Hoi An #2

Our modest 😀 accommodation... only 2 minutes walk past the pool to the beach. What a lovely haven. Cooler out of the pool or sea but lovely to have a daily ‘dunk’. 


We have a third floor room. Reliable air conditioning and very comfy bed!!

Hoi An

Arrived at our lovely beach resort 5 minutes drive from Hoi An early morning and as our room was unavailable we hopped on the courtesy shuttle and headed off for an adventure. A slow (very hot and humid) wander through the shop lined streets led us to the river and restaurants. Lovely vistas. 

This is one of the instillations/ religious or art pieces along the waterside. 

One of the brilliant shops we found made amazing ships all fully rigged. The sails could be dropped for shipping and we watched a couple of girls wiring on packing one for shipping. Quite fantastic. 

Local water taxis for island trips. We are on another Delta here. 

Ho Chi Minh #2

War Museum time. An interesting afternoon as we took ourselves off down the street to visit the War Monuments Museum. Quite a sobering display re the Vietnam War (they call it the American War) and it’s effects on the country including the continuing effects of Agent Orange. This added some context to yesterday’s trip to the tunnels. Road crossing fun again too. Lots of kids going by on small kids chairs in front of their parents on the scooters. Helmets mandatory here as are seatbelts in your busses.

These ladies had set up a waffle business outside. French style breads very common. Baguettes for breakfast on every street corner. 

NZ involvement in Vietnam.

Love the topiary trees. This just outside the museum. We have another day pottering here tomorrow then off to Hoi An on Friday. 

Ho Chi Minh City

This morning we had a shopping tour in the city locals still prefer to all Saigon. We visited 3 lovely shops and an amazing embroidery gallery before the markets and a coffee shop. Superb morning. Great choices to view and maybe make some special wee purchases.  Loved the bikes with bamboo construction. Pictured is a folding one. 

This can only give a glimpse of the extreme skill of the embroiderer. Wow!!

Cross the street like ‘sticky rice’ and be sure to watch out for motorbikes on the pavement. Sometimes taking a shortcut around a corner, the wrong way down a one way street or avoiding a traffic jam. Lol!!

Cu Chi Tunnel

Disembarked our lovely vessel this morning. 
Thoroughly enjoyed our cruise. So much to see and do. Onboard entertainment, food etc amazing!! Travel Marvel really go the extra mile. 

And then we were off for a drive north to the Cu Chi tunnel complex. Enjoyed this visit although some of the booby traps were rather gruesome. I managed a tunnel adventure also. Don’t know how they lived down there soooo long. Wow!!

Cai Be

Lovely afternoon tour. Back on the tender - our guide tried to call it a sampan! 😂. Up another river to experience family rice factory and the gothic cathedral - built by French Francescian monks. 

Downpour while we were there. Just like a West Coast rain!!

Puffed rice combined with coconut caramel, pressed onto bars and being stacked for packaging. The outside reject bits were part of our afternoon snack - nicely packaged of course. 

Making rice paper for rice paper wraps. This lady makes 2000 per day - I kid you not!!

Sa Dec

Sa Dec this morning: cruised up the river in our tender. Lovely walk through a gorgeous  town in the Mekong Delta. Rice and fish were staples but the market had an amazing array of vegetabes and fruit also. 

What does the future hold... the survey/engineering team were out and about??