Week 13 – Vietnam (Hoi An, Hoi Chin
Minh City)
20th to 26th of October
Our second week in Vietnam hold the key
to some of our best travel experiences to date.
We were woken up round 3:30am by the
‘ding-dongs’ of the resident monastery in Hoi An…well, very much next door to
our bedroom window!! Everybody was awake!! We sent most of the kids back to
their bedroom, but one remained with us. Fortunately after a long long time of
irregular dinging and donging, we all managed to snooze a bit more. The kids were
all sleeping together in two single beds pushed together, and Arno and I had
the luxury of our own room!
Linh of Loc Phat homestay, were the best host.
Always ready with a smile, well she advised us on which of the more than 300
tailor shops to visit. If you want to read more about our visit to Be Be, you
can follow this link.
So after the morning spent in the
tailor shop, we went to explore the quant little village of Hoi An. Well, actually it’s not that small, but the
Old Town with it’s street markets, backstreet art galleries and numerous
restaurants just capture your imagination. Many moons back the town was an
important harbour, but the Thu Bon River silted up in the early 19th
century and that preserved this atmospheric town form pollution and heavy
traffic and prevented it from turning into an big commercial harbour. The town’s
appearance dwindled a bit, until 1990, when it was given another chance through
the booming tourist industry. The local economy was transformed and this town
is now one of Vietnam’s wealthiest. It is a culinary mecca and world famous for
it’s quality in tailor made dresses, suits and shoes.
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| Street food!! |
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| Vietnamese Hot pot!! |
We stayed in Hoi An for 4 nights/3days
and enjoyed EVERY moment of it!! After some dress fitting at 6pm, we strolled
down the riverfront. Now quite dark, we were taken in by the beauty of all the
lit lanterns, little floating candles and peaceful atmosphere. Pitty the little
girls were so tired, otherwise we would have stayed a bit longer…
At this point I just need to tell you
about Loc Phat’s wonderful (included) breakfast. Served on a little terraced
rooftop, we could order a three-course start to our day. Bread basket, then
your choice of egg (fried, scrambled, omelet) or Vietnamese noodles/ rice or
pancakes then fruit plate, with a nice white coffee and passion fruit juice on
the side. If this does not set you up for the day, then I do not know what
will!! The kids got very clever and on our last day they had nearly 3 Nutella
pancakes each!! So you can understand why we got up super early on day 2 there.
We just could not go on the bike riding trip and missing out on the feast
upstairs!!
We choose the Heaven and Earth Bicycle
Tours for our day out. I’ll include my Trip advisor
review here:
‘We booked a half day family trip to visit the craft
villages over on the islands. We are travelling with our 4 children, ages 3,6,9
and 10). The two older ones were given children's bikes and the two younger
one's went on the back of our bikes. The 6-year old sat on a cushioned carrier
(like most Vietnamese bikes has) and a children's 5-point harnessed bike seat
was provided for the 4 year old. All of them were issued with a helmet. At no
time we were concerned for the safety of the children on this tour. Our guide, Linh,
was extremely informative and the children had many opportunities to try
various crafts and even paddling a traditional basket boat. The lunch (caramelized
chicken dish) was awesome. We cycled 9km on the day with plenty of stops and
two ferries included. Learned about Vietnamese culture and took part in weaving
a sleeping mat. Great day in the homeschool for our kids!!! We will totally
recommend this tour for all ages. In our group there were a young couple and
two older ladies, so a whole spectrum of age and ability! Everybody had good
fun!!’
The funniest part of this whole day was Arno’s struggle to
get anywhere with that basket boat. Because the boat is round and you can just
reach the water on one side, you just use one ore. Now this complicates things
a bit. If you paddle on one side with one ore, then the result will be what
Arno experienced…you keep on going round and round!! So hopeless, that the wee
old lady had to jump in with Alana, in her basket, to paddle across the stream
to rescue him! For once I was the water goddess!!! The trick in paddling is,
either a C-shape in front of the basket or a figure of 8. Getting into the
basket require some balancing skills too. You need to give a big step, placing
one food in the center of the basket. Then you need to kneel down, but remember
to keep both feet in the center. Luckily they placed a lifejacket down, for us
to kneel on, otherwise my knees would have hurt way more!!
You might ask: Why a basket boat?
Well, during the French colonization of Vietnam in 1887,
they started charging tax on boats. The locals decided to weave these huge
baskets and use it as boats. When the tax collectors came round they would just
pull the ‘basket’ out of the water and put it against the side of the house.
‘No boat here, Sir!’
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| Basket making |
Another interesting thing we learned was an explanation on
the difference in dates between the Vietnamese and Western world. We knew that
the Chinese celebrate New Year somewhere in February every year, buy I did not
know that in Vietnam they follow a complete different calendar. Each month runs
according to the moon cycle, so only 28 days. Then every fourth year, instead
like us, who adds on one day in February, they add on a whole extra month. Now,
the added extra month is different every time! I asked somebody about 2016, but
it is not officially known yet, which month will be doubled up. So different
from the UK, where 2017’s school calendar was made public already!!
The Cam Nam Island, across the river form Hoi An, is a old
world in itself. Here not much has changed since yester-year. We visited a boat
making workshop(they still bend the wood by steaming it over an open fire), and
mother-of-pearl woodcraft and inlay workshop (all by hand), a rice-wine cellar
(in the pig pen!!), a basket boat making family (not many with this particular
skill left in the world) and a mat weaver’s family business (daughter and
grandma working together in the front room of their house). It was such a
practical learning experience and that included the physical exercise cycling
between rice fields and neighborhoods.
Arno asked me to add this wee bit: Never ever ever ever,
when offered the opportunity to try fermented mushroom infused rice wine say
yes. ‘Nough said….. (He was the only brave soul..or stupid enough..to volunteer
this ‘treat’! Heeeeeeee heeeeeee!!! This was not a good day for his
selfesteem!!!!)
Arno’s mountain biker’s crave was definitely not satisfied
by this pedestrian 9 kilometers, so he went back for some more the following
day. The kids and I planned to hit the beachfront, but the torrential rainy
season storm had another type of day planned for us. Stay home and chill out!
Well, the kids did their schoolwork (Maths, English and Afrikaans) and caught
up with their personal dairies. We played a few games and then went for a short
walk in the street (between showers). We stumble upon a lantern making workroom
and watched the ladies at their craft. When the mud-man returned, he had to
jump in the shower with clothes and shoes still attatched to his body!! He was
mankey (‘dirty’ for you non-Scots!!). But his smile stretched from east to
west!
Before the last day in Hoi An ran out, we still had one
last appointment with Be Be. We had to pick up our completed outfits!!
Excitement knew no bounds!! Almost everything fitted perfectly. They adjusted
the straps on Nina’s dress quickly, while Arno was sorting out the shipment of
his suits to our friends in Dubai. We will pick them up there on our final stop
before we board the plane for Cape Town. Thanks to the Mackies!!
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| Ready to be shipped |
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| Final dress fitting |
We all felt very sad to leave Loc Phat. Alana and Philippa
have fallen in love with the family’s two Vietnamese puppy dogs. Since before
7am on our final morning, Alana was walking around cuddling them in a wee
blankey, giving them rides in the basket of a bicycle she found and lullabying
them to sleep beside her at the breakfast table. Every 5 minutes she would
repeat the request to bring one of them along with us…We were already inside
our taxi airport bound, while she was saying a final FINAL goodbye to the pups.
Back at Danang Airport we were waiting for our flight to
Dalat. This town lies closer to the mountains further south. It is higher up
and we were expecting some lower temperatures. Our two nights here were spent
in Villa Pink House.
for a bit of afternoon fun.
Up to this point in our journey we could book or plan our
mode of transport in advance. Since the only option to get to Hoi Chin Minh
City (Saigon’s new name) from Dalat, was by bus, we were now entering unknown
territory. With the help of the staff of Villa Pinkhouse, we book our first
bus. It was going to depart at 9:30am from the bus staion, but we were soon to
realize that our ticket also includes our courtesy hotel pick up by minibus
round 45min prior to departure. At this point I was still smiling, and then I
got a bit confused when I heard the word ‘ sleeping-bus’ mentioned. I was still
very worried until we actually boarded our ‘ sleeping bus’ to find it similar
situation as your first class airliner bed-like recliner seats. We had to take
our shoes off at the door of the bus, were issued with a neat little drawstring
bag to place them in, then we crawled into the bus. To give you a more clear
picture, I’ll go into a bit of detail!! The 3 rows of seats had 2 paths between
them and were double decker! I think the bus can only take 42 passengers. At
each stop every passenger could lift a pair of flip-flops from a bucket outside
the door. Convenience at it’s best. (I have not seen this repeated on any other
bus journey yet.) Nina and Philippa were sharing a seat and were happily
playing dollies and mums ’n dad’s for the duration of this 6 hour long journey.
Thomas and Alana had the luxury of reading and watching and I-pad movie…Arno
and I, we just slept!!! All my doubts about this foreign concept were totally
blown out of the water. I later spoke to somebody who said that she always
takes the nightly sleeper bus and how comfortable it is. I now can believe
her!!
The 3 nights booked into the Riverside Resort was a gift
from above. What a privilege to enjoy a little bit of luxury in our serviced 2-bedroomed
apartment with kitchen. The children did not leave the fantastic pool, except
when the regular afternoon thunderstorms moved in. It was hard to convince them
to get excited about a day of exploring HCMC’s tourist sights…even for us
bigger guys, we had to do a bit of a self-motivational chat!! The compromise
was that we would take the 8am courtesy river taxi from our resort to downtown,
do a bit of walking about, visiting one of the cool markets, maybe the Palace
and the War Remnants Museum, before returning to the pool again by 1pm. In agreement with this suggestion, we had 4
children dressed and ready waiting at the quayside for our taxi boat at 7:45am!
We followed the Saigon River to a jetty closest to the
town center. This taxi is particularly laid on to transport the expats form
their little Western ‘bubble’ to their offices in the city. After a super
challenging road crossing ( but we are actually getting very good at this
now!!) we were wandering the streets for a while. This was the day we let all
the hair down! Breakfast was enjoyed in Starbucks Coffee House (first of our
trip) and later a KFC lunch followed!!!! (Also a first.) It was hot and sweltering
and the energy levels of the kiddo’s were starting to run low. Arno came up
with a great solution, which injected some energy…even into myself!! Each child
were given 100dong(£3) to spend in the market. They could haggle prices down to
hearts contend! So while Arno went Nikon shopping in another market, the kids
and I got ourselves lost (literarily and
figuratively!!) inside the Ben Thanh market.
Philippa and Alana both got a little cute back pack,
Thomas got his Spain football strip (we negotiated the price so far down, that
I added a few dong to get him the shorts too) and Nina got a sweet handbag and
a special soft bunny!! Mama got some really nice rice bowls and a decorative plate.
Souvenir shopping done for a while!! Back to the pool!!
I am referring to the children’s water affinity a lot,
because this is one of the joys of this RTW adventure! After 3 months worth of
exposure to pools and oceans, HCMC, is the place where Nina officially ‘let it
go’!! Arno said she just gave one final glance over her shoulder before
launching herself into the pool to join the other 3!! He gave her some time,
but she needed none, because she was now a swimming 3 year old!! Her
confidence, and also Philippa’s, who started swimming in Hawaii, is just one of the little
secondary goals I had for this journey: get my babies safe in the water!!
Thomas achieved a BIG reward for completing his first
Afrikaans book: Trompie. So after the thunderclaps calmed down a bit, we raced
each other to the resident coffee shop for a cookie and milkshake! He stretched
this one-to-mum treat a bit by convincing me to take him to the tennis court
for a bit of a play. We beat the rest of the family there, but soon we had a
few ‘ball girlies’ who, fairly, requested their turn at the racket too. A few
load claps and big fat raindrops forced
us to call it quits.
A wonderful retreat from hardcore travelling was so much
appreciated by us all!!
7am mini-van pick up was booked. We were dropped off at
the awaiting Phonm Penh bus, proper bus-bus this time, with seats!!
Cambodia
was preparing to receive this lot of globetrotters!!!
