greens, and how each dish should contain a range of textures, flavours and colours.
Unfortunately I felt like shit, and obviously looked it, beacause the wait staff made me a lime tea to make me feel better and forced me to eat the lime pieces whole, which actually did make me feel better, and I kind of stumbled home, loaded myself up on drugs (vegetables can only go so far) and slept.
I actually missed out on eating the chargrilled fish in banana leaves that I made in class, but if anyone asks, let’s just say it was a culinary masterpiece, ok?
-Sarah
Sarah