Final post...

Our little Vietnam adventure has been worthwhile in so many ways.

We really succeeded in our aim to push ourselves much harder than we did the last time we were over there, to take more risks (especially with food) and really soak in more of the culture and reality of how people live their day-to-day lives. It was well worth spending more time in less places – and more time just sitting and watching the people around you getting on with life in what is otherwise a very difficult place to live.

We got more involved in our surroundings than last time, engaged with the locals more, and tried more unusual and sometimes downright dodgy food than before. There were many times we have pulled a face as we force down a first mouthful of something new with the words “you can have the rest of that...”

We had a few moments of difficulty (the meltdown in that dark damp room on Phu Quoc), had some bad tummies (my pot-plant experience on the streets of Hoi An), was ripped off a little (the taxi drivers in Saigon), and made a few errors in judgement (choosing to ignore the taxi touts in that Phu Quoc heat) – but nothing has left us traumatised and not wanting to return.

Vietnam certainly has it all – the food, the friendly people, the cheap accommodation, the rawness and the culture shock.

We have more photos and stories not told in this blog – but what you have read here is a good summary of the highlights for us. We hope you enjoyed following it.

We will undoubtedly remember it forever.

(At least until the next adventure - if there is one)...

"The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page"

-- St. Augustine

Day 14 – Home again

Flight home was okay – except for the awful smells from the person with flatulence problems sitting in the aisle seat next to us. I just wanted to open the window! You’d think we’d be used to such smells after some of our ‘experiences’ in Vietnam – but nope – not when it’s assaulting you for a solid 9 hours...

Got home at about midnight and gave the kids cuddle after cuddle in their sleep - we kept going in to see them. Their cute little angelic sleeping faces were just exquisite after TWO WEEKS apart... Cuddling them was a bit of a highlight in some ways... We could have crawled into bed with them and never got up again!

Day 13 – Another Singapore tourist day...

Went to the Jurong Bird Park to get some pics of flamingos for Jemma (she asked for them before we left).





Had to laugh at this shop in a local mall – those are hundreds of remote controls lining the walls:



We then did a river tour of Singapore...



A bit different from our adventures in the mud and smells of Vietnam – nice to wind-down with some more traditional holiday activities before leaving for home tomorrow...

Day 12 - Farewell to Vietnam

We said farewell to Vietnam and departed for Singapore. It didn’t feel too soon, we were ready to leave – the time we had spent was full of adventure, exploring and trying out new things. But we were starting to miss the kids and still had a couple of days left to enjoy a more ‘western’ style holiday in Singapore.

On landing at Singapore airport, we both went to the toilet – as you do. But we came out with our mouths and eyes wide open in amazement at the extravagance of those things! Toilets that flush themselves (how does it know??), sparkling clean glass basins – each on a marble pedestal and each with fresh orchids in a beautiful vase, sculptures and leather lounge suits artfully placed around the place... We have seen some unbelievably grotty and dysfunctional loos over the last couple of weeks – the contrast in lavishness of these things gave us culture shock! Delwyn wanted to take photos – I put my foot down...

We went to the Night Safari that night – it was the 3rd time for me over the years and the 2nd for Delwyn. It had been a highlight for us in the past, with the huge variety of animals that are much more active at night. But this time it was so unbelievably crowded that it was a bit of a letdown – having that many people around made it more like a theme park than a zoo.

Day 11 - Back to Saigon

Our flights had been changed to get off the island a few days earlier - and it meant we had an extra day in Saigon (Ho Chi Ming City). We had already ‘done’ the city and it felt all too familiar already – so we read that another part of the city worth staying in was Cholon – which was “Chinatown” and was away from usual tourist trail full of touts, travel agencies, pick-pockets and more western style restaurants and bars.

It was truly in classic “Chinatown” style – with lots of Chinese writing and hotels that had lots of gold and marble in the foyers. It was difficult to find a good hotel – some of the ones we took a look at were depressingly dreary, smelly and damp. But we found one that suited our needs – apart from the karaoke bar across the road which thankfully didn’t keep us awake that night.

This was the view from our hotel...



We went exploring the streets and Del got some more great photos...





Came across a bakery and was fascinated by the wide selection of who-knows-what and the great prices. Ended up getting a wide selection of pastries and buns – just whatever caught our fancy... “This looks good, how about one of these?” – pointing at it, smiling and holding up one finger for the girl who was all shy as she tried to not laugh at our odd behaviour. I did a pretend fat walk for her (blown up cheeks, sway from side to side) which cracked her up. We were doing nothing to dispel any impressions that Westerners were a bunch of greedy fatties.

The order only came to about NZ$3 – yet it was easily enough for lunch for both of us (even after leaving a couple of things that had meat on the inside that was just too strange to finish). We ate our little feast on some steps while watching all the locals go about their business on a busy street – we were the only westerners there as we soaked up the atmosphere of the big city on our last day in Vietnam.

Day 10 - Exploring by motorbike

We nervously hired a motorbike to go exploring for the day, with me driving and Delwyn on the back. The island is 50km long and 25km wide, so there's plenty to see. We were a bit nervous about it because – apart from a few km’s of sealed road in the main town, the rest of the islands roads were a mixture of slippery, sloppy, deep mud – and potholes so big you could hardly see out of them.

This is a shot of an average stretch of road from the air - you can see how lush and wet the island is:


I remember the day before watching how even the experienced locals slowly drove their bikes with feet out to help keep the bike upright. It didn’t fill me with confidence – but the island just had to be explored – so off we went...

Unseen ruts under the surface of the mud would try to take the front wheel out from under us – so it was a constant fine balance between going fast enough to keep some sense of balance and momentum, yet slow enough to make sure any spill wasn’t going to take too much skin off. It was hard work!

I suspect Delwyn remembers the day from the back of the bike as one of beautiful remote beaches, winding roads through thick wet jungle, and lots of locals going about their business. However, my memories are 8 hours hellish concentration, trying to judge the safest route through the mud, judging the depth of the next water-filled pothole, constantly fighting the bike’s attempts to throw us off while occasionally losing control and muttering words that I am not normally known for saying... I was utterly exhausted by the end of the day!






But just like our cycling in Hoi An, getting out of the town – away from all other tourists and out into the open countryside, where the real people live - was just magic and we wouldn't have missed it for anything.

Del got some great photos of day-to-day life...



We got a flat tyre and were forced to turn back to the last little settlement where there was thankfully someone who could fix the bike for us (only NZ$7 – a bargain given we were stranded without their help!). It was a great excuse to walk around a little settlement and subtly peer into homes that would otherwise never see tourists.



A lady was barbequing and selling little packages wrapped in banana leaf – they looked like food so we bought one off her to try our luck. Turned out to be a little parcel of sticky rice with some banana inside – came out all sweet and gooey and surprisingly nice. A great snack that we would never have found if we hadn't had that flat tire.

Requests for a toilet in this settlement were met with confusion – it was okay to point to the flat tire on the bike and know you are communicating a universal need, but how do you use hand-signals to say you need a toilet? The bushes 5 minutes up the road were an adequate compromise once the wheel was fixed and we were off again.

Got caught in several downpours – so out came the ponchos and we pressed on. The mixture of warm tropical rain, sun-screen and sweat would run down into our eyes and sting. I was surprised to find that the mud actually gets worse when it rains - you wouldn't have believed it!



We went across several of these motorbike only bridges and stopped for lots of great photos:







We were almost back at our resort when we found ourselves on the wrong side of the local market and having to drive through the middle of the overwhelming chaos of bikes, trucks and thousands of people all buying and selling with each other.

Maybe I was just tired after driving all day and just couldn’t care anymore, but for the first time I wasn’t phased by the normally overwhelming commotion of a local Vietnamese market – our bike was just one more of the hundreds of bikes dodging each other on that street.



It almost felt like we were locals and this was an everyday thing – it’s surprising just how such madness and disorder can become almost normal when you have been exposed to it for long enough. You almost start to fit in – it’s a strange feeling...



We got back to the hotel safe and sound - all limbs intact (thank you God!) after being on the road all day. Shoes were caked in mud (bio-security at Auckland airport were going to have a field day).

We paid NZ$5 each for an hour’s massage on the beach out the front of our bungalow – and the stress from the difficult roads melted away!

In so many ways - both good and bad - this was a day we will always remember...

Day 9 – Move to new resort

A quick check on the internet told us the weather wasn’t going to change for the next week – so our flights were going to have to. We had planned 4 full days in this place – and that seemed somehow bad in our sleep deprived state. So a taxi trip back to the airline office in town saw us exchanging them for an extra day in Ho Chi Ming City and two more in Singapore.

We then spent the morning exploring the town and realising there was nothing outside the resorts to cater for the tourists – this place was pretty raw, making for some fantastic photo opportunities.

We ordered lunch at a local “Pho” place (Pho is noodle soup – it’s what all the locals live on here). There was no menu – we just smiled at the lady and pointed to one of her seats and she nodded and away we went – apart from the noodles, we had no idea what we were eating – but it was tasty!



Back to the resort – the next priority was finding a more comfortable place to stay for the next 2 nights – which we did, and weren’t disappointed. This was our new place on the beach:





Put our feet up for the rest of the afternoon and even caught our first glimpse of Phu Quoc sun as it was setting:



Found a small beach-front bar that served food - so stayed for dinner. We were the only ones there so stayed on a while for a few games of pool – walking home to our new bunglow after dark in the rain along the beach.

Day 8 – To a tropical island

Today we were hoping to go from ‘adventure-tourist’ to ‘tropical island tourist’ mode – with flights from Danang in central Vietnam to Phu Quoc island off its southern tip. It's supposed to be one of the ‘hidden wonders’ of Vietnam.

Was almost sick again on the trip to the airport (maybe another bad meal the night before?), but managed to come right again before boarding (it was very touch and go for a while).

After a 3 hour stopover in Ho Chi Ming City, we made it to the island where I had heard that “if you were really keen” you could walk from the airport to the beach and then along the beach – sampling the resorts as you go. Sounded more exciting than using a taxi, a bit of an adventure – so we ignored all the taxi touts wanting to take us to their recommended resort and off we went on our own.

Well... our naive keenness just about killed us! It was stinking hot and after an hour or so of walking with our backpacks on and still not getting to the beach, we finally gave up and asked a taxi to take us to the nearest resort where we checked in without question – just as the rain started. It was a cheap bungalow and had a pool - nothing else really mattered by that stage.



There was a reason for the cheapness – with a dark, damp and smelly room and almost foot long geckos on the walls running to hide behind the bed when you entered the room. They supplied a mosquito net, as none of the doors or windows closed properly. There was one very very dim light – so you could hardly see anything once the sun was down. The bed had a broken spring that kept Delwyn awake, the air-con smelled like stagnant water, and the frogs outside were like jackhammers. It was raining and windy, everything was wet and slippery, and the beach was covered with rubbish – the waves were choppy and murky. The restaurant at the resort was the only food choice and was twice the price we had been used to paying – yet eating was about all there was to do in that weather.


Sufficed to say it wasn’t the tropical paradise we were expecting – and had the obligatory ‘home-sick-meltdown’ moment later that dark stormy night when the strange noises (probably the rats) outside (or maybe inside - we never did find out) the bungalow caused Delwyn to loose it...

You don’t know what a comfort zone really is – until it’s not there anymore...

Home now. Time to finish the rest of the posts...

We didn’t get the blog posts finished over there as internet time was few and far between. But have now arrived home and after a few days recovering from jetlag and getting back into the routines with the kids (not sure which was more of a shock to the system) – We have now found the time and energy to finish off the blog posts with the remaining days of our holiday.

Hope you enjoy the rest of the posts - will publish them over the next few days...

Day 7 - Some tours

We set the alarm for 4:45am for a 'sunrise' tour of “My Son” where there are many ancient monuments from the Champa Kingdom (dates from between the 5th century AD to the 17th century). There were lots of the usual Buddhist and Hindu carvings into stone and brick monuments/temples/alters/etc.



It was extra special to be the first ones on site. You get to walk around the dense jungle tracks by yourself and feel like you are discovering these monuments for the first time. They are very old and overgrown with grass and moss, so they look pretty special.



We got back to the hotel just as the morning was starting to get hot - so we climbed back into bed and had another hours sleep.


Later that day we went on a tour called "2 hours with farmer" which we spotted in some obscure little tour agency run by one man. There are all sorts of tours you can do here – diving, fishing, boat trips, monuments, etc – Hoi An really revolves around the tourism industry. But this little tour was different since the owner of that agency turned out to be an ex-rice farmer who had many relatives who still lived off the land who we could visit.

So we met him at his shop with our hired bikes, he yelled at the wife to take over the shop and hopped on his bicycle and off we went. Hundreds of motorbikes and trucks swerved around us, honking their horns, stirring up dust and belching exhaust fumes in our faces. He said how happy he was that we booked his tour as it was an excuse to get out of the shop and get some fresh air - the irony was totally lost on the poor chap!

We got out into the countryside to visit a market garden - with hundreds of little rows of all sorts of herbs and vegetables. He showed us some of the very manual methods for planting, watering and picking the crops and told us about the struggle between the growers - who want to own their own plots, and the government who want to pay the growers a salary - but then take all the profits made.



Then we went to a rice field that his friend owned and we saw some of the methods they use for growing rice. They still use water-buffalo for ploughing.



The highlight was the optional sit-down at the end of the tour with his friend and family for a few beers. This experience was worth the cost of the tour alone. It’s just what we came here to experience - some basic family life, with an English translator who could answer our questions about everyday life here. We learned about schooling (about US$20 per month per child - a huge amount of money for these people), weddings (lots of drinking), business (he shared a new tourism business idea with us and wanted our feedback), and humor (we asked for some examples of local humor - its pretty basic and the usual sexist and dirty jokes that you would hear back home over a few beers).

All round it was lots and lots of fun - and so much better than all those poor tourists sitting in bars down-town paying 'tourist' prices for their fancy drinks and talking rubbish.

The "2 hours with Farmer" was good, but the extra "2 hours drinking with Farmer" was much more fun!