We have been in HCM City now for two days......but I must tell you about our last day in Hoi An. Firstly, part of the package was beauty treatment.....I need much, Helen needs little. However, I agreed to follow Helen wherever she dared her body to go. I was massage by a lady that had muscles like Arnie but the size of his twin, Danny Devito, ....... no pain, no gain attitude, had my body scrubbed with salt which felt like being rubbed down with cruchy peanut paste and finally a facial of Green tea. My body was so soft after all of this that I had difficult managing most facial expressions. It certainly was relaxing and I managed to fall asleep in every process..... stopped myself from snoring.
We had a cooking class...... this was a great experience as we went into town to the markets. Woah! What a wonderful selection of food I have never seen. Would you believe that they can only get orange oranges from USA at this time. A lady demonstrated some Vietnamese kitchen tools(please buy but no one in our group did) that cut vegies in the most incredible ways. Then, (Remember Footscray markets, Bec and Sarah) into the fresh meat and fish. There were groups being led around everywhere to be shown local produce etc. 
We visited a house that has been in a family for 200 years. Sitting in the shop was the 98 year old grandmother. The house was equipped to cope with the annual flood(in the next two weeks) where everything is put upstaits including family where they stay for up to 5 days before they come down, clean house and shop and trade as normal. The house is built of "iron" wood and for 200 year old wood, looks and feels fantastically strong.
We returned to the hotel and the chef went off to prepare or our cooking. We had a breather and then proceeded to cook three dishes, all having an input. Helen and I have decided that we will hunt out our Asian supermarket for some of the products used.
The food was beautiful and very little room for Vietnamese food that night at dinner.
We flew out to HCM City on Friday. Airport security is very different to Australia. When we landed all that was checked was whether we had taken the right bags from Luggage pickup.
The hotel is great and we had an adventure ofn the first day that will be the next blog.
Having trouble with photos......... watch this space