Climbing and Cooking

My Saturday began bright and early, very early. I had to be at Vietclimb at 8 with The Anh and so we had to take the 6:40 AM bus from the Ecopark! The bus ended up being late to pick us up but early to drop us off and we got to Vietclimb with 10 minutes to spare. Luckily, the manager had come early to open up and we were able to sit inside before our guide, Joan (Jo-an, a French male) got to Vietclimb. When he arrived he got out the gear and we left for Quoc Oai in a taxi. The drive was not too long but definitely would've been shorter if there wasn't so much traffic in Hanoi. I got to talk to Joan more; he's from the South of France, near the border to Spain. He came to Hanoi a couple of months ago after getting a job at Vietclimb with his recent climbing instructor certification and he's been climbing off and on for about 12 years now.

Anyway, after we arrived in Quoc Oai we had a very short walk to the rocks. Near the entrance to the area there was a small pond with a beautiful pagoda in the middle and a temple off to the right. It was very calm and quiet and a nice change from the crazy city. We walked a short way up the path through this immense cavern. It was amazing to walk inside and reminded Joan of the caves near Halong Bay. There were a few local boys hanging out inside and they followed us out to the rocks on the other side. During our time climbing many local kids rode by on bikes and stopped to talk. I spoke to a few of them but they mostly just wanted to watch us climb. Joan set up three different routes in all, all of which I climbed. The first was pretty long but not super technical, whereas the second was short and very technical. I had to start the second route much differently

than Joan did since he is so much taller than me but I made it up by taking a different route. The third route was sort of in between in difficulty but I kind of scrambled up it because we were short on time. The Anh had much more trouble and didn't finish any of the routes; he got tired very quickly and his hands were cold. For me and Joan, the weather was perfect; it was about 68 and overcast with a little breeze. For The Anh, it felt a lot colder so his hands got cold and I think that made it harder for him to climb. We both still had a good time though and we got back to Vietclimb just in time to catch the bus back to the Ecopark.

In the afternoon when I got back, I showered and did a lot of Thanksgiving prep. I managed to cut and peel all the potatoes, chop up all of the veggies for the stuffing, and make the cranberry sauce. I went to sleep pretty early after the long day but woke up early on Sunday to get started on cooking. Dung's mom got the chicken and green beans in the morning and luckily, she found a chicken that had already been butchered! I was very thankful to not have to cut off the head and feet and instead I had more time to prep and cook. I cooked the stuffing in the morning and the mashed potatoes too. Both had to go in the oven so after I was done with them I just had to wait for the right time to cook. Anh's parents came by around lunchtime and although Dung said they wouldn't be staying for dinner, they did, and it was quite an event.

There were 8 of us in total and we don't have a lot of western utensils or dishes. We were able to scrape together 7 large plates (Anna used a small one) but only 6 forks so Dung and I both used plastic forks. We didn't have any knives which wasn't weird for anyone else since the Vietnamese rarely eat with anything other than chopsticks but I used one of our fruit knives because I really can't eat a meal without having a knife to cut my food with. It was crowded and a little messy, but overall a great meal. Dung's mom helped me cut up the chicken and she made a salad out of carrot and kohlrabi, which was a nice fresh dish to have with the rest of the meal. I usually don't enjoy stuffing very much but I had some today and it was okay. I think I enjoyed it a little more because I made it myself and knew the work that went into preparing it. I also made Susan's mashed potatoes, my mom's cranberry sauce, and some simple steamed green beans. There aren't any fresh cranberries in Vietnam so I had to use dried ones instead; the texture wasn't as nice as with fresh cranberries, but it tasted just as good. We also had sparkling apple cider, a sweet surprise that I found at the Citimart! Anna liked the flavor but hated the carbonation which I found interesting because sparkling apple cider was (and still is) my favorite drink to have on special occasions. As is typical on Thanksgiving, we all ate too much and were quite full. Anh's parents left just after we finished eating and were cleaning the

dishes. Dung made two apple pies so they took one with them back home. We waited almost two hours until we had finished to eat the apple pie that Dung made for dessert; part of it was being too full to eat and the other part was all the dish washing. Even cooking for 8 was a lot to clean up from and I can really appreciate now how much work Susan and all the others do during Thanksgiving. I'll definitely try to help more with the clean up next year when I'm back..

It's almost 10:30 now and I'm pretty tired from my busy weekend. It was really nice to get to do Thanksgiving here even though it was a little different than usual for me. Everyone was very appreciative of my cooking as well even though it's not food that they're used to eating and now I know that I can cook a successful Thanksgiving dinner! I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and a great weekend. I don't know if anyone else "Opted Outside" but I hope you've at least been inspired to after this years' movement. Thanks for reading and have a great week!