Le Grand Détour

[11 janvier 2016]

 Considérée comme la capitale culinaire du Vietnam, Hoi An propose de nombreuses spécialités locales aux papilles curieuses et averties, telles que les ban xeo, ces crèpes crousillantes fourrées à la viande et aux herbes ou encore le cau lau, un bol de nouilles avec des tranches de porc arrosées d’une sauce succulente. D’ailleurs nous commençons justement la journée en dégustant le copieux cau lau de Nga au petit déjeuner ! Nous nous régalons mais ce choix n’est pas forcément stratégique alors que nous allons passer la journée à cuisiner vietnamien pour notre cours de cuisine et à manger plus que de raison…

A 8h15 comme prévu un taxi s’arrête devant la guesthouse et c’est notre guide et chef du jour en personne, Nga, qui vient nous accueillir avec un grand sourire. Il ne s’agit pas de Nga de la guesthouse, n’est-ce pas, c’est juste que Nga est un prénom féminin très populaire ici. Cette Nga là est mariée avec un Suisse et va d’ailleurs déménager pour vivre en Suisse dans quelques mois.

Nous passons prendre les sept autres personnes ayant réservé le cours de cuisine et nous prenons la direction du marché pour acheter et passer en revue les différents produits qui vont composer les 4 plats que nous allons préparer. Nga nous remet à tous un chapeau pointu en bambou typique du plus bel effet… Le mien comporte une petite surprise : à l’intérieur deux photos de jolies femmes ont été cousues. De quoi donner du courage aux hommes qui le portent lorsqu’ils vont travailler les rizières 😉

A un moment je suis alpagué par une dame du marché qui me propose de prendre une photo avec elle… Naïf comme je suis j’accepte volontier sauf qu’une fois la photo prise elle ne veut pas me laisser partir avant que je lui donne 1 dollar. Je lui fais comprendre que c’est non et je m’en vais. Non mais !

Nga nous explique que la viande du marché est particulièrement fraîche étant donné que les bêtes sont abattues la veille par les hommes, vers 1h ou 2h du matin, tandis que les femmes les vendent ensuite ici à partir de 5 heures du matin. De fait nous voyons très peu d’hommes sur le marché.

Nous finissons par la visite du marché aux crustacés. Nga nous montre comment vérifier que les crabes sont vivants, en leur enfonçant un doigt dans l’oeil. Si l’oeil rebondi et qu’il revient, ça veut dire que le crabe est encore vivant – pas pour longtemps vu s’il est sur le marché mais au moins il est frais !

Nous embarquons ensuite tous ensemble pour une promenade en bateau de 45 minutes afin rejoindre le lieu où se déroule le cours. Le fleuve défile tranquillement sous nos yeux tandis que nous croisons de nombreux bateaux de pêche. Cette excursion nous réserve décidément des petites surprises car pour rejoindre le cours, nous changeons d’embarcation et prenons place dans de tous petits bateaux ronds qui ressemblent vraiment à des coques de noix. Nous y montons à 2 avec un rameur, enfin une rameuse pour nous, qui profite que nous longeons des cocotiers d’eau pour nous fabriquer des tas de trucs marrants en feuilles de palme. Il faut voir sa dextérité à l’ouvrage lorsqu’elle nous plie en quelques secondes une bague, une paire de lunette ou même une marionette.

Nous naviguons lentement mais sûrement à travers un genre de mangrove de palmiers jusqu’à l’endroit où nous allons cuisiner.

Nga commence par nous montrer les instruments manuels traditionnels pour récupérer les grains de riz blancs puis pour en tirer du lait. Je ne savais pas que l’on pouvait faire du lait avec du riz mais c’est justement pour apprendre ce genre de choses que je suis là ! Cela nécessite un genre de moulin manuel qui presse les grains avec de l’eau pour en faire sortir du jus. Tour à tour nous prenons la poignée pour faire tourner le moulin et récupérer le lait du riz, ce qui demande un certain effort. A ce moment nous pensons qu’il ne s’agit-là que d’une démonstration mais nous comprenons quelques minutes plus tard que ce lait de riz sera l’un des ingrédients utilisés pour nos préparations.

Pendant le cours lui-même nous cuisinons quatre plats typiques vietnamiens que nous mangeons ensuite à nous faire péter la panse : des rouleaux de printemps aux crevettes, des crèpes vietnamiennes ban xeo, une salade de fleur de banane et un plat de porc grillé au barbecue avec des nouilles. En suivant les instructions précises de Nga, il n’y a rien de difficile mais entre les ingrédients, les dosages et les cuissons, ce n’est pas si simple que cela… Heureusement que nous repartirons avec le livre des recettes cuisinées !

Avant de manger le dernier plat, nous prenons une petite pause « sportive », pour nous donner un peu faim… en nous initiant à la pêche dans le fleuve. Très fiers, Susie et moi sommes les premiers du groupe à ramener un petit poisson (qui sera remis à l’eau plus tard).

Avec ce plat de porc grillé, c’est l’occasion de faire appel à notre créativité. Nga nous fait une brillante démonstration en décorant son assiette avec des fleurs fabriquées à partir de bouts de concombres. Pour ma part je pense tout de suite à créer un dragon… Oui, j’ai souvent l’art de me compliquer la vie 😉 Je crois que tout le monde essaiera de reproduire les fleurs de Nga tandis que j’attaque mon dragon… Qui deviendra finalement un beau palmier ! Le génie prend parfois des détours insoupçonnés, n’est-ce pas ? En toute modestie bien sûr !

Bref, l’important c’est que nous régalons une fois de plus jusqu’à n’en plus pouvoir.

Il est 15h lorsque nous terminons. C’est l’heure de revenir à notre homestay en profitant des hamacs pour digérer et faire une petite sieste. C’est un bon plan, sauf que nous avons plusieurs petites choses à régler comme retirer des sous pour pouvoir payer tout ce que nous avons fait depuis 2 jours, récupérer des billets de train pour aller de Da Nang à Hue, notre prochaine destination demain et trouver comment se rendre de Hoi An à Da Nang parmi toutes les options possibles. Des choses normalement pas trop compliquées mais qui s’avèrerons plus difficiles que prévues.

D’abord le retrait de dong. Comme Nga doit se rendre au marché pour acheter des légumes, elle propose de m’emmener avec elle à l’arrière de sa moto jusqu’au distributeur. Chouette ! Je mets un casque et nous voilà à sillonner les rizières. Et pour une fois je suis à l’arrière. J’observe par le menu les règles de conduites vietnamiennes, notamment au feu rouge : le feu est vert, je peux passer, le feu est orange, je passe, le feu est rouge je peux toujours passer 😉

Malheureusement il nous faudra presque faire tout le tour de la ville pour trouver un distributeur qui veuille bien accepter l’une de nos cartes Visa ou Mastercard. Jusqu’à maintenant ça n’a pas été trop compliqué à Ho Chi Min Ville, si ce n’est qu’il est impossible de retirer plus de 3 000 000 de Dong à la fois, ce qui ne représente que 130 euros, autant dire pas grand chose, surtout si l’on ajoute 1)la comission de la banque locale de 1 dollar minimum et 2)la commission de la banque française de… 5 % ! Donc lorsque je retire 100 euros, ça me coûte au moins 106 euros à chaque retrait. Bref, nous finissons par trouver un distributeur généreux mais je suis un peu embarassé vis à vis de Nga qui doit faire le taxi en moto.

Nous prenons le chemin du retour via l’agence de voyage où Nga a réservé les billets de train du lendemain pour nous. Je vérifie les billets et paye. Sauf que je ne réalise pas que les billets sont nominatifs et que si le mien est bien libéllé au nom de Stéphane, celui de Susie indique « Robyn » et porte un autre numéro de passeport. Damne. Susie s’en apercevra à notre retour ce qui obligera Nga à se rendre de nouveau en ville pour nous et récupérer un autre billet. Elle est vraiment super sympa d’autant plus qu’elle garde tout le temps le sourire.

Nous passons ensuite la soirée sous le kiosque avec M. Hau, très sympa lui aussi mais avec qui la conversation s’avère difficile et parfois surréaliste entre son accent à couper au couteau, son faible niveau d’anglais et ses propos parfois décousus. A un moment donné nous n’arrivons pas à savoir s’il nous parle de Beethoven ou de Mr Bean avec son « Bitobinne », ce qui ne manque pas de déclencher une certaine hilarité. Même en éclaircissant la chose c’est compliqué, surtout lorsqu’il soutient que « Bitobinne » est français ! Cela ne l’empêche pas de trinquer avec nous toutes les 10 secondes en disant « Yo ! », le « santé » Vietnamien. Et ce soir, plutôt que la bière, il nous a sorti une bouteille de vin blanc vietnamien de Dalat qui s’avère une belle découverte.

Pour le dîner j’avais pourtant précisé à Nga de faire quelque chose de léger vu tout ce qu’on a mangé aujourd’hui mais ce qui nous est servi est aussi gargantuesque que le premier soir… C’est dur 😉

La soirée passe tranquillement avec Hau et Nga qui vient nous rejoindre de temps en temps. Elle aussi semble avoir du mal à comprendre son mari parfois, ce qui nous rassure. Nous prenons des photos tous ensemble et nous comparons nos souvenis de mariage. Hau et Nga se sont mariés il y a huit ans. Pour nous montrer leur photos, Hau va tout spécialement chercher le grand portrait accroché dans leur chambre. Et les mariés sont superbes dans leurs costumes traditionnels, Nga en rouge et Hau en bleu. Tout comme nous ils paraissent bien plus jeunes sur leur photo de mariage 😉 Nous nous rendons également compte que Hau commence à être un peu marqué par l’alcool… Quel dommage. Nga ne nous avait pas caché le « hobby » de son mari dès le premier jour mais ça ne doit pas être simple à gérer. En tous cas avec cette histoire de mariage nous réussissons à passer un très bon moment tous les quatre avant d’aller nous coucher.

Demain il sera déjà temps de quitter Hoi An après un séjour plus qu’agréable. Nous serions bien restés un jour de plus, notamment pour découvrir le site archéologique de My Son, mais il y a tellement d’autres choses à voir au Vietnam.

Susie semble avoir attrapé un rhume ce soir malheureusement… Pendant mon escapade à scooter avec Nga j’étais parti avec la clé de la chambre ce qui fait qu’elle est restée dehors à se refroidir et à se faire bouffer par les moustiques. Oups. Sorry baby !

[11th January 2016]

We’d opted for the local breakfast this morning (rather than bread and jam like yesterday). It’s called Cao Lau and consists of a bowl of local noodles and beef with a little sauce and some salad, beansprouts and herbs. There are some deep fried puffy crisps too…just to add a little something crispy to the recipe. It was absolutely gorgeous, a real delight, the only problem is that we were then going on to do a cookery course…where you always eat a lot…I just hope we’re hungry again by the time we’ve finished cooking!!

The taxi arrived as planned to pick us up and Nga (our hostess at the homestay) introduced us to Nga our guide and teacher for the day. She was a tiny little Vietnamese lady who is coming to Paris with her in-laws in December. Her fiancé is Swiss and they are moving over there in June this year. She’s a very chatty and smiley lady and is looking forward to learning to ski!! ^_^

We stopped at one more homestay on the way to the market to pick up four more people (a group of four young Brits on a gap year — 2 girls, 2 boys).

Once at the market we met up with the rest of the group. Eleven of us in all. We were given our Vietnamese hats and a wicker basket each and told to follow Nga. There was also a man with her who was dealing with the money and negotiating with the stallholders (though I suspect that this is fairly easy as they are here every day!). We start with the vegetables and herbs, Nga explains what we’ll be using them for and points out other fruit and vegetables that we won’t use today, but that are interesting.

Next stop is the meat counter. It all looks pretty unhygienic and there is no refrigeration here, but Nga explains, next to the pork counter, the pig was killed this morning and, if there are any leftovers at the end of the morning, the woman takes them back home, marinates them and then barbecues them to sell them the next day as barbecued pork. The meat counters are inside the market building and there is a nice cool breeze here but I think that, if you live here, the best advice is to arrive early to buy your meat! Nga also explains that most of the stall holders are women because the men have done the hard work of killing the animals or picking the vegetables and so the women get the easy job of selling it…I’m not sure that it’s that easy, but hey, what do I know!

The penultimate stop in the market is the fish stall. We see the prawns, crabs and fish of all kinds of shape and size. Most of the fish here are from the river but are saltwater fish as we’re so close to the sea that the river contains sea water.

In passing she tells us how to see if a crab is still alive and that’s to poke its eyes. If they go back into the shell and come back out again then the crab is still alive and kicking…seems a little cruel though!

Finally we arrive at the pasta stall where we buy the noodles for the spring roll and the barbecue pork recipes. It’s probably the heaviest product that we buy on the market and Stéphane, who until now had nothing in his basket, gets this as punishment ^_-.

As we head to leave Stéphane is taking photos of the market and one of the stall holders asks if he wants to have his photo taken with her. She waves him over all smiles and so I head back to take the camera from him and take their photo. It’s a nice photo, but then she refused to let go of him asking for payment of $1 for the photo and causing a bit of a scene in the middle of the market. I say that I’m deleting the photo as Stéphane extrapolates himself from her grasp, refusing to pay. I don’t actually delete the photo…but she doesn’t know any better. She’s still cackling away in Vietnamese as we walk away. Stéphane’s gutted that he’s been had so easily as she seemed so nice…oh well, no harm done!

We abandon our bags on a pavement, presumably someone will pick them up by car or moped and bring them to the cookery school. As for us, we’re now heading for our boat, still with our conical straw hats on to protect us from the Hoi An sunshine. The boat is just big enough for us to all sit down comfortably as we pull away from the docks on our river tour.

As usual the river is humming with activity. People fishing, gutting fish, mending nets, driving tourists around, etc. We pass a boat full of Asian tourists, we saw them a mile away as they are all wearing their luminous orange life-jackets. Out of the four non-Asians on the boat only one of them is wearing theirs. I guess it’s better to be safe than sorry, but we should be able to swim or keep afloat long enough to put one on if we start sinking. The river is big enough for us not to have a more spectacular collision-type accident! Enough of this positive thinking.

The movement of the water and the humming of the motor start to rock us to sleep and we each take a turn of lying down on our bench for a little shut eye…only a couple of minutes each though because we’re soon passing under a big bridge and turning round to head to the next stage of our journey to the cookery school.

The bamboo boats are waiting for us and, as we pull up at the pier, they surround our boat. As we’re the first couple ready Stéphane and I climb down into the first one. Our driver, a lady whose name I didn’t understand, welcomes us and our guide Nga tells me not to worry about the water in the bottom of the boat…OK then!?!

The bamboo boats are circular, about 2 metres in diameter, with a bench across the middle. Our driver is on one side, Stéphane on the other and me in the middle. The oars are just planks of wood and don’t appear to be very solid…they are water-soaked. The boats hull is made out of bamboo strips that are weaved together and then coated in some kind of resin or glue, but I didn’t understand that either.

Our driver starts rowing using a technique that means that even though she’s rowing just on one side of the boat we still head in a straight line! It’s impressive. Just then she starts rowing really hard and we spin round and round really quickly on the spot…better than Disneyland!! ^_-

She asks Stéphane to help row, and we have a race with the guy in the boat next to us until they’re too tired to row anymore. We turn into a smaller river where the sides are lined with water coconut trees. The drivers all stop and tear leaves off the palm leaves in order to create little gifts for us all. Our lady makes us a ring each which are actually quite pretty, if a little large, and then some sunglasses which are just ridiculous and make us laugh. She finishes by making a puppet which also has moving arms…very impressive (see our video). Later on we gave my ring and the puppet to Nga to give to her daughters (as they were at their grandparents this evening and we didn’t see them ourselves).

The boats pulled up, one by one, at the cookery school and we all clambered out as elegantly as we could. We chose our cooking stations and were all served a glass of passion fruit juice that was never ending (everytime that it was half-empty someone arrived to fill it up again!). After washing our hands we started the class.

First the marinade for the pork that we were to barbecue later on. Fairly easy, but a little bit of pestle and mortar action required. Then we went and hammered some rice in order to remove the shell in a large pestle and mortar that took two people each time to work it. They showed us how to remove the shells from the leftovers using the wind and a large flat wicker tray. The last demonstration was the rice milk. You have to soak the rice for a long time in water and then we added this mixture to a large stone bowl. The idea is a little like a traditional flour mill and you turn the top stone bowl around on the bottom millstone that doesn’t move. After a short while a white liquid starts pouring out from between the two and into the bowl at the bottom. Turn too quickly and it’s too watery, too slowly and it’s too thick and syrupy.

We have a go, but there’s still some left when we’ve finished. Nga says that one of the staff will finish it off as you can’t just leave it like that…and, sure enough, a couple of minutes later a lady comes and spins it until all the rice milk is finished! Strong arms!

For all our recipes we start by watching Nga create the dish before we try to do it ourselves. We make cold spring rolls and I’m given thin slices of carrots shaped as flowers instead of shrimps. Then a banana flower salad with squid (and shrimps for those who like them)…this is absolutely gorgeous, but I’ve not seen it on a menu since which is a shame! The final recipe before our next activity was a rice pancake, Ban Xiao, it was really yummy. Oh yes, we ate each dish just after making it…delicious!

It was now time to go fishing. I’ve never fished before, I’m not sure I will again. A guy put a raw shrimp on each of our hooks and we lined up to fish in the lake just behind our cooking stations. We could all see the floats moving up and down as the fish devoured our shrimps, but no-one managed to catch a fish at first. I put a new shrimp on the hook and tried again. As my float moved I yanked up on the rod…a tiny fish, about 10cm was wiggling around at the end of the line…I lifted the rod up higher so that the fish swung towards me (the lines were a fixed length…no posh fishing equipment here!) and the guy came over to get the fish off the hook and put it in a bucket to throw back in later.

I didn’t want to do it anymore as catching that fish had turned my tummy, but the guy insisted on putting another prawn on the line, so I just dropped it into the water and didn’t move the rod, even when I felt them nibbling and knew that there was nothing left on the hook.

Most people caught something (apart from about 2 of them, but I don’t think they were into fishing either). It was now time to do our barbecue. The barbecues were lit using a gas torch and fanned by Nga, Stéphane and I. Unfortunately, when it came to choosing our barbecue to cook on we had the most meat and the least flame so it took a lot longer than the others!! Oh well, that just meant that they had to wait for us!

The barbecued meat was sliced and used in the noodles and meat recipe and was delicious. We had even had to decorate our plates to make it pretty. Most people copied the same design as Nga (a flower), but Stéphane was original and made a palm tree…only problem being that he had no space left on the plate for the noodles and meat, but at least he was unique!

And that was it, our cookery class was over. We were given a plateful of pineapple as a dessert and then our taxis arrived to take us back to our homestays or into town if we preferred.

Our homestay was really close and five minutes later we were back with our bellies and heads full of lovely recipes made with fresh ingredients. I’m really going to have to try and get hold of some of these herbs and try to grow them at home…otherwise we’re not going to be able to make anything like what we’ve done over here!

I settled onto one of the hammocks with my laptop and worked on the photos. We needed some cash though and so Stéphane suggested that he go off on one of the bikes from here to the nearest ATM. I agreed, but unfortunately the granddad had just gone off on the last bike and so we sat back and worked on the blog again. After a while Mo (the German guy) arrived on a bike, followed closely by Nga.

We’d asked Nga if it was ok with her to prepare us a dinner tonight too, but something smaller than last time. She said OK, but the menu would be the same. That was fine with me as I had really liked it last time.

Having told Nga our plan she said that she would take Stephane on her moped instead and they could get our train tickets whilst they were out. She was having to go to town anyway to get some fruit from the market. I gave Stéphane the key to the room so that he could get his jacket for on the moped and off they sped.

Mo’s parents then arrived on their bikes too, they all had their showers whilst I chatted with Mo and worked on the photos. Mo had his shower and they all headed out to the restaurant. It was now dark and I was freezing and snivelling and being bitten by the clouds of mosquitos through my thin clothes. Why didn’t I go into the room you ask…well you clearly didn’t read the previous paragraph…I’d given Stéphane the key so that he could get his jacket…unfortunately for me, he hadn’t given it back to me…

They’d had a lot of trouble finding an ATM that worked and it had taken a really long time and, by the time, I was in a foul mood and sneezing, having been out in the cold for so long. So Stephane got a bit of a cold shoulder when he arrived.

When I did calm down he showed me the train tickets. I was surprised to see that it had his name and passport number on the first ticket and so looked at the second one. The name “Robyn” appeared and a passport number that I didn’t recognise…oh dear! We checked immediately with Nga if this was a problem and she called her friend at the shop where they’d bought them…it could well be a problem. So Nga headed back into town on her moped to change the ticket (having double-checked my name and passport number with me before leaving).

Apparently she had asked Stéphane to check and he’d just looked at the destination and time and that we were next to each other…such a shame!

All of this meant that tonight it would be Mr Hau who served us with dinner and spent time with us.

Surreal conversation with Mr Hau – #2

Mr Hau invited us to join him for a beer before dinner and, when we arrived at the dining room in the garden, he had a bottle of Vietnamese white wine and three glasses placed on the table. On a nearby table were three cans of beer. We confirmed that a glass of wine would be lovely and we had our first taste of Dalat wine which was very fruity and quite nice (though not as good as my favourite Pinot Gris ^_-).

Dinner was as copious as the first night, five different dishes, plus the rice, plus the fruit!! We kept apologising for not finishing it and Mr Hau kept insinuating that it was because we didn’t like it!!

After dinner Mr Hau put on some of his favourite music which he called “Classical music”. It was easy-listening versions of music from various films…not what we would call classic, but it was nice to have some music for once! He said that it was French music and then said something that sounded like “Beeean”. Stéphane interpreted this as Beethoven, I interpreted it as “Mr Bean”…the reply from Mr Hau when we asked for confirmation was “Same, same”….NO IT’S NOT!!! Not even similar, the only thing the same are the first and last letters!! ARGH!!!

Later on he swore that Charlie Chaplin was also French and it took a while, with the help of Google and Wikipedia, to prove that he was, in fact, British (though Stéphane started by saying that he was American…which didn’t help in the confusion!).

Just then the lady from the German couple arrived and went into their room. Mr Hau went and looked through the curtains for a bit (or that’s what I thought he was doing, but he might have been up to something else — benefit of the doubt and all that). In any case when he finally knocked on the door and invited her to join us, she declined. I’m not sure that her English is that good, or maybe she was just tired from her day on the bicycle.

Later on, Nga returned in her poncho on her moped (as by now it was raining quite hard) and gave me my new ticket. She confirmed that we wouldn’t be sitting together, but that it was good to have noticed the error before getting on the train! She also noticed the, now empty, bottle of wine in front of us and took her husband’s glass and necked most of its contents before slamming it back onto the table in front of him.

She’d complained to us on the first night that he has a problem with alcohol and goes out drinking every night after work. He did seem a little pissed most of the time, but we didn’t know what part of his behaviour was due to alcohol and what part was just simply Mr Hau. After a while he proposed a second bottle of wine, we refused. Then he offered us the beer that had been sitting there since we’d arrived…again we refused and instead had a glass of ginger tea, as offered by Nga.

At one point Mr Hau said something to Nga in Vietnamese, she didn’t understand and laughed. He then said something to Stéphane and I, to which Stéphane said “Yes, yes” — she instantly said “You say ”˜Yes’, but you don’t understand what he said either!”…touché! Too true!

As Nga went off in search of the ginger tea, we showed Mr Hau the photos that we chose for this kind of occasion, photos from our flat, our family, our wedding, etc. In turn, we asked him to show us some photos from his wedding. On the computer behind us he showed us a couple of photos from an occasion last year, but said that his wedding photos were on his computer at work. He then had an idea and ran off making large square shapes with his arms. A couple of minutes later he came back with a large painting/photo of himself and Nga in their traditional wedding outfits from their marriage eight years ago. She was even more stunning in her red dress and matching headdress. He was a lot less rough looking…the years (and the alcohol) haven’t been kind!

After the ginger tea, we made our excuses and headed to bed. Tomorrow we leave for Hue and another detour.

Palm tree leaf puppet