Through Nirwa Homestay we found out about a cooking class ran by one of their close friends, the Payuk Bali restaurant which seemed like a good option for us. We were picked up after breakfast at around 8.30am. From the start we knew we were going to be having a really good laugh, the owner was very funny and we he understood us well.

Our first stop was the local market in his home village, he took us around the various market stalls showing us the different vegetables, herbs, spices and fruit that are all grown throughout Bali. It was a pretty dirty market and very local which was a nice change from the busy tourist markets in Ubud. The stall owners again were really accommodating and happy for us to be there, we were the only westerners in the area which again was a nice change.

He’d already picked up the vegetables fresh that morning at 4am and so there was no need for us to pick anything up they just wanted to show us around. Our next stop was a pleasant surprise he took us into the elementary school in the village, the same school that he attended when he was a child. It was lovely to be there and to interact with the children’s plus it was no problem for the teachers for us to be there looking around. He then explained about the rice that grows in Ubud, the main crops and how the community help to harvest the rice together for no payment other than a portion of the rice crop.

When we arrived at his family home compound he explained to us about the family temple, why they do offerings and we also learned that due to the relaxed life of the Balinese his grandmother was still alive at 111! It wasn’t her who helped Helen with the making of her offerings perhaps his mother but it was really nice to take the time to make the traditional offerings together and she even planted a few Indonesian flowers in Helen’s hair.

We watched a display of coco-nut oil being reduced down for the production of their weekly cooking oil and we also learned about the roasting of Bali coffee following this with a cup of the freshly ground stuff and some deliciously fried bananas in palm sugar honey. This was enjoyed at the back of the family compound where they have a stunning location for a restaurant with an open kitchen, this is where we would be learning to cook.

Here’s what we learned to cook:

• Base Gede – the multi-purpose spice made into a paste from ingredients such as ginger, galangal, turmeric, chilli, garlic, shallot, nutmeg, lemongrass and so on. The list of ingredients for this paste is long. We had to grind it all together using a motor and pestle.

• Sup Timun – or cucumber soup as we would know it, including black eyed peas, red beans and coconut milk along with the main base gede paste.

• Nasi Kunung (yellow rice) The method of making yellow rice using coconut cream, lime and bay leaves and the base gede. We were particularly drawn to their original-looking rice cooker/steamer.

• Gado Gado – one of the all time traditional Indonesian dishes, a vegetable salad with peanut sauce. The vegetables are all blanched in preparation for the salad and served with a boiled egg plus tempe fried in coconut oil. The peanut sauce was a little like making the paste but with pre-fried peanuts, garlic, shallot, aromatic ginger, brown sugar, fresh lime and chilli.

• Sate Lilit – minced fish on a skewer. We see this all the time on the street stalls, fish satay as we may know them to be called. We had to really mince the fish using a large scale mortar and pestle and long piece of coffee tree branch. By hand the tuna fish was mixed in together with the base geed, an egg, lime juice, fried shallot, palm sugar and coconut milk. We then cooked them lightly on the barbecue. They were better tasting when first cooked.

• Pasen be Pasih / Pepes Ikan (grilled fish in banana leaf) Again with tuna fish, base geed, bay leaves and 1 tomatoe, the mixture was bound together and steam cooked in banana leaves.

We also cooked a Balinese style chicken dish which was perhaps our favourite of them all, and a sweet desert in the form of braised banana in palm sugar sauce. All the dishes were cooked collectively so we would each have a part in the final piece. We could taste the flavours along the way and decide whether more salt should be added and so on. And at the end we were more than happy to sit in their restaurant overlooking the tropical jungle and enjoying the fine food.

The only other thing left to complete our cultural experience in Ubud for us was to go and watch a traditional Balinese dance. We didn’t have to look very far as our home stay hosts recommended that we go to the fire dance taking place at the temple next door. It cost 80,000 IDR each per ticket and without going into too much detail we thoroughly enjoyed it. From having seen bits of the show at the Royal Palace, this show was much less of a grand affair and the main soundtrack was provided by a large group of men all acting as monkeys in the story.

As with all of these things there is a plot and a romance and death, a little like their own version of Romeo and Juliet. It was very well done though and at the end of the performance there was a trance dance using piping hot coconut shavings for the performer to kick through and dance within. It was totally bizarre and like nothing we had seen before. It was way better than we thought it was going to be.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0, 18mm f4, 90mm Tele-Elmarit f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

On our last day in Chiang Mai we booked to do a Thai Massage course focusing on the back, back of the legs and shoulders. We loved it and felt that we learned so much as well as received a very good massage for most of the day!

Our teacher took it in turns to teach us each part of the massage working through a booklet we could take away with us. Each time she would demonstrate on one of us and then we would practice on each other so often we received the same thing twice! We thought this would be really useful for us when we move on as so many times we have wanted or craved a massage and given bits here and there without really knowing what we’re doing! Now we felt we would be able to do something with a little more purpose. Along with Thai massage techniques we picked up some stretching moves that work together with the massage. A full body massage often covers, hands, feet and face aswell as the rest of your body. It was also good to learn of the traditions of this massage.

We chose Namo for our massage course and they also offer half day to one week massage courses along with daily yoga drop in classes, they have good sized teaching and yoga rooms in a well-thought out space. The course cost 1100 baht each starting at 9am and finishing at 3pm. We had an hour for lunch which wasn’t included in the fee unfortunately but we did go to a great vegetarian place called Om pretty much opposite the Eastern gate on the inner wall side, it was so good we decided to go back there for dinner that night!

That same evening we took an overnight bus to Bangkok which left Chiang Mai at 7.30pm and we were really surprised to find that it wasn’t full, this mean’t we were able to spread out and have a double seat each. It was a very good journey with one stop, eventually arriving in Bangkok early at 5am. It only cost 300 Baht each with pick up – a bargain!

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0, processed in Lightroom 3)

On the morning of the 8th we enjoyed a good breakfast from the Hotel including a choice of eggs, bread, fruit and juice. Afterwards we set off to research a few options for tours in the area. We had planned to do a tour to Ninh Binh and Tam Coc with Maayke and Paul so were shopping around the various fake Sinh Cafe‘s across the city to find out the best deals. They’d already sourced somewhere that would do the trip for $16 with bikes included for one part of the trip. After a while and battling through the many scooters we ended up back at the same place and booked the trip for the price they’d agreed. We’d arranged a part-payment trip in case there was anything we weren’t happy with; often you’ll find there are many cheap tours and you’ll never know which one is better than the other. We thought it would be a good day out of the city anyway so went along with this.

Afterwards we went off to do some more research into the other part of our trip interest: the Halong Bay tour. Helen had read up on a few more reputable companies offering slightly better value tours so we started with Ethnic travel who didn’t really have a very welcoming atmosphere and soon decided we wouldn’t be booking with them. We found Ocean tours around the corner who’s 3 day 2 night tour with one night on the Island in a bungalow to be the best on offer but still had a look around. In doing so we met Justin and Jules who were doing the same research as us, Dave stopped them as soon as they walked out of one of the other tour agencies and we started chatting about what information that have and so on. Before long we were enjoying lunch with them and went back to Ocean Tours to get a better feel for what they were offering.

After a few more drinks, a walk around the city into the French Quarter and then back to Ocean Tours we’d decided this was THE tour for us and we all booked it together! We knew that at $175 we were paying a lot more than many other tours on offer but decided that it sounded far better than some of the other less tailored trips and we liked the sound of staying in a bungalow for the night!!

So with that sorted we went back to our now hostel Gecko (we’d moved out that morning as we wanted to save some money by staying in a dorm and rendezvous had no more availability) met up with the others and went out for food to Koto, a restaurant in the south-west of the city which trains up street-kids and the homeless to be chefs and working in the kitchens. The food was very good indeed and it was packed so it was good to see the restaurant supported in this way.

On the 9th we were picked up at 8am for our day trip to Ninh Binh and Tam Coc. The weather had been pretty chilly since we’d arrived in Hanoi although we were acclimatised to this and to us it felt okay, but there was some rain forecast for the day so we took extra layers with us. Leaving Hanoi the bus stopped several times to pick up other people and groups on the tour and before long there were around 20 on the bus. It took around 2.5 hours to get to Ninh Binh with one stop and we spent a lot of this time chatting to Bekka and her husband from America who are now living in Beijing, we exchanged stories of China and it passed the time nicely.

Our first stop was at 2 temples, which held the first and second Emperors of Vietnam. A few people on the bus were a little annoyed as they’d been sold the bus ticket as bus fare to Ninh Binh and not a tour, they had to go to the temples first before being dropped off in Ninh Binh…be warned this happens quite a lot over here!

The temples were okay but we have seen many amazing shrines and temples over our time traveling, so it takes an amazing day with the weather and a spectacular site to impress us! Have we become Temple snobs…?

We were supposed to be cycling from the temple site to Tam Coc where the rest of the tour bus was traveling to for lunch. As it was raining and very windy we decided against this and joined the bus to go straight to the restaurant. It was a good job we did as it would have taken us much longer to reach the port than the tour allowed for and would probably have missed our lunch…to be fair though that wouldn’t have been such a bad thing. The vegetarian option for Helen and a few others was quite poor with the best thing on offer being a plate of chips for 7 to share. We mentioned this to the tour guide and he was very apologetic but it’s more down to the restaurant than him.

Following lunch we went over the road to the rowing boat tour and met the lady driver who took us out on her boat. She was quite agile often using her feet to row and we had a paddle each so we could both add some gusto to the pace. We passed under caves and one by one the boats traveled along the river. It’s supposed to be the land version of Halong Bay with many karst peaks engulfing the landscape. It was quite similar to what had surrounded us in Yangshou and we both felt Yangshou is a more impressive place.

The boat tour was good fun, and we even bought our guide a drink and snack which she shared with us, we had to bargain for this and the woman selling the goods on her own boat wouldn’t leave us alone until we did! We didn’t mind too much though as we felt our guide was doing a very good job indeed.

At the end of the tour we were pressured into giving a tip to our guide but we felt we’d already tipped her in buying her drinks and snacks along the way so made for a sharp exit to the bus. There were people selling souvenirs and market items along the pier front and some were selling dog meat. By now we have become used to seeing this sort of thing on sale, funny how you get used to customs so quickly but its always the topic of conversation when you first see it.

We had a small confrontation with our tour guide on the bus back to Hanoi. As we had monies outstanding to pay he was asking for us to complete the payment. We mentioned that we’d agreed a price including bike hire but as we didn’t use the bikes then we wanted to pay the price quoted to us excluding bike rental. He got quite angry about this and said we have to pay for the bikes as the restaurant paid for fuel to get them to the site for us to cycle, but we saw many bikes there so we felt this was not the case. We were happy to pay but just not for the whole fee and he didn’t say when we said we weren’t taking the bikes that we would still have to pay for their rental. He rang our tour company and Helen agreed a price over the phone which mean’t we paid some of the cost towards the bike but not all. Our chirpy tour guide was no longer quite so happy and he settled into a grump until the bus stopped to pick up his girlfriend.

Another lesson learned! Still we had managed to get back some of the money so it was good to know there are some principles in place. When we got back we ate at a great local restaurant and for a good price. We went back and packed ready for our Halong Bay trip leaving at 8am the next day.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

We started early with a Japanese style breakfast provided by our Minshuku. It was much nicer than we were anticipating having been warned the night before. There was a traditional Hoba-miso from the area which is a miso sauce cooked on a leaf with a few shitake mushrooms and spring onions on it. You leave it to cook over a candle flame and then add it to the sticky rice, this was very pleasant. Accompanying was some cold grilled salmon, cooked squash, green tea and soup. Perhaps not your ideal breakfast start to the day but it was well worth trying and we left feeling pretty satisfied.

The temperature dropped significantly today and was somewhere around the 5 degrees mark, so with a brisk walk up to the famous morning markets we took in some of the local sights and stopped for a few photography opportunities of local trade. We were disappointed though as it all seems very contrived and set up for tourists. It is mostly Japanese tourists who come to the area along with lot’s of school trips. So off load the tour buses and suddenly the town becomes alive, but perhaps not in the way we had hoped. The word “Tacky-ama” comes to mind. It wasn’t all bad though as we did come across a nice cafe where we helped to translate some tour-guide info for a Japanese chap and then went on to Takayama Jinya.

This temple is beautifully restored and did hold our attention for an hour or so along with the school groups and fellow tourist makers. We managed to overlook this though and took in the historic details throughout. Following on from the temple we had the Takayama hilltops in our sights with a castle ruin at the top. It’s a good little hike up hill and along the way there are further shrines and monuments as well as an empty children’s playground which seemed to capture our photographic imaginations. From here we walked up to the top for a short look out across Takayama before heading back down towards the rooftops and a further path lined with temples. Takayama holds so much history that it’s difficult to forget where you are.

Back at our Minshuku we had a chance to relax and take a breather before heading out to meet Kim and Ivan. This time we chose a cosy little Japanese pub with one chef and many bar-top kitsch accessories such as a fridge that is also a TV, dvd player and playstation!! Along with this he provided us with books all about Japanese food, what he could do for us, explained that we would have to buy a beer whilst apologising all the while for his poor english!! The food was fantastic, fortunately we were able to share most of it as there was so much, Helen had the hoba-miso again this time though it was 4 times the size and had loads of mushrooms with it!! Dave had the local beef dish called Hida Beef which was very very good, melt in the mouth good. The chef gave the ladies a Kirin beer postcard and some goodbye bananas with “please come again” and “thank you” written on them. Priceless!

So with one more night left we prepared for the next step of our train journey to Kanazawa. We would meet Kim and Ivan for the same train the next morning at 11am. A good night was had by all.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)