Hi all.
Since we last chatted Christmas has come and gone....We have experienced life on the Mekong Delta (Vietnam) and we have welcomed in the new year.
Let start on Christmas Day......What a good day was had by all. We were woken up from our slumber at 1.30am, 3.30am, 4am, 5am and then finally 6am. We couldn't take the pressure anymore. Sound familiar Dad! A wonderful array of presents had been left by the large fellow in the red suit. Santa had definitely come to town!
For lunch we went with friends to the Peninsula Hotel for a wonderful Christmas buffet lunch. It was so nice to not have to clean up for a change. 3 hours later it was time to come home and make sure we had everything ready for our first family vacation in 2 years to Vietnam.
Vietnam........An interesting but very expensive place to visit. We thought we were going to be having a really cheap holiday as we only paid $21.95 for our 4 airline tickets. Thanks to Wayne and all his traveling with United they upgraded us to business class for our whole return trip. That was a very nice treat.
We experienced the Cu Cui Tunnels. The Viet Cong were extremely smart with the way they had everything set up underground. They had chambers built underground so that when they were cooking underground you couldn't see where the smoke was coming out. They used termite mounds for air holes. They even had a tunnel that took them straight out to the Saigon river if they needed to escape.
The Mekong Delta tour was the next tour we went on. I have a new respect for our life in Hong Kong after that. The Vietnamese people are so lovely. They take everyday as it comes, they work extremely hard and they celebrate family. They also smile a lot! We took a 3 hour car ride to catch a boat to go on the Mekong River. We passed floating markets. We didn't see much trade as most boats were on their way home as their trading had finished for the day. I did see some boats bartering with each other with the left over produce that they both still needed to sell.
The other trip we took was to Vung Tao. This trip was an hour and a half on a hydrofoil on the Saigon river out to the South China Sea. We put our feet in the water, but didn't go swimming as the water was not what you could call very clean at all. There were boards with rusted nails floating around and lots of jelly fish on the sand. Feeling a little dissolutioned we hired a couple of scooters to travel around the peninsular. We stopped at a little Vietnamese restaurant for lunch which was built over the water. We drove the bikes around for a couple of hours, then went and had a drink at the Ettamogah Pub. Those Aussies are everywhere. By this time it was time to go back to Ho Chi Minh City and crash. We were all very burnt and very tired.
New Years Eve was celebrated around the roof top pool at our hotel. We had some great live entertainment and a wonderful seafood buffet. We were fortunate to meet a great guy (Balbino) from Barcelona at the party. He joined us for dinner. Dylan won a competition and we were given a lovely bottle of champagne for his efforts. 12 o'clock came and went, but no fireworks were let off. We were all a little disappointed. What's New Year's Eve without fireworks?
The final day in Saigon was spent wondering around the shops and we made a significant purchase of a lovely painting by Vietnamese artist Le Quan. When it arrives I will post a picture of it for you all to see. It's titled "Rainy Day".....Most of his works are around Hanoi. We decided not to go up there as it was going to be a 31 hour train ride.
One of the photos is a special one. I thought everybody would like to see a Vietnamese beer truck. They were driving very carefully with their cargo.
Well to all of our family and friends out there...Have a fantastic 2006. Hopefully we can see you all over here for a holiday sometime.
xxxxxx
