Shopping, monkeys, and motorbikes

Hi everyone!

From where we left off... the full moon festival wasn't too amazing. The locals were lighting candles and floating them down the river but it was a pleasant surprise to run into the German girls from our Cambodian tour group. We enjoyed dinner and drinks with them on the riverfront underneath the latterns.

The next day we had a early morning bike ride through the countryside... the scenery was gorgeous filled with farms, water buffalo, and laid back country folk. One of the stops along the bike ride was a home with a pet monkey chained to a tree up front. Our tour leader began feeding it candies and water from a bottle... one girl in our group even decided to step up and play with the monkey. As you can all see this coming, she got bit by the monkey when she continued giving the monkey empty candy wrappers. The whole situation was completely unbelievable... why were we stopping to see a chained monkey? feeding it candies? and touching it???!!! The bite broke her skin and she didn't think too much of it nor did our tour guide... we really scared her into going to get it checked out. One shot down, five more vaccinations to go. Don't worry we're not playing with monkeys.

The bike ride ended at the beach for breakfast. We hung out in the shade of an grass umbrella on the beach til lunchtime. The beach was beautiful and clean but it was HOT! We rode our bikes home in order to go to our fittings... Brad got an overcoat and shirt made, I got a coat and dress. We are really impressed with the results especially for the price. We spent the evening swimming in the hotel pool talking about movies and books with the group. Very enjoyable.

The next morning was the day Brad has been looking forward to the most.... MOTORBIKES! He woke up bright and early to go rent a moped and get some practice around town before coming back to pick me up. When he showed up at the hotel an hour later, he had made two new friends and made plans for the entire day.... two Vietnamese girls had flagged him down trying to convince him to go to "Marble Mountain" and their marble sculpture shop. With nothing else really planned, it seemed like a sketchy but reasonable adventure. Marble Mountain turned out to be a huge mountain covered in pagodas, caves, hidden passageways, Buddhas everywhere, and a lookout to China Beach and surrounding town. It was incredible... we felt a bit like Indiana Jones discovering a hidden treasure. Unfortunately our camera is suffering from heat exhaustion.... but we did get some postcards!!

That evening we had our cooking class. Of course, Brad wanted to take the motorbike to the cooking class... we ended up driving through a jam-packed market honking his horn all the way through, just like a local. It was ridiculous. The cooking class was pretty cool, we cooked 5 meals - sweet and sour chicken soup, fried spring rolls, papaya salad, banana leaf wrapped fish, and spinach with garlic... we had a great instructor with great English and energy. We're bringing home the recipes to tweek.

Today we left Hoi An by bus and arrived in Hue. We got here around 3 and headed out to find a new camera... we ended up picking up a couple disposable cameras and asking others to help us out with their digitial cameras. Should work out just fine. Tonight we had a royal dinner complete with 12 courses, Vietnamese folk music, and royal garmets and head pieces.... we were quite the sight. Unfortunately we didn't get to be king and queen, just prince and princess. Funny, fun, and a delicious feast.

Another motorbike tour (with a driver included) and boat ride on Perfume river planned for tomorrow. Still a lot to see but we'll be home before you know it!