Sweating it out in Saigon, Vietnam

Local wares for sale

Vietnamese Kara drinking Cafe Sua not the street

We arrived into Ho Chi Minh City early on Saturday morning. It was hot, humid and the air smelt delicious. Vietnam smells. It smells like spicy egg noodles, dried fish, onions and sweet coffee… Combined it's quite welcoming and enough to get your stomach rumbling! But that’s ok because Vietnam can cook. Boy can they cook good. Aside from the regular beef pho, and scrummy rice paper spring rolls there is an array of different (we will say different) consumables: pig brain soup? Crocodile fritter? BBQ rat? Deep fried snake or Snail pie anyone? It’s all on the menu, and it all (when you close your eyes and think of chicken) tastes amazing. Another local favourite is the bang mi (baguette) made with liver, chilli, pickled onions, shredded chicken and spiced cucumber- absolutely delicious in fresh crispy bread.

Just after a rain- women selling fish

Come get your bananas! 

South Vietnam is hot, sweaty hot, clothes sticking to you hot. Which is quite amazing considering that everyone is dressed in pants and long sleeved shirts. 

Everything is busy and every man, dog and house, literally, is on a motorbike. 

Aside from the compulsory siestas, we have been quite busy exploring. As we only have five days in Vietnam we decided to make home base Ho Chi Minh city and venture outwards from there. We dived straight into a bit of war history and visited the famous underground tunnels in the Cu Chi district.

Things just got akward

Inside the largest Cu Chi tunnel

Bit of a tight squeeze out

The tunnels built in the late 1960's incorporate three underground levels and cover over 250kms of land. Built by the country folk of Cu Chi who, as it seems were extremely little people and were right into Guerrilla warfare. 

Chilling out at the red dragon

On our tour we were told the people had two options; 1. die 2. secretly hide underground and fight back.... so they fought back for over 18 years. We ventured nervously into the mini-people sized tunnels and covered 100meters of ground before our legs cramped up and we couldn't see through the sweat covering our eyes....nice. We also visited a government initiative designed to help those left jobless after the war to re-educate and learn new skills.

After that we had some R&R, John was dying to try the local brews so Kara left him at the bar and went off for a $3 mani and pedi. Quite a good bargain and the beer was tasty too!

Playing with the lunch 

We took a full day to also explore one of Vietnam's lifelines- the Mekong Delta. Our river tour took us South West 3 hours from Ho Chi Minh to My Tho, the upper branch of the Mekong. 

We boat-hopped across to four small islands named after animals found in Buddhism (the dragon, phoenix, unicorn & turtle). What we really enjoyed about the river tour was seeing how local people live (and make a living). 

Sailing the Mekong Delta

Each island had its own production of either honey, coconut candies or tropical fruits. 

We stopped for lunch on the largest island and ventured off later on bikes! The tours are a bit ‘touristy’ but do give you an insight to the people and culture.

We should note, we did visit the Binh Tay markets in the city centre. The market boosts to be the largest wholesale market in Vietnam. 

After walking 30minutes to get there from our hotel, we stayed all of 10minutes. We’re not sure if they get many tourists, or few but the sellers are very ‘persistent’ if you even show the slightest interest (or not even) with anything. Generally speaking you can get all your wares there and then some… seafood seemed to be very popular!

All fruits and them some! 

Vietnamese rice rolls for breakfast! 

'Pho' for lunch! 

Large pearly gates!

Visiting the Phat Budda

One thing we noticed about Vietnam is that is seems to come alive at night. It shakes of the humidity and heat of the sun and comes alive with plenty of neon lights. Actually it’s a bit like walking into a discount chemist shop- you can be a bit overwhelmed.

Bring on the nightlife! 

We loved sitting on the roadside with a local ‘Ca Phe Sua’ translation: espresso coffee with condensed milk over ice, and watching all the people about tending to their business, eating or playing with kids.

A treat to bring home!

River boats

Cycling through a small island village 

Ready for our boat ride! 

Onwards to China....

Tot siens,

John and Kara 

Melbourne and Cairns, Australia

Back in Melbourne, Victoria

So where are we now, what took us so long to blog and what is our big news!?

Hold on to your seats folks (and kudos to you if your using a standing desk)- We're off to BEIJING, CHINA! Kara has landed a pretty nifty teaching job and John loves Chinese food (a win-win).

Just a quick background to our last several weeks and then more about China: after leaving hot and sticky Malaysia we arrived in to the very cold Melbourne, Australia. In fact at the beginning of November Melbourne suffered its longest cold snap (for the month of November) in over 20 years!! Brrr!! So after a hop, skip and jump from Japan via Kuala Lumpur we arrived back into Aus. What hit us (after the massive wait at immigration) was the smell; the hot dry wind, dead grass and soft gum trees. We were back and it seemed even the birds were happy!

Visiting the Yarra Valley Chocolate emporium - oh no!

The last few weeks we have been kept occupied helping our hosts move house, and going shopping! First was a new computer (to keep our blogs going!) and then all the winter gear we will need for our first northern hemisphere winter. We have also been devouring a lot of food! Food that we missed the most; nachos, eggs benny, lamb, fresh salmon and salads! lots of salad!

Getting ready! 

Snorkelling on great barrier reef, Port Douglas

Kara's mum also popped over to Melbourne and we spent a day exploring the Yarra valley wine, chocolate and cheese trail (another fav we missed!!) before heading off to tropical Queensland (with Kara and her sister). So while John stayed in freezing cold Melbourne catching up on movies and admin, Kara was in Cairns soaking up the sun!

Kara, Tania and Tash relaxing in the resort pool

Champagne cocktail by the pool anyone?

Cairns sits about half way along the great barrier reef and is where the rainforest meets the reef. It was amazing and we spent time reading by the pool, eating fresh tiger prawns and snorkelling. The highlight was definitely heading out onto the reef with the local marine biologist for a close up of his environmental work... yip even saw a shark! Without a heartbeat, I could definitely say its like a paradise! (Thanks for the organising Tash and Mum for the surprise present).

Exploring the beach

Exploring the resorts private beach before breakfast

Ahhh... what?

So what's the plan now? We have our Chinese visas (yip- these were just as tricky to get as you might think), the dentist and doctor's appointments are done and we think we have enough clothes to stay warm.

Second phase... the arrival! So we're off this Friday, with several days up our sleeves we have planned to stop in Saigon (Ho chi minh) for the week! We also want to take the time to say a big thank you to MEG AND MISHA who accommodated and generously hosted us during our three weeks in Melbourne! We love you guys!


Tot siens,
John and Kara