Dear Phil - we had your parents for dinner...

And they were delicious! 

Let the wild zombie rumpus begin! 

I'm just kidding -  of course I didn't eat your dear Mum and Dad.  If I did that, then who would send you parsnips next spring, and keep Winnie in swede and potato soups?  Hm?

No - we didn't have them for dinner - they had us for dinner instead.  After a hard day of shopping in Saigon your Mum and Dad took us out for a meal at a restaurant called Indochine somewhere in District 3. They were here as part of a food tour, and had eaten their way from Hanoi, then Hue, then Hoi An to Ho Chi Minh City - just like the very hungry caterpillar eats its way through the pages of that book.

Undoubtedly by the time they got here they had already eaten several Foods Served Inside Other Foods as seems to be the standard in Vietnamese restaurants that want to impress tourists. But if they'd had enough of that they didn't let on and reacted only with joy and admiration when served this spectacular dish of prawns wrapped in potatoes and jabbed into the side of a lighted-from-within pineapple.

Try making that at home - I dare you!

It was a very delightful visit, and I hope they DO come again and do that car drive around the mountains in the central highlands they were talking about. 

Now THAT would be a holiday full of butterflies.