Curly Wurly Incense

We are staying in this completed tricked out hotel called the Intercontinental perched on the side of Monkey Mountain. We arrived after 9 pm at the same time as another group, and there was lot of chaos. You can't walk to your room and you can't walk to reception, everything has to be done in the Buggy.  

The room was completely gorgeous, but when my butler came, it was obvious that nothing worked - no phone, no TV, no internet - I would find out in the morning, no hot water in the shower, but hot water in the bath. This flummoxed them and two guy talking rapidly crawled under my bed, crawled under the tables...they did not fix it. At 11, I suggested they leave and try in the morning.

I had a great night's sleep, but morning came too soon. I opened my curtains and did an inspiring hour of yoga looking down at the sea. Then it was time to meet in reception.

We got in the bus with Dan with some vague ideas for stops, which seemed a bit made up. First we stopped at a fishing village, which wasn't a village at all and was just some guys on the beach in their funny saucer boats, which we had seen the night before lighting up the sea. We got some information on the Americans that were stationed here and stopped at China Beach, most things in this area were names by the American soldiers.  

We stopped at a place that made silk lanterns and quite hilariously were put to work to make our own. This was extremely funny as we were quickly covered in glue and silk threads. The guys were very ginger at first and then just went for it and produced some very ugly lanterns. We each had a monitor at the table who corrected all of our mistakes and often said, no no no. I will never look at a lantern quite the same way again.

After lanterns, we went to a silk factory and learned about the whole lifecycle of the silkworm and then how silk is made. The factory not only made fabric but also had young girls doing embroidery, which you would have sworn was a photograph when it was finished and custom made clothing. I loaded up here and got everyone to do the same.

Our ultimate destination was the village of Hoi An. There were lots of facts given to me today, but I must admit that I zoned them all out - it had something to do with the Japanese and them being so close to China, I think - there was a map and a highlighter used. The village is closed to cars and was fun to walk around.  

We went to a Buddhist temple - 95% of southern Vietnamese are Buddhist. The temple had these incredible hanging incense that spiraled down and most of them had a card inside that was a wish for someone. We saw one for a lady in Oregon hoping she would get better. I suspect it takes days to burn each one - that is how big they are.

We had lunch at the 'best' bakery. We had these weird pancakes that we had to be taught how to eat, wrapping some green, herbs, and green bananas with it into a rice paper - tasty but a bit greasy. I had Cha Ca for my main, which turned out to be fish served sizzling in a hot pot and then they mixed in fresh rice noodles, fish sauce, herbs (dill and basil) with peanut and fired garlic at the table. It was so good. I had a real lemon tart for dessert, and it had little bitty meringues on the top.

After lunch, we went to an old house that has housed 7 generation and they showed us how many times it had been under water, including the last typhoon and where the hatch was to pull the furniture up to the second floor - 'this hatch is a good idea.'

Then we were given an hour of free time. I wandered through the markets and then sat and watched this guy pull a net out of the river. First, he pulled himself and his boat across the river, then he climbed up onto this platform and started spinning the wheel, which pulled a net out of the river. A big group gathered on the side to see his catch, everyone was so excited. Once the bottom of the net was revealed, it had a 3 -4 inch fish in the bottom and everyone laughed and he laughed, and he dropped the wheel and the net went back into the water and headed on his way.

I had decided to skip group dinner tonight as they were eating in the hotel restaurant and eating a set menu of western food. I planned to eat at the seafood place by the sea, but then I got so comfortable in my wicker disk that I asked for the menu and ended up ordering a wagu beef burger with a fried egg. It was served on a soft sort of sweet bun with lots of fresh herbs - it was incredible. I would find out in the morning that dinner had been a fiasco and the dinner was not edible to most and the choices were even more limited than we had been told. I am thinking this was all about the iPad/kindle karma from the twinky lady going to Burma.