A weekend of fine dining and merriment

Way back to Friday night, and I met Jessica in the city where we took a taxi out to district two for my birthday meal. This area of the city is crawling with ex-pats, who live in high-walled compounds in a bubble of privacy. Jessica had booked a table at the Deck, a stylish restaurant with an Asian menu, where we had a river-side table decorated beautifully with a candle and lotus flower. The front of the restaurant was open onto the river, which drifted by slowly, high up against the side of the deck. We sat talking and enjoying the atmosphere, and only realised the time when it was ten minutes after we were supposed to be meeting friends back in district one. We got a taxi back to the city, where we met Yvonne, Jessie, Jasmine and Shoko, who took us out in Saigon, eventually winding up at Lush, a club that Shoko had told me about when we were in Mui Ne together. She must be a regular because she knew half the people in there! Lush plays  British and American chart music and is supposedly mostly frequented by Western men with Vietnamese girlfriends. It was not my sort of place, but it was fun for the occasion, and I was really touched that everyone had come out to celebrate my birthday. I even received some cute little gifts of silk bags, make-up and chopsticks, something I had not expected at all.

Dinner at the Deck

Yesterday I was tired all day. At midday Lisa came round for our second language class, and after this Jessica took me out for her book club meeting. By this time I had finished all but the final chapter of Scroogenomics, and was worried that I would have to blag my way through the meeting without knowing what the conclusion of the book was. I needn't have worried though, as I had probably read more of the book than anyone else because it was so dull to read. Jessica had read the least, owing to the fact that I had hogged her copy for over a week , but still had the most to say about it. We met in an unusual cafe called Coffee Farm, tucked away in a residential street in district one, which everyone had trouble finding. It reminded me of the type of anarchist-run cafes or pop-up shops you find on the outskirts of cities back in Britain. On stepping into the entrance of this tiny building you cross three stepping stones over a soil patch into the main room, where there were two tiny crying kittens tied with string to the furniture. In the bathroom there were toothbrushes and razors in a mug, and tied to the door was a brown label declaring 'you are beautiful'. We had the room upstairs provided for our book club meeting. To get there it was necessary to climb a very steep and wobbly step-ladder. This room had a low table in the centre with cushions for seating, a box of free clothing and books scattered everywhere. I enjoyed the meeting, from the amusement about the choice of location to the discussion of the book, which travelled from a discussion of the commercialisation of Christmas, to credit card debt, American spending habits and the effect on the economy, through to the best gifts we had ever received, and concluding with Jessica's theory for the most efficient shoe-shopping method.

Looking for Coffee Farm

Jessica and I had an hour spare when we had finished the meeting before a dinner date later on. We travelled to Sinh Cafe to look into a trip for me to take next week. From Wednesday Jessica will be away for about a week, in Hanoi and Langkawi, and suggested that I take a week's trip in her absence. It looks as though I will be taking a three-day trip along the Mekong river with the Sinh Cafe travel agency, arriving in Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, where I can spend three or four days before taking a bus back to HCMC. After collecting some leaflets we popped into a cafe next door to have a drink and kill some time. I warned Jessica that if we went into a cafe I would be tortured by not being able to eat; I was so hungry, but we would be having dinner in half an hour. But lucky me, as Aunty Jessica gave me permission to have something to eat beforehand. And luckier still that I was allowed to have my new favourite, pineapple pancake with chocolate sauce! But when our pancakes arrived they were the size of dinner plates. Oh no, I thought to myself, there's no way I can resist eating all of it, and will undoubtedly ruin my dinner. But remarkably I maintained my appetite after eating this massive treat, plus some of Jessica's, and went on to have a starter and main course while snacking on bread inbetween. Jessica told me off for eating too much bread, but I challenged her here as her normal complaint is that I am like 'a little bird' and don't eat enough at mealtimes, and then want to snack between meals. And on this occasion, when I was eating plenty at dinner, she rebuked me for my greediness! I was further confused when she was disappointed in me for not having a dessert, although I had effectively had my dessert before my meal and was now stuffed. I told her to get off my back about what are, in reality, perfectly normal eating habits.

We were eating at Lucca Cafe, an incredibly nice American-owned Italian restaurant with a New York style that reminded me of an old train carriage or train station, with its dark wood interior, red-brown leather booth seats and the large, old-fashioned clock on the wall. I had a mozzarella and tomato starter followed by a hand-made pasta dish with aubergine and tuna. It was probably the best food I have had since I arrived! We were eating with Jessica's friend Yvonne who I know quite well now, a colleague of hers called Bella, and a French couple named Frances and Dominique, who had chosen the restaurant. This couple had lived in Cheshire for four years and have since lived in Saigon for eight years, where they work in the textiles industry, but run a restaurant as a side project. In fact, Frances is the general manager of the Deck, and it seemed we had only narrowly missed him on Friday night. After the meal we headed to Carmen, Jessica's favourite bar, and for good reason. It is a small Latin-American style bar with red lighting and waiting staff dressed in flamenco costume. We sat on high stools to watch the live music, which was fantastic. Two Filipino women were singing as we arrived, and later we were treated to all sorts of lively performances, including a growling rendition of What a Wonderful World on Jessica's request, Kalinka for the  group of Russian men in the house, and some Irish folk. To be honest, I came into the bar unhappy as I was too tired and my knee that I had grazed earlier from tripping on the stairs at Jessica's house was now leaking fluid down my leg in a very unattractive manner. But I left in good spirits, cheered by the lively atmosphere, great music and the obvious enjoyment of performers.

L-R: Han, Thuy, Jessica, Hanh.
Front: Happy

As any Sunday should be, today has been a day for recovering from the weekend and I stayed in besides going for a run in the evening (luckily no snakes this time). Thuy has a day off on Sunday, but came back around three in the afternoon anyway, bringing her youngest daughter Han, as well as Hanh. I took a picture of the three of them together. At first Hanh would not join the picture with her mother and sister, and I thought she didn't want to be photographed. But Jessica explained that the Vietnamese would never have three people in a picture together, so she joined them to make four.