Our arrival on Boxing Day was perfect - Cam and Penny had brought a little Christmas tree, complete with lights, and set it up in our room with presents underneath. We added ours and had a lovely hour opening them all and catching up with the wee darlings.
Went out for Vietnamese Christmas dinner (noodles, stir fry, and spring rolls), which was great, good enough that I didn't quite fall asleep in my soup!
Yesterday we explored the huge Ben Thanh market, and the girls did some serious shopping - actually Bill wasn't too slow off the mark either. Went into the centre of the city and looked at some of the old French buildings, and had a good coffee and lime and soda.
After lunch at a very quaint restaurant we found a tailor and spent some time miming to him what we wanted made. Hannah coped well with his exclamations about Greg's measurements and managed to make him understand that we really did want the suit that size (I think)!
The 4 girls went across the road for the half price aroma oils massage - the thumbs digging into the buttocks were a lesson in fortitude, but we feel good today!
The traffic has to be seen - I can't describe the thousands of scooters and motorbikes, all loaded up with several people (the most seen so far is 4 people and a dog), babies and little kids perched between parents, and some with 6 or 8 huge water bottles, or piles of other stuff to transport. And they drive anywhere, on both sides of the road, nipping across in front of anything. The intersections seem to have only one rule - nudge your way though! Cars, taxis, buses, trucks, all fighting their way through and outnumbered 10 to 1 by motorbikes.
Today we have been to the beach at Vung Tau, swimming in the South China Sea. We caught a hydrofoil at 8.30 this morning, which took about an hour and a half down the Saigon River to the sea. That was interesting in itself, seeing all the shipping, and miles of mangrove forests on the mudbanks beside the river. We took a taxi from the ferry terminal to the beach, and were totally ripped off by the driver who took us a very long way round to get there, and then insisted he had no money to give me change. At least the tiki tour was interesting - we drove through some wee fishing villages where they had hundreds of trays of little fish lying out beside the road in front of all the houses and shops, drying in the sun. The smell was a little overpowering, especially for Charlotte who has discovered that weird Asian smells are not her forte.
The South China Sea is an interesting brownish colour (I guess it is mud from the river). There was a small surf, and the locals were particularly impressed with these foreigners who could bodysurf! Penny attracted quite a bit of attention in her bikini, so much so that she went and put her shorts on over the top. The beach we went to was pretty much all locals, lots of them out for a family picnic with their rice cookers and pickled veges.
We had some lunch at a local cafe. It looked promising from the street but was easily our worst meal so far, in fact the only bad one so far - like 2 minute noodles with mince!
We had an hour to fill in before the ferry, so Hannah and Charlotte went off for a foot massage and Cam hired a motorbike! He took a remarkably brave Penny and the Bill for a quick spin up and down the road by the beach, manouvering carefully (and fortunately without incident) through the craziness.
The girls were dropped off at the market on the way home, and have just arrived back, so I will go and view the purchases. Put some comments on everyone and let us know how your Christmas was. Love to all xxxx
Charlotte's best purchase so far!
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