Tuesday 30 Dec

We had a leisurely start today, which was particularly nice for the young people who had checked out the night life in Hoi An last night.  We had gone to a restaurant on the river and the scene was quite magical - full of shops and street vendors and music and lights.  The younger crowd extended the evening until rather late doing limbo and other activities ... or so I hear.

We had a walk in the morning through more small villages.  We saw several weddings going on.  They erect large red and pink tents for the celebration.  One bride was dressed in bright red, and the whole scene was quite lively. 

We ended up at the Red Bridge Cooking School.  There, we had cooking lessons and made our own Vietnamese lunch.  It was very well organized.  First they showed you what to do, with the overhead mirror and everything..  Then we each had a separate station set up with food already prepped, so we just had to cook and assemble it. The funniest one was the chicken, which was wrapped in banana leaves and then cooked on the grill for 20 minutes.  In order to tell them apart, we each were given a small unique piece of vegetable or fruit that we wrapped into the packet as our token.  When it was time to eat the chicken, the servers walked around with them, calling out the tokens.  Mango? Lemon grass? Cucumber? Carrot? 

We returned by boat up the Hoi An river, and along the way watched fishermen pulling up nets.  

I went to pick up my laundry from the street vendor.  I have never seen such neatly folded t-shirts in my life!  Amy and I then headed back into town for the fitting for our tailored purchases, and of course ran into others there from our group.  Some things require one fitting and others multiple fittings, so we were all trooping back and forth to the tailor shop.  We did a little shopping for souvenirs - there are plenty of great things to buy in Hoi An.

After dinner, when walking back from dinner, I looked through an open door and saw a bunch of ladies at sewing machines.  I walked in and promptly ran into Fiona, my saleslady from the shop! She introduced me to the lady who had made my robe, who had her head down busily creating another garment.

 It was very hard to tell whether this was a decent job or a sweat shop.  How much are they paid?  What hours do they work?  Do they get breaks, etc.?  Karl asked me whether I was mortified or relieved when I saw it, but I found it a difficult question to answer.  There is no doubt that this tailoring business is creating lots of jobs - the place was packed and busy at 9pm.  But I do wonder whether the workers are treated as well as they could and should be.

Donna