It’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for! Last Friday evening at an exciting Champagne fueled event held at Egg But Towers the winner of the 2009 Egg But No Bacon competition draw was officially revealed. In front of a crowd of expectant fans, who had travelled across the globe to witness this long awaited event… ah hang on, no.. what really happened was I wrote all the names on a little scraps of paper jumbled them all up and picked one out from a domino box. Still I thought it was pretty exciting.

And the winner is… jacquesroyal!!! Woop! Well done!

And well done me – out of all the entries I manage to pick the one from New Zealand! And here I was thinking I could just sneak it in my next shipment home of souvenirs to be re-packed and sent out on arrival. The post offices here love me. And I love them. Especially the lovely lady in Ha Tien Post Office who charged us a full kilogram of postage for going 20g over. Grrr. Now is not the time to rant Leanne, let it go.

So what did he win?

A bundle of goods that can only be described as random:

A coffee filter unit
Asmall medicinal balm
Acarrot grater
A packet of Kampot Pepper
and
10,000VND!

The Coffee Filter Unit

The coffee in Vietnam was some of the best I’ve ever tasted and whilst it somehow never occurred to me to buy any of the actually coffee I’m sure this devise has something to do with the quality of the cup. A nifty little device, such a simple idea you just spoon in a few teaspoons of good ground coffee fill it up with hot water and let it drip into your cup. Smashing.

A Small Medicinal Balm

It’s the Vietnamese version of Tiger balm. Also similar in the way that you really have no idea if it’s doing anything, but can’t stop using it anyway because it smells nice. Stick it under your nose, on your chest, behind your ears… just be careful don’t get too carried away.. this stuff is fiery!

A Carrot Grater

It may sound like a dull give away from womens weekly magazine, but trust me this is a good grater. Hand made too. Dotted around the vegetable stalls of markets throughout Vietnam ladies have baskets of these and similar peeling and grating tools all with that slightly imperfect charming handmade look. They look like they’ve been made from discarded scraps of metal, which they probably have.

Kampot Pepper

More on this soon but Kampot Pepper is set to be the next big thing.   You heard it here first. This lovely little bag of pepper comes in it’s own snug little purse. Aww. Very you James.

Last but not least,it’s the big one: 10,000VND!

It might not set you up for retirement to the sun, in fact it probably wouldn’t even buy you an ice cream on a sunny day, but hey it sounds impressive and you’ve won it, so throw a party and invite all your friends. Comes complete with dashing portrait of Mr Ho Chi Minh. You lucky ducky.

Sorry for the lack of photos on this post. We’ve moved to Cambodia and the connection here is slow to say the least. Uploading photos is definitely not doable right now. Booo. Mind with fast internet connections costing up to $300/month in a country with an average wage of less than $1/day I’m not surprised really. Hopefully James can send in some photos of him and bag of goodies when it arrives?