A Herbal Foot Soak Before the Knife Work, in Cam Thanh

There is a herbal foot soak and a massage before the cooking starts, which sounds like a spa add-on and is actually good scheduling: you arrive from the market and the boat, you are hot and your feet hurt, and you sit down for twenty minutes before anyone hands you a knife.

The day before that goes: the market, where you handpick the ingredients rather than being handed them; then a boat on the Thu Bon River out to the Bay Mau coconut forest; then the basket boats with the local fishermen, the round woven kind that spins.

The class covers four Vietnamese dishes and, unusually, food decoration, the carving and plating that turns a chilli into a flower and is part of why Vietnamese food photographs the way it does. Dessert is seasonal fruit or yogurt.

Four hours. Morning classes run 08:30 to 12:30, afternoons 13:00 to 17:00, in small groups.

Up to fifteen people, in English, with private transport, hotel pick-up and drop-off in an air-conditioned vehicle, a local guide and all the activities.

Say at booking if you have dietary requirements.