To better understand what we were eating at some of the markets, we took a family cooking class. We ended up taking the class with Saigon Cooking School. One word: AMAZING. We met our chef at the market where she walked us through various vegetables and meats that we were unfamiliar with. Then we went back to the kitchen. We prepared pork fried spring rolls (so much easier than I thought), a fresh lotus stem salad with prawns, and BBQ pork with fresh noodles.
The kids weren’t crazy about the salad, but everything else was incredible. As a bonus, we now have a good idea as to how to make the various sauces used for dipping and dressings. For me, the biggest bonus was learning about the new vegetables and how to prepare them. Lotus root, lotus stem, lotus leaves. Who knew.
Back to school: To better understand the specifics of the war, we spent a day going to the Cu Chi Tunnels. The tunnels are about 1.5 hours outside of HCMC, and in this particular area run for about 250km. At one point there were 16,000 villagers living in them. A mock up of the tunnels was shown as we entered the area:
It was amazing that the tools used to dig the tunnels were so simple.
Part of the visit included seeing various booby traps that were set up by the Viet Cong. The presentations were over the top a bit biased with Communist propaganda, but the overall trip was incredible and educational.
I am certain that I don’t need to crawl through the tunnels ever again, and still simply can’t believe that people lived in them for years on end (without flashlights and before they were enlarged for tourists). Even with “larger tunnels”, we were hunched over – except for Scott who had to crawl due to his height – as we moved through these tunnels that were barely wider than our shoulders. Spooky.
The video has clips showing various booby traps and other things spotted at the Tunnels.
We finished up the visit with a traditional Vietnamese snack: tapioca with peanut and salt dip and a nice cup of green tea.
