Nha Trang

January 25^th

Up early today as we can go ashore at 8 AM.  We are to meet Ong Dat a tour guide that has added a different touch to sightseeing in Nha Trang,

Perfect start as we spot our sign just as we walk out the gate.  Hop into his car and we are off to see the sites.  First stop a fishing village with their Blue and Red deep water fishing boats.  We also find out that Nha Trang is having a hard time since their largest groups to visit come from Russia and that has now abruptly stopped.

Seems Vladimir may be hurting just more than the Russia people.  Oh well we will add our two cents in today to help.

First stop a local clay charcoal stove manufacturer.  He molds and fires clay stands that are used for cooking with charcoal in the homes here.  50 a day.  All made by hand and crafted one at a time.  Each has character and after one year of use they are put out at the Lunar New Year for the poor to use and new ones bought.  Interesting backyard business to view as the charcoal fires produce pollution but changing it will affect so many lives.  Bigger issues than our minds can get around.

Then on to a local market.  Crowds of people all bargaining with the vendors.  Narrow paths through the hundreds of women all trying to buy something fresh.  Vendors have been up early picking vegetables, or butchers up slaughtering animals, and the fisherman just back from the sea.  Selling is women’s work as is buying.  Certainly a tight fit for a big American guy who sticks out in this crowd.  Everything is fresh and open air.  Just what you have come to know and love about markets everywhere.  We buy what we will be cooking for our lunch.  Carrots, sweet potatoes, taro, chicken, beef, fish, tofu and mushrooms.  This is a place you would never venture into if it were not for the guide.  Strange to think that these items were walking, swimming or in the ground just hours ago.

We catch an interesting pleasant smell and ask Ong Dat what it is.  He shows us a woman cooking on a charcoal fire.  It is a thin rice batter with a quail egg much the size of a dollar pancake.  Also on the stove is what seems to be a rice breakfast taco.  A spoonful of thin watery rice flour mixture and with pieces of squid touched with a bit of green onion.  Her stove is mixed into the market tables but she has benches.  Happily for her we sit down to a market breakfast cooked to order.  Soak it in a bit of sauce that we have no idea what it contains and it is quite tasty.  So what if we are pulling an “Anthony Bourdain”, we love it and hope that the rest of the day goes as well.

From the market we head off into the back streets of this unnamed little village and arrive at a rice paper operation.  Another family business in the front of the house with living space in the back.  Thin rice water cook into paper-thin sheets spiced with peppers and seeds or nothing at all.  Cooked for a brief moment on a smooth clay oven, rolled out on a bamboo mat and placed in the sun until crisp.  Thinner than crackers but tasty nonetheless.  Interesting for us to see that they use all their resources here.  Rice to make the paper, the hulls to feet the clay ovens.  Two ovens, four people and a thriving business all the space of a house. I always new the Vietnamese were hard working and today just reaffirmed that belief.

Again we are off down a dirt road this time to a rice noodle operation.   Rice soaked in water to soften, presses to extract the water and leave the paste, then dried only to be blended to a fine soft batter that is extracted into boiling water.  Cooked momentarily and turn out in piles of crystal strains of rice noodles ready to sell.  The man cooks the ladies feed and dry and package.  All in the rooms of the house where they live.  Small business at it’s best.

Quickly we move on to the home of Ong Dat and the highlight of the day.  Preparing our dishes for lunch.  Out of the car down a winding path to a large garden with an outdoor pavilion made for cooking demonstrations.  The sous chef with loads of bits and pieces lays out two chopping boards for us ready for the real adventure of the day.  Aprons on but Terrie takes the lead here and I take the pictures.  Amazingly I don’t have to wash up this time after everything is done.

Four dishes to be prepared.  Sea Bass marinated the Vietnamese way.  Beef thinly sliced with onions and mushrooms.  Chicken marinated with Basil and Ginger.  Tofu crispy spring rolls with sweet potato, carrot, taro and spring onions.

Ong Dat lovingly guides Terrie as she prepares the dishes.  Showing her the traditional Vietnamese methods, all the way through to cooking with chopsticks.  For me I get to taste and photograph and enjoy the fruits of their labor.

The driver, Ong Dat, the Sous chef, Terrie and I all sit down under a thatched canopy with the cool of the Vietnamese “winter” breeze blowing and have a brilliant lunch.

Terrie is in heaven and is smiling from ear to ear with the look of “Hey they like it.  They really like it”. 

We stilled had stops to make in Nha Trang.  Their special art is embroidery.  Everything from small works to massive two sided walls of every so dainty stitching.  A bit pricey for our budgets but great to view and wish for while we where there.  But it didn’t take long for us to move on back to our vessel with memories of a lifetime.  If nothing else about Vietnam remains the new ideas for cooking will remain as Terrie promises Crispy Tofu Spring Rolls and Chicken with Basil and Garlic when we get back.

Back at ship we discover that we have reservations for a wine pairing dinner in the special dinning room, formal no less.  We really had no room for dinner but wine is always called for and luckily the meal is more of a tasting which makes us both happy.

In all I can only say it will be hard to top this day.  The peace, the friendship, the shared love of cooking is priceless.