One of the essential parts of our planning our days with Josh and Bien circulates around what we want to eat and where we want to eat: breakfast is planned the night before, lunch at breakfast and so on. So here’s a record of what we ate today and where we ate and drank – why we were in these places will be the topic of a later and very exciting blog!
We began the day with Banh Cuon (sorry for Vietnamese typing – there are lots of extra accents usually) also known as slippy things which are easy to eat (ie delicious in Vietnamese). The lady above is preparing the egg part of the dish in a very thin rice pancake.
The dish has several parts: the slippy things which Sue is eating, the soup with a sausage and spring onions sprinkled in, and then an egg wrapped (bahn) in another rice pancake:
We went to find our morning coffee somewhere else – a charming cafe with a variety of very sweet decorative features:
These included minority ethnic clothes for us to try on/wear while having coffee:
Coffee came in different types: the first is Sue’s hot coffee, while the second is regular cold coffee with milk (ie condensed milk which has sunk to the bottom:
And then there was lunch – pre-ordered by Bien during coffee and enjoyed many hours later in a village of stone-built Tay houses (a very unusual sight in Vietnam apparently).
We started with some delicious grapefruit, peeled and given to us by some other customers in this delightful homestay (though the owner was drunk because he’d been drinking toasts with guests all morning):
The food was just delicious – sticky rice which has no colouring – it is just the colour of this rice; a spinach-like vegetable fried with garlic; the local Cao Bang sausage; and tofu fried with tomato.
In the afternoon, we looked for a coffee shop on our way back to Cao Bang and found a great place in the middle of nowhere to make us grapefruit juice:
And then we came back to the city of Cao Bang and ate … pizza. You all know what pizza looks like.
Tomorrow’s breakfast is already planned.
We leave you with a wonderful scene from the stroll we took tonight down the ‘Walking Street’ (a road blocked off from traffic at the weekends so that everyone can enjoy themselves in the evening. Yes – Josh and Bien are holding the poles at one end. It is apparently a Tay game:
What a great game! Much more enjoyable than skipping. Did you both try it out?
It looked pretty tricky to me and I was also bad at skipping as a child so gave it a miss. M too busy filming to risk a twisted ankle. The woman in blue in the little film had clearly been playing and organising the game all her life
What a marvellous day but very disappointed not to see you tackling the poles. Maybe tomorrow?!
Best performers on the poles were light footed, skinny 8 year old girls ( precisely the type who would be good at skipping). Sadly, we’ve moved on from Cau Bang so can’t fail again to do it tonight
Love that poles game but like others am wondering if you joined in!
See above comments. Josh also said he wouldn’t do it for fear of breaking an ankle – seemed a bit defeatist but then he’s very tall with feet that could easily get entangled
Ok, I’m now totally persuaded by the food alone to go to Vietnam. The pole game looks like great exercise to improve nimble-footedness in our hiking clubs – maybe we should introduce it!
You could give it a go – needs minimal outlay – four long poles and people to bang them together rhythmically…
We used to have something similar to the pole game in Tanzania when I was a kid and unless you are already good at it, you can bark your shins quite nastily! At least with skipping if you get tangled in the ropes there is no damage (except to your pride). By the way the lampshades are very fetching – not sure if the outfits quite match.
Match each other or match the lampshades? As explained to others, I’ve always been a reluctant/ clumsy skipper – far too late for the pole game now I fear.