Crocodile, anyone?... No? Then how about cake?...

MONDAY 20th June

This morning Helle and Andes picked me up at 8am and we went across Hai Phong to visit 283 Crocodile Farm...

This is the entrance, and the company car that we came in.  It has beautiful gardens everywhere, and must look amazing when the orchids are all in bloom.

 Helle

Here's Andes under a pomelo (grapefruit) tree.

This fruit is durian (the very smelly one)... these are too immature to smell yet.

I don't know what these are, but they are hard and shny, like a gourd.

Everywhere you look, there's something interesting... even a few orchids

And of course, plenty of crocodiles... they have 4,000 “xiem” crocodiles (a species called Siamensis from Thailand) as well as a restaurant, Nam Phuong Queen which serves dishes of crocodile meat. There’s also a small workshop making items (wallets, belts, etc.) out of crocodile leather

This young one was about 2.5 metres long.

There was only one really big croc there, but I didn't get to see him, because he was submerged. The breeding females were all about 3 metres long and were set apart with lots of tropical forest where they could make nests for laying their eggs. (I tried to photograph them, but my camera kept auto focussing on the wire fence...  I must find out how to bypass that feature.)

These Pacific Black Ducks might have been swimming on our dam last year... they should have stayed there...

After we went through the crocodile farm, we headed into the restaurant so we could sample crocodile meat. At the door was a display of wine jars featuring a disturbing variety of creatures believed to have a beneficial effect on humans...

These two are snake wine and spotted deer wine

bear and monitor lizard

Would you believe ... ostrich...!

I think this one contains the genitalia of a male spotted deer

So, anyway, on to the crocodile meat... this stir fry was delicious. A little chewy but a pleasant flavour

and this kebab was chargrilled crocodile meat and onion. I would happily eat crocodile meat again. It isn't a particularly strong flavour, and the texture is like any other meat.

Above the restaurant was a small museum displaying pottery and other artefacts

The sign says these pots date back to the 1st  - 2nd centuries!

The potter who misfired these bowls wasn't as good a craftsman as the metalsmith who made the crocodile and the cooking pots!

Apparently the skull is a fossilised rhinocerus

This is all memorabilia from the French colonial era

After the Museum, we checked out the gift shop with crocodile skin products.

Gorgeous handbags.. out of my league at $200-$300

Stuffed crocodile, anyone?  No? Well how about these furry little fellas...

Protected native fauna did I hear you say?... too late, they're already stuffed.

I can understand why Helle always takes visitors here, it's a very interesting place, with much to look at. Apparently if you're here when the babies are hatching, they'll even let you hold the egg as they emerge. Wouldn't that be a thrilling experience? 

On the way home, we stopped off at a tailor to pick up some shorts Helle had ordered last week. The tailor is an old man and his work is beautiful. I was so impressed with Helle's new shorts, I ordered some new pants for myself so I can throw away the monstrosities I had made when I arrived here. I had a very pleasant surprise when he was measuring me... I've lost more that 15 cm around my hips... Yeaaaaa... They'll be ready next week.

Then we stopped off at a cake shop. Helle bought 2 cakes to take to her husband's work this afternoon for a treat...

This one...

and this one... The cakes are sponge, iced with mock cream. The roses are white chocolate, and the chocolate is real and delicious. I know, because I lashed out, spent $1 and bought a little one for myself...

Waddayarekun... cute, eh? 

I bought some fruit, too...

Lychees, mangosteens, apples, and some bean-filled do-nutty bun things.

So after all that excitement, I got home and it was only 10:30am!  Needless to say, I put on the jug and made a cuppa and had a couple of the donutty things. I had to wait till 12:30 my time for Jordan to get home from school so she and Bailey could see my little cake before I tried it... Very rich! It will last a couple of days in the fridge. Then after my little indulgence, Mr Cuong phoned to say he is busy, so I'll have to walk to school this afternoon after all. Probably just as well.

Buffet at Seamen No2

SUNDAY 19th June

This evening the teaching staff from VAIE all went to the other Seamen Restaurant in the centre of the city to celebrate several birthdays, including mine, Nicholas' and the director, Mr Hung (Mountain), as well as the arrival of Ian (from Australia), Gene and the four new Teaching Assistants - Loyal, Harvey, Lillie and Snowy.

We enjoyed another feast of delicious food.. not just seafood this time...

The restaurant is down a laneway... this is Gene and her daughter Becki 'looking glamorous' for the picture.  I'll show you the general photos first, then the many food photos for the enthusiasts (so you know if you are over looking at food photos, you won't be missing anything if you don't see them all!...)

this is all of us

and here's the restaurant

These are my first two platefulls:

That's Duck Soup in the little bowl on the right

So now it's just photo after photo of some of the food on offer...

pork...                     and crabs...

this is a duck soup

These sea snails on the left were stuffed with a delicious mixture of snail and other ingredients, then stuffed back into the shells with a piece of lemon grass behind the stuffing so you could easily pull it out...

How cool is this carved pumpkin??

and of course, there's always dessert...

And that about does it.  Amazing that you see so few overweight Vietnamese people when they cook such delicious food.  I have decided it's because their normal daily diet always consists of fresh food... nothing pre-packaged full of artificial flavours and colours... lots of rice and vegetables, and only small quantities of meat - seafood is eaten much more often than meat. And of course, what we ate tonight is reserved for celebrations, it's certainly not normal fare for us locals!



Out for lunch twice in two days!!

FRIDAY 17th June

Well It's been head down tail up for weeks now, but this week I've been out twice!  On Wednesday I went with the Texas BBQ girls into the city centre to a lovely Thai Restaurant called BKK

Nice, eh?   Inside was lovely , too...

The young man is Andes, Helle's son.  

I had stir-fried black pepper beef which was delicious.

I only ate half, the rest I brought home for today's lunch (you can see Ann's green pawpaw salad on the right)

So that was a real treat on Wednesday. Several of those girls will be leaving next week so we'll be down to a few for the rest of summer. Next Monday morning Helle and Andes are going to pick me up and we're going to a crocodile farm with a visitor from Denmark... that will be good.

Then yesterday Linh picked me up and took me into the city centre to buy my ticket home at the Jetstar office. So I'm all booked for the return flight with Katie on 29th October. This is a photo of Linh all covered up to protect her from the sun. Most Vietnamese women cover themselves from head to toe so they don't get a tan.

Linh then took me to a restaurant run by people from Hue and we had Bánh Mì   Huế (bang mi hooay)... probably ranks in my top three dishes so far...

The food came to the table sizzling in a light, delicious clear sauce, and the bread was even better than it looks. We literally wiped our plates clean with it to sop up every last little bit!  This fabulous meal cost me $6.10 for both of us.

So now I have another lesson to prepare. My classes are so much fun. Last night in one of my beginner adults classes, they wanted to know what chateau meant. I asked my TA to translate it, so he wrote it on the board. Then when the students were doing some bookwork, I asked him to teach me how to say it ngyueh lâu đài (don't ask me now... I've already forgotten...). But anyway, While I figured everyone was busy, and no-one was listening, I attempted to say the Vietnamese words. I got it right at the second attempt and to my surprise, the whole class cheered and clapped!!!  I was so embarassed, I went bright red and I'm sure my glasses fogged up while we all laughed and I tried to get it together...

These gorgeous people are not that class, but from another one, where half the class have given themselves numbers as English nick-names... (this is half the class)

L to R back row: Pilot, Kevin, Alex, Five and No. 1 (he started it...). Front row: Alice, Six, Mandy, Eleven, Nine and Pink

Kit Kat anyone??

MONDAY 6th June

Yesterday on the way home from school after the morning classes, I stopped off at a supermarket to buy tea bags and other supplies. I was looking for a pack of 6 small Kit Kats, for a treat, but they didn't have any. I did find these, however:

They were there on the shelf alongside all the other packets of biscuits, and I figured they would be worth a try... if they didn't taste any good, I would only be throwing away $2. When I got home, I made a cup of tea and opened the packet for a 'Kit Kat'....

I could open a shop!  Should be enough there to last me for weeks. (They aren't as good as Kit Kats but I wont be throwing them away... :)

Rotisserie Duck

SUNDAY 5th June

I finished my last class for this week at 5pm and loaded up my backpack with books for lesson preparation for tomorrow and headed for home. It was very hot, but as I walked through the market, I stopped by the rotisserie duck stand.

It always smells so delicious, I decided to buy one. They weren't quite cooked, so I sat down (on a tiny little 15cm stool) and had an icy orange juice at the little stall behind me and waited for about ten minutes.

Before long my duck was ready... the cook's boyfriend added some flair to my photo...

She chopped up the duck and fitted it all neatly into two take-away food containers, and included a bag of soya sauce, and a generous handful of Vietnamese mint... and that's what I eventually had for my dinner (with plenty left over for lunches next week)... It cost 150,000D (about $6).

On the way home I also bought half a watermelon, a pomello and a bunch of fresh lychees. They cost $2.50 a kilo and are just delicious.

Since I had my camera handy, I took more photos on the way home... so here they are along with some I took the other day...

This very friendly old lady cleans, repairs and sells second-hand shoes

Every business has a security guard or two on duty outside it keeping and eye on the bikes parked on the footpath.

This is Texas BarBQ, where I have lunch with the ex-pat ladies on Wednesdays

At the moment, the streetscapes are really vibrant with flowering trees.

The red ones the locals call 'flamboyant' (they look like poincianas to me) and the purple ones look like they might be in the crepe myrtle family

The flowers are quite beautiful

This is the restuarant on the corner just near my house... I took this photo at around 1:30 on Wednesday, when most locals are having a snooze, so it wasn't busy then

They sell cold fresh beer for just 20 cents a glass (schooner size) which is very light and refreshing, and the family who run it are always very friendly

You can see Whang (?) the proprietress inside. She is very friendly and always waves and calls Hello, madame! when I walk past. I haven't eaten there for weeks because these days I usually get dinner at the school canteen, but today as I was walking past laden with back-pack, fruit and that duck (which was smelling delicious) she was sitting outside catching the breeze at a table with those little blue plastic chairs with arms that I have been avoiding since I got here for fear that (a) I wouldn't fit into one and (b) that it would break if I did!... Anyway, she waved me over to sit down and have a chat... and I am delighted to report that not only do I now fit into those little chairs, it didn't threaten to break after all.  Her son, Khien, asked me if I'd like a beer, but I had just bought myself a sugar cane juice at the stand next door...

I took this photo of the sugar cane stand the other night... you can see Whang's restaurant in the background. This was at about 10pm, so it was close to closing time. Earlier in the night the pavement would be crowded with diners.

Anyway, this evening I sat down for about half an hour and had a bit of a conversation with Khien doing his best with very limited English. A few other people sat down to listen and once again I wished I could just talk with them in Vietnamese instead of sit there smiling and speaking very slowly a few sentences of simple English hoping to be understood. I have looked at a couple of programs on-line for learning Vietnamese, but I have put it aside for the moment because I always seem to have lessons to prepare...

So there you have it. Hai Phong no longer looks like the drab dusty place it was when I arrived at the end of their winter. Spring has sprung and summer's beginning. I have been told to expect tropical downpours, ridiculously high humidity and extremely hot days and nights... can't wait for that. No denying it, already the classrooms that don't have functioning airconditioning end up like saunas after an hour with 20+ people in them because even though the fans are going flat out, there are no windows and the door is usually shut! It's always a shock to come out and find the outside air temperature (35 degrees at least...) is cooler than the classroom! These days I carry a face-washer with me to mop my face.

Then I get to my room and have the fan on and the aircon and it's just lovely. Right now it's time I left the cool of my room and venture out to the bathroom for a shower so I can go to bed clean... I can't put it off any longer, I'm tired!

Waste not, want not

One thing that living here has shown me is how very wasteful we are in the west. Nothing ever gets scrapped here before it's recycled many times over. If one person has finished with something, be it household waste, building waste, old clothes, broken electrical goods.... anything at all, it is left out on the footpath and by the next day someone has come by and taken it away... usually to be repaired or re-used. Each morning peddlers cycle by hawking for old clothes, cardboard, plastic bottles...each one collects a different thing. Then they take it to a collection point.

Cardboard recyclers

I shudder when I think of how much perfectly good / repairable stuff ends up at the dump at home simply because someone doesn't need it any more. That would never happen in a poor country. The old adage necessity is the mother of invention certainly applies here. When a repairman came to fix my air-conditioner, I was stunned to see into his toolbox... a few old tools, some rusty old bolts and screws and a few tired looking bits and pieces... but he fixed the air-con all the same!

Because so many of the buildings here are accessed via winding little lane-ways, building materials are rarely delivered by truck. It's usually delivered by someone on a motorbike pulling a trailer, or even on a modified pushbike:

imagine how strong his leg muscles must be!!

We also get these sturdy little pony carts. .. that's a heavy load of bricks...

but it's the only way to deliver building materials to sites down the back lanes and alleys