Chicken Curry Pie. 7-11 shop Hua Hin
Pastry: slightly doughy, but nowhere near as bad as previous offerings.....
Filling: Definitely curry centred. Vague hints of chicken. And curry. (admittedly leaning towards the Chinese curry, but still.....)
We were pleasantly surprised to find the odd sultana lurking in the filling. Clearly a throwback to the 'Golden Age' of British curry making.
All in all, a splendid effort, although points lost on the authenticity front owing to a lack of swede........
Christmas day, and in the absence of any sprouts or figgy pudding, we went to visit a temple.
Incredibly, it's one we've never been to before, Wat Suthat.
It's one of the eight first class Royal temples in Thailand. (Their definition not mine)
It was actually very nice. Some lovely murals and a massive Buddha (under which are the ashes of King Rama VIII), but unfortunately (or not) for you, there was a full on chanting session in progress which made getting pictures awkward. (We tried to join in with the chanting, but as we knew neither the words nor the tune, we failed miserably)
I did get some pictures of the outside however.
Our route back to the hotel took us along a street known locally as 'Temple Supplies Street'.
And, yes, it's an accurate name.
Rather like the streets surrounding the Vatican, (but not in any way Catholic. Or Roman) it's the place to go when you're kitting out your Temple..
Our final stop of the day (before the pub, obviously) was to a Chinese Temple.
Totally bonkers.
Merry Christmas!
Faced with another week of constant downpours, we took the decision to cancel our Christmas plans in Hoi An and bravely run away.
We squelched our way to the airport and boarded a plane bound for......
Where else? Thailand! (Land of smiles and hopefully sunshine)
This being the festive season, there was very little room at most of the inns, but we managed to snag a place in Bangkok.
And it's sunny.
And hot.
Today we've been to visit the Golden Mount Temple.
Regular readers of this blog (I admit there's probably only 3 of you, and you're all related to me so kind of obliged to, but still) may remember that we visited here last year.
You'll probably be relieved to hear that it's still the same.
But with an added bonus......
For reasons best known to the monks who live there, various day-glo statues have sprung up.
Any and all ideas gratefully received.
We carried on to the Queen's Art Gallery, and were frankly astonished by what we saw....
Perhaps it's worth pointing out that cannabis is still legal in Thailand....
There are seven royal tombs scattered around Hue, built by various emperors (with perhaps a sense of impending doom) between 1814 and 1931.
Today's outing was to two of them, Tu Duc Tomb and Khai Dinh Tomb.
Before we hit the tombs though, our driver took us to " the incense village". It's exactly what it says it is. A village that exists solely to produce (and sell) incense sticks.
We had a go at it ourselves, with varying results (it's harder than it looks, that's all you need to know).
We came away with a couple of bags of sticks (professionally made).
Then it was on to the tomb of Tu Duc.
Built in 1890, it's the simplest of all the tombs, set in lovely gardens.
Tu Duc, the longest reigning emperor, had 104 wives and concubines. But no children.........
Apparently he caught smallpox when he was young and that put an end to his hopes of receiving a Father's Day card.
Despite going to the trouble of building a whacking great mausoleum for himself, it appears he's not actually buried here, but in a secret location. So secret in fact, that the poor lads tasked with burying him came to a grisly end.(suffice to say they no longer needed their hats....)
However if that's really the case then who's in here?
Next stop was the Khai Dinh Tomb.
Built between 1920 and 1931 during the French occupation of Vietnam for Khai Dinh, the 12th emperor, and paid for by extra taxation on the peasants, it's the smallest, yet most beautiful of the tombs.
Inside, it's stunning. In fact if I'd been a Vietnamese peasant in the 1920s I'd have willingly starved so that it could be built.
The collaborating, money grabbing emperor lies beneath a golden statue of himself. (If you've got it, flaunt it I guess)
Khai Dinh had a mere 12 wives, and only one child (fortunately a boy).
Rumours were rife that he "preferred the company of men". (His first wife left him and became a nun....)
Whatever. He certainly understood glamour.
The weather finally gave us a break and we wasted no time in heading out for the Citadel. Built by the emperor Gia Long (with help I imagine) in 1803, it was designed to resemble Beijing's Forbidden City
First thing to note, it's an absolutely huge complex, the Imperial city alone covers 36.3 hectares. (Believe me, that's big)
It's surrounded by a moat and has four gates.
The entrance is impressive as you can see:
Once inside, we made straight for the Throne Room.
The Chinese influence is very much in evidence here. Indeed, it put me in mind of the much missed Master Fu's restaurant in Darwen.
Unfortunately (perhaps predictably) the shop had sold out of WD40, meaning it was too risky to walk to the Citadel.
In any case, by the time I'd finished applying the various poultices to my trench foot the day had moved on.
Resolving to try another attempt on the Citadel tomorrow, we took advantage of the 45 minutes or so when the rain stopped to catch it's breath and visited the Dong Ba market.
It's a typical South East Asian market. Lots of noise, colour and foreign pongs.
It was raining again when we came out........
The sun was finally shining on Hanoi as we boarded our flight to Hue.
We'd heard whispers that the weather in Hue wasn't quite as good as in Hanoi, but we vowed to keep an open mind.
My suspicions began as we flew over vast flooded fields on our descent into Hue.
They only grew as we left the airport building and stepped out into torrential rain.
The whispers had been true. The weather most definitely wasn't as good as Hanoi.......
Still, it takes more than a bit of rain to put us off. (Actually it was quite a lot of rain, and we were a little concerned)
Hue is situated on the Perfume river, and was once the home of the Vietnamese emperors (you may recall that they legged it from Hanoi) and the ancient Citadel is a UNESCO World Heritage site.
It was the national capital until 1945 .
Plenty to see then.
Luckily, JB is a qualified PADI advanced diver and as you know, I never travel without a snorkel, so we were able to venture out without too much fear of drowning.
We only got as far as the sculpture park before admitting defeat.
A plucky JB appreciating art in the downpour.
I couldn't photograph much because the rain got in the camera.
Anyway.
Here's a bit of what we saw.
