Hello again lovely people, it has been two whole days since my last blog, so I confess I have much to write, despite us having done very little!

After a chilled Saturday with our early morning cooking class we ventured out once more for food. Despite night having fallen (which it literally does here - dusk to dark in about 10 minutes flat!) it was still a hot and sticky 30 odd degrees! We headed towards a little restaurant called the secret garden, aptly named as it is a sod to find! It's down one of the old streets, and down Alley 60 to be precise. You follow the winding alley behind the back of the traditional Vietnamese shop/houses (people tend to live behind their businesses you see!) and for a wee while we wondered whether this restaurant was a wild goose chase, but we happened across a gate which led to a beautiful garden, with a turquoise fountain in the middle. The restaurants are mostly done out in the same beautiful dark mahogany with the elaborate carvings and we settled down under welcome fans. We ate the fresh spring rolls, this time with the pungent and delicious lemon basil (you can tell we have been to cooking class cos we can identify some of what we are eating!) Then lee had pork with peanut satay sauce, and I had vegetable curry. The Vietnamese curries are so delicate in flavour with lemongrass featuring often. When it arrived, it didn't look too inspiring, kind of like a watery veg stew, much like what you imagine poor old Oliver to have being fed in the poorhouse! However, the flavours are utterly amazing, and I could point out the taro and other veg with my MasterChef knowledge.

After tea we wandered to the river for more pictures and a bit of a stroll. Unfortunately, we are not here for the full moon as every full moon cars and bikes are banned and everyone floats lit lanterns and boats down the river. We did stop and had some impressively strong mojitos though, which cost an even more impressive 40,000 dong for two, which is about 2 of our English pounds! We then spent an idyllic few hours sat in the terrace garden over the lagoon at the back of our hotel. It was just me and the Bee and it was quiet and peaceful (and we had a free-flowing supply of tiger!). I took the opportunity to dangle my walking weary legs in the pool, but the boy declined as he was too scared of the many lizards running overhead! There are tonnes of geckos all over Hoi An, which has led to entirely different reactions from both Lee and I. Lee recoils in horror as the creatures are on his very long list of creatures to fear, whereas I think they are cute and only wish I were fast enough to catch one and make friends with it! In fact, we are using our mossie net over our bed at this hotel (I'm pretty sure the mossie spray attracts the beasties, I had no bites then woke up with 10! Even with the mossie net, so I reckon a crafty one snuck in!). Lee's reckoning is that the lizards will not be able to creep in!

The next morning, we awoke to yet more blistering sunshine - hooray! After a gorgeous breakfast, again in the garden over the lagoon, we decided to head out to the market as although we have little in the way of baggage space the beautiful silk scarves, array of t-shirts and other wares (not carvings tho!) in the market were too tempting to decline and a perfect opportunity to get keepsakes for some of you lovely lot! We set off walking, as we always do, bikes being offered at every turn. Walking past the shops here is no bother, they do not follow you or come out like in some other countries instead when you walk passed there is often a voice floating out of the shop saying 'hello, come in, buy something!'. A simple no thank you is often enough to carry on walking unfettered! At the market however, tis a little different, here you haggle and bargain and at one shop I remarked how incredible it was that nearly everyone we spoke to told us that we were there very first customers and how that this would be lucky and we should definitely buy from them! My haggling skills came into their own as I was good at batting down very over inflated prices and it is amazing how fast the price falls when you say no thank you and walk away. When we did find something, we wanted to buy this often led to people from other stalls coming to ask us to go to their shops next as we were obviously a good bet. Now, every morning at our hotel they make up the bed with fresh flowers, which are so beautiful that I cannot bear them to be left in the room to wilt and have taken to wearing one behind my ear! This has gotten muchos attention around and about (maybe it means something I don't know about!) and in the market a lady came and told me how beautiful I was, whilst delivering what I think was an affectionate squeeze of my earlobe. Now Hoi An has been very good for my self-esteem, people keep telling me I am beautiful and keep telling Lee that he has a beautiful wife. I have to be completely honest though and not start to believe my own publicity as 99% of the time this is when I am either buying something (or more correctly Lee is paying for something I am buying - I'm like the queen and don't carry money!) or when they are trying to get me to buy something! Still I'll take it as a cheap quick hit to the old self esteem!

We left the market loaded down and started back to the hotel with our goodies, we had a fitting at the tailors at noon and the bulging bags were only encouragement for people to approach us. Now we made a mistake coming home, we didn't get lost but we did turn down shoe shop alley, where the pretty, pretty shoes wink at you from their stands and the stall makers assure you that the shoes are made to measure so no worries about your big feet! Temptation won out and found myself being fitted for a pair of beautiful round toed shoes in black leather and I chose the embroidered flowers in the exact colour of the piping on my new jacket, for only 10 of the finest US dollars these shoes were made to fit my exact foot (yay shoes that fit!) and were promised to be delivered by 7pm that night. A further meander home took me passed a pair of boots I had been lusting after since I arrived, they are motorcycle type boots in a sumptuous dark purple leather, lined with sheepskinesque material so practical for home and at about 27 of our English pounds they were made to measure and mine within the day. Lee looked at the trainers but turns out he's a bit of a label snob when it comes to shoes as he decided not to bother as they were not quite right!

After leaving our spoils at the hotel we went for fittings, Bee's trousers fit perfectly as did mine. The top and dress needed a little work, so we were to pick them up tomorrow. Now I love the dress I have had made, but I am not sure if I got it made in the right material a deep light blue if you get my drift, but it's satiny. It's piped with cream satin and has a belt and a bow. Lee's reaction to the other clothes was 'wow' and 'fantastic' and I think there was even a 'gorgeous' chucked in there for good measure, however he declared my dress to be 'nice' which is telling for my boy and then he wondered why I had it made in that material. I do love the dress but wondered whether my choice of blue with white piping may be slightly reminiscent of a nurse's uniform (maybe I am missing work more than I thought!). I'll leave it up to you guys to judge when I wear it back home - I'll know the truth if other people also declare it to be 'nice'!

Following our fitting it was off to our second cooking class, this was with a bigger company and a bit more swish, on arrival we had a delicious orange and lime juice while we waited for the rest of the people joining us. There was a group of six (2 brit Mums with their spoiled children!) and 3 other women, all from Australia. We were split into two groups (spoiled kids in other group - hurrah!) and set off for our market tour, which was fantastic. Our guide showed us all the local fruit, veg and fish and explained how the market worked (food and fish from a stall under the roof costs more as it goes off less in the sun! Outside is cheaper but also riskier!) We didn't buy any of the ingredients we were to cook with as it was 4pm and they had got them that morning to ensure freshness! Funniest part of the walk was when our guide asked our names and we obligingly went around the group. When it got to Lee he said 'Err...Lee' to which she replied 'hello Erlee!' he has been known as that ever since! (That reminds me of another time in Hue when we were being taken up to our room on check in squished in the 'friendly' lift with one of the porters and he asked our names, I said Lee and Kat and he said 'hello leeandkat' and promptly asked lee his name! We must make ourselves clearer!)

After the market tour we boarded the boat (avec bratsy kids - one was sulking the whole time!) We cruised up Hoi An's river in a very chuggy boat (far removed from the grandeur of the junk!) In fact, at one point they asked us all to go sit at the front of the boat as the river was 'too shallow' and we were running aground (too shallow or us too heavy? You decide!). We arrived at the cooking school and got a tour of the herb garden before being ushered into the kitchen to be greeted by the maddest of chefs, whose name was Susan (she told us this and said, 'like Susan Boyle...Yes!') We learnt the most amazing things - how to make the rice pancakes and noodles from scratch (We've got the recipes that they gave us, so I won't put them in here!) We tried our hand at the elaborate vegetable flowers that we had seen first-hand in Halong and we were sent to make a tomato rose and a cucumber fan! It was like an episode of the generation game as we hacked into our veg, Lee managed a respectable fan and my tomato looked vaguely roseish from far away and on the blurry picture I took, however my cucumber fan was another story. Suffice to say it looked somewhat like a hand which had been mangled in some dreadful farming accident! Vegetable carving is not my forte evidently. We then made the most beautiful (and simple) egg plant claypot which we carried proudly to the table and demolished, along with fresh steamed fish and a seafood salad in a pineapple boat which Susan demonstrated to us, utterly yummy!

After dinner we headed back to town in the class minivan and then waved goodbye (a little too enthusiastically when it came to the snotty kids I fear!) to our class mates and I trundled off to pick up my shoes which were promised to be ready! And ready they were - bee-yoo-ti-ful! and in about 7hrs - could Hoi An get any more perfect, sun, amazing food, clothes galore and shoes which are made to measure in a day! Tis maybe good we are leaving tomorrow otherwise I could double my shoe collection! We repeated our evening from the night before, a few tigers in the garden, looking through the pictures of the day (we had to buy a new memory card so hold onto your hats for billions of pictures, although they may be uploaded when we get back to the UK, speed is low here and Chong told us that Malaysia is just getting 5mb internet download so it's a far cry from our superfast broadband!)

This morning we woke to even more cloudless skies and another lovely breakfast outside (Lee had banana pancakes - I'm so getting in on those tomorrow morning!) Then with pockets empty and bulging bags we forewent another trip into the city 'centre' and decided to head for the beach! Dodging the bike salesmen and moped hawkers we set off on the 4k walk, and about 1.5k in headed back we'd forgotten to put the battery in the camera which was merrily still charging away at the hotel - doh!

(Oooh another exciting episode of my favourite things on motorbikes/bicycles - the guy who drove passed us, gave us a nod and a wink and said 'easy rider'! and then when he went passed we noticed he also had it on his t-shirt! and my most favourite, the oldest of ladies on the bicycle who was obviously jealous of the loud blaring horns of the mopeds and she rode along shouting out 'beep, beep' at the top of her voice!')

Anyways in the baking sun we decided a taxi would be quicker and indeed it was 30 earth minutes later we were installed on sun loungers (with the option to tug them under palm fringed umbrellas for shade!) on the white sandy shores of Cua Dai beach. There we whiled away a few hours , agreeing with each other that there had seldom been so much joy to be felt on a Monday, rotating in the glorious sunshine, swimming in the clear as a bell, as warm as bath water sea!

Which brings us to now, after final fittings our clothes are ours, with only the smallest of worries about how they will squeeze into our bags! The ladies at the tailors were a-mazing (even staying calm when dealing with some extremely picky Americans who always seemed to be in there when we were!) The lady who made my clothes even gave me a beautiful embroidered purse as a gift when we left! I could quite cheerfully live in that shop spending each day choosing a different style from a different fabric! T'would not be a hard life I feel!

Tonight, we are heading into town for one last meal as we reluctantly wave goodbye to Hoi An tomorrow morning. We're hoping to meet for drinks with Andrew and Rhiannon (the couple we met in Halong!) and then tomorrow at 10am a car is coming to whisk us to Danang airport from which we fly to Hoh Chi Minh. I'm slightly hesitant about this as so many people have told us that it is busy, noisy, sweaty and less nice than the rest of the places we have been in Vietnam, but we are determined to give it fair judgement! It will hail the return to busier times as there are sights to be seen (we are visiting the chu chi tunnels!) and we have enjoyed these last few, very welcome days of relaxation and refortification. After Ho Chi Minh it is Cambodia for 3 nights and then back to Malaysia where we have 5 days on a beautiful tropical island - so more R&R beckons (but we don't want to look forward to it as we don't want that time to disappear!)

Right then enough of my ramblings, you all must surely be in need of new eyes or a loo break (I do!) I think I may also be in need of a tiger! We will write from Hoh Chi Minh and tell you what we think!

Biggest of huge hugs to everyone!

Love u's loads

Kat & Erlee!