Goat Hot Pot and Smooth Tunes

We reached the local café with Peter and Terry and sat down with them shouting our order to the waitress. On the way they asked us one simple question "do you eat goat?"Luckily, having been to Notting Hill Carnival and sampled the Caribbean goat curry this wasn't too much of a scary proposition.We sat down and soon a huge dish of goat, vegetables and noodles was bubbling away in front of us, it smelt very good and after all the days motor biking we were rather hungry, lucky we also had some BBQ goat on the side!As we tucked in to a few Saigon beers and our bowls of noodles and goat we chatted away about Vietnam and got to know Peter and Terry a little better. While Peter is 42, married and having previously studied at University in Toronto, Terry is 27 and has lived and worked hard in Dalat having moved out of home at 14.He made a promise to his family that if he didn't study hard and get a job he would return home to work on the coffee plantation.He explained to us how he dreams to travel and his biggest dream is to go to Australia and to see kangaroos!However, he says that he would be able to save the money eventually; he would struggle to get a visa, as the Australians would think he wouldn't leave!It made us realise how lucky we are to have a British passport and to be able to see the world.

As we weren't far from Terry's home town his brother, sister in law and niece joined us for dinner.They spoke no English but were very friendly and enjoyed some drinks and food with us.Peter and Terry taught us that when drinking in a group in Vietnam you must always drink together, so when you wish to drink you must say "Mot, hai, ba, Yo!" (one, two, three, cheers!) and then you all drink together.Its no surprise that as the evening progressed these moments became more regular.

Peter decided he'd had enough and headed back to go to bed so we stayed out with Terry and continued to chat.Two of Terry's friends from home joined us for a couple of beers and just after they left Terry asked "do you like karaoke?"This came about as we had noticed so many karaoke places in Dalat (it reminded us of Japan) so we headed to a small karaoke place near the hotel to sing ourselves into the small hours.

Terry opened up with a Vietnamese number and then we all got stuck in with a bit of Bon Jovi, Lionel Ritchie, Beatles and the Bangles!The whole experience was hilarious, especially the moment Terry and I serenaded Liz with "Hello" by Lionel!

We decided enough was enough and paid up (1 hour of karaoke and about 5 or 6 beers for about £7 between the 3 of us) and headed to bed to get ready for another days adventure in "the real Vietnam".

Sam