Dalat

We are currently spending 8 h in lounge position travelling from Dalat at 1500 m altitude to Bai Xep by the coast. The back pack is full of snacks, a couple of Netflix movies downloaded on fully charged phones and so far we have only needed to ask the driver once for an emergency toilet break. Via google translate, as that is the easiest way of communicating… When entering the bus, everyone needed to take off their shoes, and as the shoes are being tucked away in a shoe bag, there are yellow plastic slippers to borrow in by every stop.

Dalat, where we’ve spent the last few days, is the honeymoon capital of Vietnam. Our highlight here was the canyoning where we absailed down some beautiful waterfalls (the highest was 25 m…), got lost in the Crazy house, and tasted all kinds of nice street food at the night market. 

The girls are above all expectations when it comes to trying new food - Junia has even tasted dragon fruit! (This is quite a big thing for someone who just increased her fruit repertoire by 100% when sometimes accepting a banana, not only kiwis.) But quite a few meals have also been rather carb focused for especially Kiara - rice noodles with nothing.

The best thing about travelling like this is obviously to have time for each other without the daily stress at home. With that said, it isn’t always smooth (arguments over screen time are independent of geographical location), but as long as the blood sugar is steady there are mainly happy campers.

Vietnam is the world’s 2nd largest coffee producer, and the number of cafes selling coffee, tea and fruit juices is like bröd&salt stores in Stockholm *1000. We have given up on all kinds of coffee mixes though - despite being mixed with both condensed and fresh milk it still  reminds us of tar), but the teas are lovely. Hot with fresh ginger and honey, ice tea with lemongrass and lime, or with salted dry lemon or lichee… 

Natural waterslide… My tailbone has still not recovered.

Chuc mung giang sinh!

After a week in this lovely country I can only remember one word - thank you - [köm ööön]. The memory trick to remember it is to think of the song “come on Eileen”, but adding a more nasal touch. Vietnamese is a really difficult language, with a lot of added fjongs to the Latin letters, making it difficult to read out as well. As the general level of English is rather low we are extremely thankful of the app Grab, Vietnamese Uber, which makes it super smooth to travel around - no discussion about the price or difficulties in communication, and average waiting time 2 min.

Our first few days in Saigon - which is what most locals call Ho Chi Minh City - were spent walking around in 30 degrees, drinking fantastic fruit juices, visiting the war museum (where we needed to give up after half, it was just too horrible), and negotiating at the market. We also had a day trip to the Mekong delta with cycling and kayaking - really nice!

Yesterday we left the big city and went to the national park Cat Tien, where most animals between elephants and pythons can be found. Today’s hike to the crocodile lake rewarded us with beautiful scenery, and in the cycling in the evening we saw quite a few deer and peacocks. 

The guest book in the independence hall - or reunification palace. 

It’s a tough job to visit the market…

Evening wildlife spotting

“Emma” outside our local shopping center (named after our Grab driver pointed out eMart.) Big things outside shopping centres seems to be very popular photo shoot places here.

Mekong biking 

Mekong kayaking 

Our Saigon home

When being the first customer at eMart in the morning, this is how you are greeted… all the way til the end!

Crocodile lake!

Despite being the only one wearing leach socks one of these little bastards got into my pants somehow and then there was blood…

Our new room mate (had 2 more…)

Goooood morning Vietnam!

After an exciting start with with delays both for trains and planes (did some hard core running in Doha) we finally landed in Ho Chi Minh City yesterday. 

Flying with kids aged 6, 9 and 11 is a walk in the park compared with the flights we’ve had the last 11 years. Binge watching American romcom AND finishing a book, not needing to entertain anyone but myself - what a luxury. (“Mum, will it be the same plane when we go back? With screens?”)  

But even if the girls behaved fantastically the parents didn’t manage to catch any sleep, so when arriving yesterday afternoon we were slightly groggy to say the least. Here we have yet another great home exchange, and the big pool has turned out as perfect remedy to wake up almost dead.

The traffic here is just as chaotic as everyone says - scooters EVERYWHERE - which you need to dodge like bullets being a pedestrian. Even when having a green light. Same thing in eMart, our local big supermarket - have never been anywhere so crowded, and there are no traffic rules whatsoever when dodging shopping carts. A nice thing with eMart are all tasting samples - easily counted to 15 yesterday, even if I didn’t understand what half of them were.

Today we have checked out some landmarks, went to a big market where we had planned to lunch but Alma lost appetite when a rat run past her, got a haircut (K), got manicure (J&A), despaired about the amount of trash and learned some basic Vietnamese. People are really friendly and we are quite sure we’ll have a great couple of weeks here!

Guess who managed to swim some 10 m with snorkel and cyclops today?

Not a trip without the holy book, LP.

Old post office, possibly built by Gustave Eiffel, with Ho Chi Minh himself in the back. 

After smashing into a corner, K got half a ping pong ball on her forehead. A napkin full of ice helped though. 

Floating rubbish dump

4 € haircut

Merida - Cancun

So have we reached the last evening of our three weeks vacation and it is with mixed feelings we head back to reality tomorrow night. When will we be able to go for a long trip next time? Alma is happy to return to Swedish food (even if most of that also is directly rejected as "äckligt") but last night she was also devastated about leaving all Mexican animals here...Chickens and rabbits don't score as high as dolphins and iguanas. 

When we left Merida we had cool stop in Valladolid with some cenote (limestone sinkhole) swim. This is a natural phenomena unique to Yucatan, and here there are thousands of these - more or less exploited. Cenotes were holy to the Mayas, gateways to the underworld, and a place for sacrificing gold - and humans. Where we went swimming we needed to walk 73 steps down to reach 20 m under ground, and than there was 45 m water depth... Don't want to know what was on the bottom.

Then we came to our third home exchange in Cancun. This city with all mega hotel complexes is not really our cup of tea, but luckily there are many good excursions around. Today we took the ferry to Isla Mujeres for some golf car driving and snorkeling and tomorrow we will hope to spot some spider monkeys in Puerto Morelos.

Isla Mujeres, home to Playa Norte, top 7 beach in the world according to trip advisor. That beach was a bit more crowded than this one...

More photos

Näsbjörn in the wild

Pola gelato - a gem in Merida



Our second home exchange 

Going to the hair dresser - perfect activity on a hot afternoon. 

The watermark Xel-ha was a favourite close to Tulum. The highlights varied from the water slide to the ceviche on the lunch buffet, depending on who in the family that was asked.

Tulum

Mexican life in Merida

Since the last blog entry we had one more police encounter - parking by a yellow sidewalk (which everyone else also does), which resulted in a confiscated license plate and a fine of 253 pesos - about 13 euro. No bribing suggestions this time...

We have otherwise taken it rather chill (as it is fever temperature outside), found an amazing ice cream place as well as a great gym. And not to forget, Alma lost her first tooth! We have some lovely neighbors when it comes to take away ceviche and cheesecake which makes life very easy. Unfortunately the girls don't really appreciate the Mexican flavours, but at least they eat their havregrynsgröt in the morning, so at least one decent meal/ day.

Familjefys at Qhealth

Merida parque Centenario. Many animals, unfortunately not too much space.

At the beach in Chicxulub where we gathered a bag of trash way too quickly

View from the lunch restaurant

Curious mapaches - tvättbjörnar - in the wild

Going local - meeting the police twice

Yesterday, we moved to another location. Merida in the Western part of the Yucatan peninsula would be our new home for the coming week. As the journey would take us close to four hours, we decided to have some breaks in the middle. First stop-over was Coba, a wonderful little town about 1 hrs drive  Puerto Aventuras. In Coba we rented a few bikes and cycled through lush forests and visited some amazing Maya buildings. We couldn’t resist climbing a very steep 42 meters high temple resulting in some amazing views over the peninsula. A truly wonderful experience! After that stop-over we had lunch in Valladolid and ate some great food. Yet another great recommendation from our LP guide book! 

When we arrived at our new house, the girls took a short dive in the pool before we were headed to a supermarket to buy dinner. Our handy GPS (Sygic, also working when not connected to the internet!) send us through all kind of little streets until we ended on a junction where we were the only ones that didn’t have a traffic light. Weird. Just when we wanted to start driving we saw a police car coming. Let’s just wait to be certain. He however stopped (although he had green light) and yelled something through his speakers. Mhhhhh, let’s drive. When we hit the road, he signaled that we needed to stop. We obviously had been driving the wrong way in a one lane street and it would cost us about 125 Euro. The police officer would take our license plate and we could pick it up Monday morning at a police station about 30 min drive out of town. We ended up in another weird situation where we both tried to settle it in another way whereby we didn’t dare to make the first move. He in the end suggested that it would be waste of both time and money to handle this the proper way, so we could also just skip it and compensate him in another way. This we should do in the parking of the supermarket 150 m further up the road. We have a special place in our car where we stack some 20 dollar bills and it indeed this did the trick. We felt happy and disillusioned at the same time. Good we skipped the big fine and hassle but sad to realize the system was indeed as corrupt as its reputation. 

Today, we visited the wonderful old city center of Merida. After visiting the city architectural highlights, we decided to go to the market to look for food and to get some shade. With Alma on my shoulders an Junia by the hand, I walked to the market. When I checked for Anna and Kiara a few minutes later, I couldn't see them anywhere. We waited for a few minutes and than walked back to where we had last seen each other. We waited and waited but no Anna. Fortunately, a clown show was just about to start so the girls had some entertainment. When that show was over, still no signs of Anna. So after one hour of waiting, checking my phone and getting slightly concerned, I decided to ask a police officer how to proceed. I showed and send a picture, gave personal details which he shared that with the Merida police force. All available officers would now be looking for a tall Swede with a toddler on her stomach. We continued to wait until the good news would come. After almost 2. hours waiting, a Mexican number called me. It was Anna, she was 'waiting' for me at the other side of the plaza. The unification was a mixture of happyness and frustration. How was it possible that we both had such a different approaches to find each other. I waited at the place where we last met. Anna waited at the place where we were supposed to meet. Needless to say we made some firm agreements how to handle such situations next time. The Merida police force was of great help and our faith in the police corps was slightly restored. 

Tonight, Anna told me that the some English police officers had also been looking for her while she was cycling   with her mother in the UK 24 years ago. At that time, a mobile telephone had not been invented though ..... Apart from the various police encounters, we are still having a wonderful time in an amazing country. Let's however hope that we stick with these two 'going local' experiences.