Day 41: Hoi An food tour

I ate so much food today I still feel ill. I went on a morning walking food tour at 8am. Usually I'd do a food tour in the evening, but given I had a bicycle tour booked this afternoon I wouldn't have been back in time. The amount of food we ate between 8-11 was just ridiculous. 

It was just myself plus a family from Korea. We started off at a place called White Rose. They serve only two things: fried wontons and rice flour dumplings. This restaurant is owned by a family that has been making this food for generations, and they supply all the dumplings to all of the restaurants in the town. The group of women sit there from 7am to 9pm every day making them. Insane. We had a go at making them with the dough, which is harder than it looks. There are two types, one with shrimp paste and one with pork.  They are steamed for a few minutes then dipped in fish sauce and they taste fab! After that we went to the best Banh Mi place in town. Banh Mi is a popular Vietnamese sandwich (baguette with pork, herbs, onions and chili sauce). At this point I'm already starting to get full. Next up was the food market where we had a bowl of cao lau (noodles with pork in broth). It was nicer than the one I had last night, but I couldn't finish it. I'm severely struggling at this point.

Thankfully we took a small break from food and went to a traditional Vietnamese coffee house. I didn't know Vietnam was second only to Brazil in the production of coffee, so it's a huge culture here. They have their coffee cold with condensed milk and a block of ice. Because of the condensed milk it's quite sweet, but tastes so amazing that I asked for another. 

The last stop was to a traditional Vietnamese house where a lovely women cooked up a feast for us. We had crispy savoury pancakes with quails egg, fried spring rolls and then pork wrapped in rice paper with fish sauce. I was so full at this point but it felt rude not to eat. I would have been happy just trying one of everything but I was literally forced to keep eating more and more. Breakfast and lunch are the big meals of the day here. I kept trying to tell the girl that us westerners don't typically eat very much for breakfast, and certainly not things like pork noodles and spring rolls!  There was still dessert to eat. It was a sweet soup (sweet corn and coconut milk) and tasted far better than it looked. Finally the tour ended. At this point I've eaten more in three hours than I would over an entire two days. But it was definitely worth it.

What I needed after that was a lie down! But that wasn't really an option as I had an afternoon bicycle tour booked! This time it was only 10km as opposed to 25km so it wasn't so bad. The weather took a bit of a turn today though so it was overcast with rain showers all afternoon. The tour was really good though and really interesting. We stopped to watch local families work their trade, including production of basket boats, bamboo mats, rice wine and wood carvings. Karaoke is pretty big here so we passed lots of hang outs where groups of drunk men where singing really loudly and really badly. Vietnamese people cannot sing. At all. 

Yet again the predominant people on the tour were Australian. These guys are everywhere in Asia! There was also a younger couple who were incredibly annoying as the girl could literally not keep her hands off the guy the whole 5 hours. Can't say I blame her though, he was beautiful. What a cow.

After my Vietnamese feast this morning I was not in the slightest wanting to eat more Vietnamese food! I had worked up an appetite after the bike ride though and decided I wanted a curry. It was actually pretty good, although the poppadoms were minuscule. 

It's cold here this evening since it has been raining. I even had to take a cardigan out with me. Due to the shit weather I sat in one pub most of the night where I got chatting to a Brazilian. When he realised he wouldn't be getting an invite back to my hotel he quickly lost interest. So, like all Brazilians, he was beautiful, but he was a twat. The town is nowhere near as busy tonight so it's so much nicer. I realise now there was some sort of festival on last night which is why it was far busier than usual.

Everyone told me I'd love it so much here I'd want to extend my stay. I don't, I've seen it, it's time to move on. I don't get attached to places, just people, and I haven't met any great ones here. Hanoi tomorrow. I hear it's hosting a Latin festival starting 30th March. It'd be rude not to!