We checked out of the My Chau Hotel in Hoi An and headed back to Da Nang City. Of course, we will not be heading there directly, we would be passing through some sights first. Just outside the town of Hoi An, on our way to the My Son Sanctuary, we stopped by a small hut. I was wondering what we can see here when Le Tien mentioned something about rice paper.
Rice paper is used a lot in Vietnamese cooking. Food like Vietnamese Spring Rolls, Banh whatever all make use of this rice paper. This place apparently makes them the traditional way. The place is just a small hut on the side of the road, but it seems that Le Tien and Cuong know them and have brought us here to see how rice paper is made, as they have countless of other tourists.
I’m not really into this kind of thing but we just went through the motions of listening how they make this. They grind the rice with water until it is something like a paste. Then they smear the thing over a screen until it is flat. This is then cooked over a hot sand until it is solid. It is then moved over to some bamboo screen where it will be left to dry until it is crunchy.
The lady showing us all this doesn’t really speak English at all but she does her best to make us feel at home. She offers us some of the prepared rice paper and some of fish sauce. We readily ate, though nothing really special about it. But knowing that it is hand made here gives us a little satisfaction. Our hosts offered us some tea to wash it all down.
After a while we we on our way, but before leaving Le Tien encouraged us to make a small donation for that little demonstration. I knew it was going to come to this. But seeing how the family was living, you couldn’t help but pity them. I gave them a small amount as payment for the demonstration and she was grateful for it. Although her place is not a real tourist atrraction, people in the tourist trade like Le Tien and Cuong try to involve them in their business, this way they give something back to the people.
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