My Getaway to Vietnam
Recently myself and my husband went on a month long vacation to his home country, Vietnam.
I wanted to share the experiences we had on our amazing trip. To be able to travel any time I want and for however long I want is is the one of the reasons why I went in to free enterprise and joined a home based business.
Our adventure started on September 20th. It usually is a 24hour trip to Asia from eastern Canada.
Me waiting at O'Hare Airport for connecting plain to Japan where we will catch the connecting flight to Vietnam.
We arrived in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) on the 23rd and were welcomed by a very noisy and seemingly chaotic traffic. The sheer number of people and scooters on the streets was amazing.
Ho Chi Minh has a population of 15million. That’s HALF Canada’s population!
Here’s a video to give you a feel of what it is to be a pedestrian in Vietnam. This is actually not much traffic for Ho Chi Minh. Watch the guy in front of us he’s a pro!
From Ho Chi Minh we went to visit Tai’s grandmas. they live a little over 400km from Ho Chi Minh, so it took us about 8 hours to get there, they drive very slow in Vietnam, no Highways.
This is a picture of me, Tai and one of his grandmas. She’s a very spunky 87 year old lady.
I learned a lot of great things about my hubby from her, for example Tai was a potty mouthed little punk kid when he was little. Contrary to Tai telling me that he was a good kid who never wanted anything…HA HA!
The truth about him came out…LOL!
Now when you are traveling in a third world country you have to be prepared to forgo some of the comforts of home …
…Meet the bus stop rest rooms. Tai says that the men restroom is just a whole in the ground.
Another word of caution is… DO NOT to eat anything on these bus stops, unless you are willing to risk getting some nasty food poisoning like Tai and I got… make sure to eat only freshly prepared foods where you can see it being made…markets are a good place, anywhere where you see other tourists eating.
Home cooking is the optimum choice if you are lucky enough to get it.
Here I am helping to prepare some lunch with the locals (ie. Tai’s aunt and cousin).
I am making fresh rolls. Its just some noodles salad, herbs, pork and shrimp wrapped in thin rice paper. I’m an expert at making fresh rolls now! 
Fresh rolls are my favorite Vietnamese dish, so simple but so delicious!
We also had chicken stew and steamed clams to go with those fresh rolls. Oh and don’t forget the Rice!
Being tourist we wanted to see how the rural people in Vietnam lived so we asked one of Tai’s relatives to give us a little boat tour. Check out the video you can see how people live along the water, rice harvesting and Tai’s dad trying some dirty river water (I don’t recommend you try it).
After we got back to Ho Chi Minh and recovered from our food poisoning adventure we headed off to a beach town of Nha Trang. This town in located on a beautiful beach surrounded by mountains and tropical beach islands in its bay.
View of Nha Trang from our hotel window
View of Nha Trang from boat
If you ever get a chance to go to Vietnam do drop in to Nha Trang. There are plenty of island tours, city tours to keep you busy.
Tai enjoying the breez on our island adventure tour.
Me enjoying some sea urchin on our island adventure tour
Forget elephant rides! Any one wants to ride an ostrich?
If you in the mood to feed some deer guess what ..you can!
You can even feed some wild monkeys but beware they are quite mean and they steal!
There is even time to enjoy some fresh coconut on the beach
Nha Trang is also a great place to for some fresh seafood and Pizza. Yes you read it right they have really good pizza in Nha Trang.
Tai pigging out on pizza in Nha Trang
Dinner of grilled fresh seafood. We have clams, oysters, red snapper, prawn and lobster!
We also came across some temples some ancient and some new.
One of the newer temples in Nha Trang, lots of Chinese influence in this temple.
This is the Vietnamese reclining Buddha. Its a copy of the golden reclining Buddha in Thailand which is bigger and much much older.
This is a giant white sitting Buddha. Its huge!
Beautiful ancient temples in Nha Trang. Each temple is dedicated to a different God.
From Nha Trang we went to a little town Doc Let, which has really splendid white sand beaches. We spent a day and a half there but it was enough time to get burned like a lobster.
Beautiful white sand beach of Doc Let. We spent the whole day under the umbrellas and got badly burned. No one told us that you can get burned in the shade!
From Doc Let we headed back to Ho Chi Minh. I really wanted to go more north to Hanoi and Dha Nang but the weather was really bad there so we decided to fly to an island in the most southern part of Vietnam on the Gulf of Thailand, called Phu Qouc. It was a great decision.
Phu Quoc beach just beautiful.
Sunset on the beach, there's a fishing boat in the distance.
Heading off in to the sunset for some squid fishing. Before I got sea sick 
There are a lot of activities and trips you can take on the island from a 2 day and 1 night cruise to sunset fishing and night squid fishing.
We opted for the night squid fishing, unfortunately I was only able to catch a fish before being overtaken by sea sickness.
This opened up a can of worms as others started feeling sick on the rocky waters so our trip was cut short and we came back squid less
Luckily the trip organizers had some yummy squid porridge ready for us when we docked to settle our stomachs.
I must say the squid in Phu Quoc is the best I ever had anywhere.
We stayed 4 great days on the island had great food and relaxing time nursing our sunburn. But it was time to head back to Ho Chi Minh to do some final shopping and get gifts for family say good buy to Tai’s grandma and eat some more Ché.
These are some different kinds of Che. Its basically tapioca some mung or azuki or some other beans smothered with sweet coconut milk. Its something you have to try its delicious!
Last outing with Tai's grandmas. They wanted to go to the amusement park
Having fun at the amusement park and hanging out with some skeletons.
Some late night shopping at the night market before we head back home the next day.
On October 20th, after finishing some more shopping, our Vietnam adventures and misadventures came to the end. We headed back home the next day.
P.S. Remember to leave your comments or your travel experience. If you would like to see some more pictures come and friend me on Facebook I will be posting more pictures and videos from my trips.
Filed under: Lifestyle
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