Today was a tortuously early 6.40am start, as we had to cram in a cycle tour of the Hoi An countryside, the fitting for our suits, and a cookery class. I should mention that all these things were optional, and I feel Julie should probably have taken the option not to cycle!
Breakfast is ordered from a menu here, and only one thing can be ordered (shock horror!), but my ham and cheese grilled sandwich was very nice. The cycling tour guide (whose name I couldn't say, or write) showed up and got us a taxi to the cycle place. We all picked a bike, and Julie could be heard muttering 'if I want to pull out, now would be the time'. It would indeed have been the time.
The first part of the ride was through the busy morning market, so lots of pushing along with our feet, and not a lot of actual riding. It didn't bother me too much, even the 7.45 heat was formidable. We got on a boat, along with about 100 more locals than the boat should've been able to fit, and got taken to the island we would be cycling round. We set off from the boat, turned right at a fairly wide cross roads with no traffic to speak of, and Julie fell off her bike. She reckons she was going too fast for the corner, but we reckon not, given she was at the back, and nobody in front of her had managed to go so far they were flung from their bike.
There was some nice scenery on the way, including a field of lotus flowers, and a picturesque river. There was also a water buffalo who jumped up onto the path, and stared down anyone who came near. He was tied up, so he couldn't chase us, but he certainly had enough slack on his rope to block the path. After a 5 minute stand off he went to wallow in the mud, and we made our escape.
Our first stop was at a rice wine (uh oh!) brewer's house. The man was a veteran of a war with Cambodia, and had a wooden leg, but he was probably the smiliest man I have ever seen. The rice wine he made was a lot nicer than the lighter fluid I had the other night, but still a bit strong to be drunk as a casual beverage (starting at 35%, up to 70%). Afterwards he played a song on his guitar he wrote about his comrades in the war, which was actually pretty good (from the guitar and sound of his voice, the words were in Vietnamese so no idea what they were). He then asked if anyone played guitar. I said yes innocently, not realising I would be asked to play something. It isn't like I play often these days, so I had trouble remembering anything, plus his guitar was a bit out of tune (I didn't dare fix it in case it was tuned for his war song or something), but I managed a passable impression of "Rather Be With You" by Joshua Radin, after a couple of false starts as my fingers warmed up.
Next up we saw how sleeping mats were made, which was very simple, and a couple of the ladies even had a go (it was girls stuff, so I didn't!). We then left for another village, where we were going to make our own noodles. On the way, there were a couple of arching bridges, made of concrete slabs, which had a slight slope to get up, and no railings. They were about 2 meters wide, but this was not enough for Julie, who managed the first bridge, but for some reason known only to her freaked out on the second bridge and ride straight off. There was a drop of about 10 feet into water, but it wasn't very deep and there were rocks. Luckily she missed them all, wasn't hurt at all, and got hosed down of all the mud by some benevolent locals.
After all the drama, we finally got to the noodle village, made our noodles, and ate them. The process was surprisingly simple; you put 2 layers of rice flour mixed with water on a sheet of fabric lying over a fire, let it cook until solid, then scooped it of and left it to dry for 15 minutes. Put it through a grinder type thing, and noodles fall out the other end. Despite the simplicity, they tasted good, and we left back for the boat with full stomachs. We saw more buffalo on the way back, but they didn't want to pick a fight.
We got the boat back, cycled through the now near deserted market, and made it home (largely) safely. For some reason the shower in our room has only been doing cold water, despite there clearly being an option for hot, but in this case I was glad of the cold water, as it had been another high 30s day.
Now it was time for our suit fitting. We went back to the shop, and were greeted with cold waters, and an offer to sit on a sofa until our assistants were ready. Denise showed up soon after, and made various notations about slight adjustments to be made in chalk, and took loads more photos of front, back, and sides. The woman in the pink dress (no idea who she was, but she seemed important) came over at one point, and noticed something about my neck/shoulder that was seemingly amiss. She fired of a load of Vietnamese at Denise, and more drawing and photographs ensued. The neck/shoulder seemed fine to me, but they do seem to know best so whatever. Apparently Dave's fit almost perfectly, but Belle's jumpsuit, or playsuit, or something, was way too big on the torso. No matter, it will be sorted by tomorrow.
We went and grabbed a Vietnamese roll at a cafe, as there were still 4 hours to our cooking class, and dinner. Afterwards I looked around for an hour or so for a shop with masks I had seen yesterday. Unfortunately, all the streets look the same, and I could not find it, so manfully gave up.
The cooking class was on a dodgy seeming backstreet, and Rick got run over almost immediately. Luckily, it was only by a tiny child in a tiny car, there were a few kids running round the area our cooking class was in. Our instructor was insanely bubbly, and seemed to have watched every video on YouTube. She made the class great fun, and we made a papaya salad, spring rolls, tuna in banana leaf, and caramelised aubergines. I even didn't hate the aubergines, a big surprise. The downside was I had suddenly developed a continually runny nose, along with sporadic sneezing. I was coming down with a cold :(
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