May 30th – Day 11 – Bay, Bus and Cyclos

Breakfast was quite basic but hey, we’re on a boat in the middle of Ha Long Bay and dining to scenery that many people wouldn’t believe even with their own eyes.  We had toast, fried eggs, some ‘laughing cow’ cheese and coffee.  Fine, but not luxury.

We were lucky with our morning position which meant that we were able to make it to a little island as the first boat to arrive, and when the island opened at 7:45am we had the chance to walk up the hill to a small pagoda or swim in the sea. I chose the both option, rushing up the hill with Yvonne and snapping a few photos before heading back down for a quick dip in the water before we had to move on.  It was really nice to cool down after the stairs upstairs, and the water was pretty pleasant even at 8am.

Our overnight view

My stylish hill climbing / swimming outfit

Dek in his classic pose

The view from the top, by the pagoda

Panorama

Me at the pagoda

Heading back down to swim

Once we finished our swim, it was time to get back on the boat and head back to land. I grabbed a last shower in the boat (which was surprisingly good) and packed up my little day bag – the full bag had stayed in Hanoi at the hotel. We also had our bills to settle, and mine came to 471,000 for the drinks and kayaking – not the cheapest drinks in Vietnam, for sure!

Whilst the captain brought us back to land, the chef gave us all a demonstration of creating vegetable flowers for presentation including an intricate lattice carved from a carrot soaked in salt water for a few hours.  It was quite impressive and filled the time nicely as we headed back to the shore.

A cucumber flower in the making

And the end result

Latticework looks hard

Chef concentrating on the lattice

Presentation time

The finished result

A final stretch in the sun

Once the demo was over we only had a couple of minutes sailing left before we reached the harbour and disembarked from our overnight home.  A quick toilet break in the harbour and we boarded our bus to head back to Hanoi – another 4 hour run, meaning we would arrive in Hanoi after lunch time.  Dek had promised us a stop at a restaurant but what happened was we ended up at the statue place again, where we discovered the cafe was closed and were forced to buy overpriced snacks to keep us going.  I bought a couple of snacks and some postcards, and amused myself on the bus by going through some of the photos you’ve seen in the previous posts.

Once we arrived back in Hanoi, we checked back into the same hotel and they very efficiently dropped our bags back in our new rooms for us.  It was nice to get back into a proper hotel after a night on the boat, but the scenery was less glamorous.

Dek had told us about a Hanoi speciality which I really wanted to try – called Egg Coffee, it is literally a shot of coffee with whisked egg yolk on top. It’s a pretty odd sounding combination which meant I had to try it!  We met up after a few minutes in the hotel and headed to the cafe which is supposedly the origin of this recipe – originated as a solution to a milk shortage in Vietnam when the French occupied.  Navigating the busy streets of Hanoi is an acquired skill, since there are no zebra crossings or stop lights – it’s just a case of plucking up the courage and going for it – slowly – as you cross the road and mopeds zoom around you on either side.

Moped mayhem

No rules as to direction or speed

Cafe Giang was quite literally a back alley place, but perfect for it.  We ordered our egg coffees and they quickly appeared – the tradition is to stir everything together (good, since the egg on top could literally support the spoon when it arrived) and then drink… It was a taste sensation!

Cafe Giang

Egg Coffee

After stirring

I really liked the taste – review sites have likened it to liquid tiramisu and that was exactly our conclusion as well.  Definitely try this if you go to hanoi!

Once we finished off our coffees, we had a little free time where I went to explore the city on foot.  The streets being arranged by business type takes a bit of getting used to, but makes a lot of sense.

In the early evening we met up again as a group for our Cyclo Tour – which would give us a chance to sample the city and the crazy traffic at extremely close quarters!  Our cyclos gave us a quick tour of the old city and the french quarter, which was fascinating and absolute mayhem at all the road junctions.  Talk about putting your life in the hands of someone – those cyclos aren’t the most manourverable things!

Traffic craziness

Cyclo selfie

Picking our cyclo driver

At points the traffic was fairly chaotic

Peace globe

Our cyclo tour dropped us off at a training restaurant which is supported by Gadventures.  This restaurant helps disadvantaged teenagers train to be chefs, waiting staff and allows them to work in the restaurant setting to earn a small wage as well.

There was a set menu presented for us as part of our tour, including a simple noodle salad, spring rolls and some curried vegetables.  The food tasted good and it was nice to feel we were supporting a good cause.

Noodle Salad

Fresh spring rolls

Dinner chat

Once we finished our dinner, we grabbed a normal taxi back (there were too many of us to justify tuktuks) and then I shared a beer with Karl and Petra on the hotels rooftop bar before we headed to bed – we had another 7am start coming!

May 23rd – Day 4 – Durian, Cooking and Chanting Monks

The day started with an early and light breakfast, since the first activity of the day was starting at 9am. I ate with Fred & Carol, then popped up to my room to grab my bag before heading out to meet everyone for our pick-up.  We were collected by our guide from Thai Orchid Cookery School, who later introduced himself as Kong (as in King Kong).

Breakfast, buffet style as always

Thai Orchid Cookery School

Kong took us to the local market, about a 10 minute drive from the hotel, and we had a chance to see all sorts of local speciality fruits and delicacies, including the infamous ‘1000 year egg’ – an egg which has been buried under ground for 100 days and is completely black in colour inside.  The yoke has a sort of jelly texture to it.  Steve from the group was brave enough to try it, but his reaction told us that the rest of us didn’t need to try it!

In Thailand, eggs are coloured to identify their type – brown is chickens egg, white is duck egg and pink is flamingo egg (only kidding, its 1000 year egg)

1000 year egg

We saw a lot of local fruits including dragon fruit, mangostines and the durian fruit.  Durian fruits are banned from all hotels, due to their strong smell and flavour. They smell something like cheese or rotten eggs, and the smell can linger for days or weeks if they are opened indoors, but Thais love the flavour of them – and Kong bought a pack of already cut Durian (a few days old) for us to try – by then the smell has become manageable and actually the taste was pretty good!

Durian fruit, and the cut durian in the bottom right in cling film

Also on sale at the market were spices, curry pastes and lots of different type of rice for different purposes.  Thai people eat rice 3 times a day, so I guess you have to change it up from time to time!

I bought a small pack of pre-cut green mango, which was provided with a sachet of sugar, salt and chilli mixed together to be dipped.  The green mango is quite firm and bitter on it’s own, but with this little pack of zing, it was a really nice experience to eat it!

Green Mango with Sugar, Salt and Chilli – 10 baht (20p!)

After a few minutes of free time whilst Kong gathered some last minute ingredients, we headed back to the van and drove to the cookery school – which turned out to be Kongs house. He runs the cook school as his business and it was really professionally laid out, with a giant angled mirror above a demonstration station in one room, and a bunch of gas stoves in the back garden (with a covered roof) for us to cook on.  We each got our own station, so the pressure is on to really cook!

Our cooking areas, all prepped and ready to go

The Demonstration Station

A chef in the making

The first dish Kong showed us how to prepare was Vegetable Spring Rolls, which were surprisingly easy.  It was great to see all the different ingredients and learn about things like the rough and smooth side of the spring roll paper, the way Thai people make a glue up from tapioca flour to stick the edges together, and to make up our own sauces with traditional Thai ingredients. Kong made it look really easy, and then it was our turn – first collecting the ingredients for our sauce and then chopping the vegetables, stir frying and then wrapping them before frying off the finished spring rolls.  Kong gave us each a dish of home made Sweet Chilli Sauce and we sat down to eat our first home made concoction!

Kong shows us Vermicelli (glass noodles)

Stir frying for the filling of the spring rolls

My turn!

My first spring roll

And then there were two

They survived the fryer

Starter is served!

Got to admit, I am pretty proud of my first Spring rolls – they tasted good and they were super crispy. The second one kind of exploded on me as I was eating it, but at least it tasted good. There was a sign up in the dining room saying that they had beer and soft drinks for sale for 40baht so we agreed we’d all like to order a beer – which resulted in Kong jumping in his car and driving to the shops! Not quite what we had expected, but a few minutes later we had cans of beer in our hands.

We took our beer through and watched our next demonstrations – for Banana Steam Cake, then Yellow Chicken Curry and finally Chicken and Cashew Nuts.  All of the recipes were easy to follow and surprisingly uncomplicated – lots of measures of ingredients – but the end results spoke for themselves.  It was a great lesson in Thai cookery and showed just how simple their dishes are. As long as you have a handy cup of coconut cream around, you can make most of their things with a very simple powder or paste.

Below are a few snaps of the finished articles, and I can assure you that they tasted amazing!

Kong demonstrates Banana Steam Cake

My banana steam cake

Carol smashing it with her Banana Steam Cake

My yellow curry with chicken and potatoes

Fred cooking Chicken Cashew Nut

My chicken cashew nut

Lunch is served

My Banana Steam Cake

Our free cook book

Thai Orchid Cookery School

At the end of the cookery lesson, Kong gave us all a free cookbook with more simple Thai recipes and drove us back to the hotel for a brief rest to allow our stomachs to settle after so much food!

Around 4pm we set off for the next bit of our adventure – a trip to Doi Suthep, the second most sacred sight in Thailand. Doi Suthep was a 45 minute bus ride up a VERY windy road up hill to reach the temple. The road was pretty scary at places and we were amazed to see people cycling up the hill.

At the top of the hill, the minibus stopped and we were told that there were two options to reach the temple – we could either take a tram, or we could walk 309 stairs. Of course I chose the stairs!

Dek gives us the options for the journey up the hill

And I chose the hard option, of course!

In honesty the 309 steps weren’t that hard, and it was a lovely ornate staircase.  There were even some fallen fresh flowers on the steps, which made it pretty to walk up.

Once we regrouped at the top, we headed to a really fantastic viewpoint over Chiang Mai, where you could see the whole city.  Dek explained to us that the temple was built in this location because many years ago an elephant carrying the remains of Buddha indicated that this should be the site, by turning in a circle 3 times and trumpeting.  Somme stories say that the elephant died, others just that it trumpeted. Either way, they decided to build a temple here.

Dek also explained some details about the life of a Buddhist monk, how they follow 227 rules and dedicate their life to the Buddhist principles.  What was interesting that I had no idea about is that you can also get female monks, and they have more than 300 rules to follow because, as Dek said, women are more emotional so they have to have stricter rules.

The temple contains the remains of the Buddha which were carried by the elephant, which is what makes it such a sacred site.  The remains are buried under the temple, and people make trips from all over the Buddhist world to visit and pay their respects.

Whilst we were getting all this information, Dek also explained to us the story of the first Buddha – how he was the son of a King, and lived his life in the palace, never seeing the outside world. Eventually he left the palace and was shocked by the suffering he saw, the sick and dying people. This is what caused him to start the life of a monk, suffering like those people, and since he was making such a sacrifice, people respected him and started to follow his principles. That was the birth of Buddhism.

After all this information about the Buddhist faith, we were given times to wonder around the temple before sunset when the monks who live there come out to pray and chant.  This was what we were aiming for, and we waited around to watch the start of their chants. This was an incredible spiritual experience, seeing these men and a few women who have dedicated everything to their beliefs.

Here are a few snapshots from the temple:

Doi Sutep

Doi Sutep again

Somme of the smaller Buddha statues surroundings the main temple

Young (novice) monks praying and chanting

Chanting to the Buddha in the temple

People bring bells with their name on and leave it with a wish. Most were in Thai, but I found one from Kati and Fredi.

After that amazing experience, we were free to wonder down the hill at our leisure. I grabbed a couple of shots to show the ambience of the area and the steepness of the hill:

The stairs were easier going down, for sure

Another Buddha, at the bottom of the hill

The flags at the bottom of the stairs

Once everyone regrouped, we jumped into the minibus and headed back into Chiang Mai. We stopped at a viewpoint over the city to see some of the lights switching on, then headed all the way down the windy road again.

Once back in Chiang Mai, we were dropped off at another Night Market near our hotel. We had a bit of a look through the stalls, but most of the people in the group wanted to try a ‘Fish Massage’ – something I ruled out straight away! With my ticklish feet, there is no chance I would enjoy that.

Dek took us to a stall which was really good value for money – the fish massage was 100 baht for 20 minutes, and they offered Thai massage for 100 baht (£2) for 30 minutes. I opted for a neck and back massage, whilst the others tried the Fish Massage!

Steve didn’t last long!

Feeling accomplished from our mixed day of cooking, temples and massages, we grabbed a light dinner in a bar at the market and I treated myself to a hand made ice cream as well.  Afterwards, we took a Tuk-Tuk back to the hotel and had a fairly early night – preparing for my Ziplining adventure tomorrow which Dek has booked for me! Got to be ready to leave at 8am, so it’s an early start.

Brownie and M&Ms get cream poured over them and smashed together

Then the mixture is spread out on a cold plate to freeze, and rolls of it are created using the spatula once it’s frozen

Then whipped cream is added and more M&Ms and brownies… Voila, calories in a bowl! But I’m on holiday!

Night all!