Bye Vietnam

Now we are sitting in a bus from Ha long bei to Hanoi. We did a day trip there. We went kayaking in turquoise water and saw monkeys on a cliff with baby monkeys on the back. They were very cute. 

Before we were in Hoi an with our Swedish friends. There we lived in a beautiful house with a pool. 

There we went to a night market. It was very cool because of all the lights and decorations. 

There we also e was in a foto shop with a very big wardrobe full of funny clothing that you could have on in the picture. That was very funny. We did that two times , one with are family and one with all the kids from are Swedish friends.

We also rented bikes and we bicycled everywhere. It was very beautiful on the road and we saw many buffalo’s. 

Tomorrow we are supposed to go to a water land. That night we are also flying back to Sweden.

My favourite thing here in Vietnam was when we did canyoning. That is going to be a memory for life. I also liked all the swimming places and the beautiful animals.  I hope I come here again sometime.

BYE VIETNAM❤️

From Junia :)

Happy New Year!

After my last post it was time for some beach life, in the pittoresque fishing village Bai Xep where we had hoped for snorkelling and seafood. Unfortunately the sun said bye bye about the same time as we reached the coast (and we haven’t seen it since…)

Qui Nhon - fantastic clean beach but a bit off season…

The waves were too big to go out in, and no visibility for snorkelling. Even if Justus has muttered quite a few words about our bad luck with the weather we still had a good time - fun waterfall climbing, new years karaoke next door - and fresh seafood every night.

A less nice thing is the amount of trash that can be found on streets, along the roads - and on the beach. During our beach walks in Bai Xep we collected 11 garbage bags with rubbish (didn’t even cash them in - 1 garbage bag —> 1 beer, brilliant idea at our hotel.)

Spring rolls under construction 

Interesting cakes…

… and we landed in this budget version.

Beer sponsored new year celebrations in the city PN, 20 min from our little village

New year’s dinner

Then we continued to Unesco listed Hoi An - and our 7 days here in a fantastic home exchange has offered daily rains - and no changes in the forecast. When we leave there will be 28 degrees and sun though…

Apart from the fact that it is impossible to get towels and the floor in the bathroom dry, we are having a really good time here. We have rented bikes and cruise along rice fields (daring each other who drives though the biggest pile of buffalo shit) as well as in the total mayhem of beeping overloaded motorcycles, street dogs and cars. As we have also met up with friends from home with 3 daughters, the girls are playing constantly and we’ve had time for more adult talk than ever this trip…

Alma’s favourite dish - meat in leaf. She’s fantastic with the sticks!

Helmets and road safety… room for improvement.

The food is above all expectations!

Typical round boats. The sea is too choppy for us to try them though.

Hoi An old town.

Outside of every shop and in all houses there are small altars with incense and food to sacrifice to the ancestors. Here we got the occasion to participate in the burning of “clothes and money”, to send off to the ancestors in another world (we also ate their cookies, which were very tasty.)

Vietnam by Junia:)

Today we rented bicycles and we were supposed to bicycle to the water and take a boat to the other side but we did not find the boat so we bicycled to a restaurant and we ate lunch there.

 I like all the pools here and the beaches. There are not many ice cream places but there are very many good drinks that you can by. My favourite drink was when we was at a pool and I ordered a pineapple juice in the bar in bai Xep. 

Here in Hoi An there are very many buffalos. There we live there are always walking by buffalos. One bad thing about Vietnam is all the dogs. There are very many dogs that lives on the street and the most of them are very very very cute. I wish that all the dogs had a lovely home like I Sweden.

Today we also ate dinner with the other Swedish family. They also have three daughters. The oldest daughter is the same age as Alma and the youngest daughter is one year younger then Kiara.

This morning Alma Kiara and I made breakfast for mum and dad. We made different smoothies and fruit sallad. Mum ate very mutch:) 

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