Walker Family Gap Year

We still had some time on our Vietnam visa so decided to head down to the Mekong Delta, the massive agricultural area fed by the Mekong River. Also known as the Nine Dragons River, it is the lifeblood of Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia as it brings the water to irrigate the rice paddies and orchards, as well as the fresh water fish it provides. As we had enjoyed our Cu Chi trip we decided to book a homestay trip to the Mekong with the same company Water Buffalo Tours, again with Quang as our ‘local boy’ guide.

Our first stop was a rural market place Can Duoc, and from the reaction to Ollie it was obvious it’s not a place that see many western tourists. Ollie’s pale skin is in big demand here, everyone wanted to touch him – literally! The locals were all so friendly, wanting to have their photos taken and have a laugh with us – so lovely. It was also a great market for the boys to see as there were lots of live ducks & chickens for sale, and the stall holders gave them baby ducks and chickens to hold – Ollie wanted to buy one of course!

Baby chicks for sale!

The ladies love Ollie!

From here we drove to Tan Hoa, Quang’s beautiful village, surrounded by emerald green rice paddies. Here we met his Mum, brother and sister (he is number 10 in his family) and he took us on a scooter ride around his verdant village, stopping at his Uncle Number 4’s house to have a fresh coconut from his trees and feed his goats. (This numbering is how you refer to your relatives to show respect). Lunch was spent at Tan Thanh, a beach-front seafood restaurant overlooking the muddy clam farms, eating the most fresh prawns and clams we’ve ever tasted. Then it was off to the Upper Mekong River to experience life on the river; from the barges hauling tons of dredged sand for the building industry, to those carrying wood and even rice towards the port of Saigon.

With our homestay family

Overnight we stayed with a local family in a homestay. Even with limited English we felt so welcome in their beautiful, traditional wooden home. The ‘Uncle’ who owned the homestay was also a famous local chef so the food was incredible, with unusual deep fried Elephant-Ear Fish and even cooking us frogs so we could experience traditional cuisine (they were delicious!). They had puppies for Ollie to play with and a granddaughter for Cameron to amuse, so it was a perfect stay. Then it was time for some exercise with a bike ride around the village. This area is famous for its orchards; growing many types of fruit including Pomelos, and limes and has over 20 million coconut palms, so it is very fertile, steamy and lush, just as you image a tropical jungle would be.

Frogs – delicious!

A chilli nursery.

Underneath the mosquito net.

Travelling around the Mekong, allowed us to see some of the other industries on the river that make this place so productive, including the brick making industry, hand filled kilns burning rice-husks for fuel, coconut processing factories and fish-farming in nets underneath the locals houseboats. We also got out of bed at 5am one morning to see the floating markets at Phong Dien, where local farmers come to buy and sell their fruit and vegetables from their small power or wooden rowing boats. They indicate what goods they are selling by hanging examples from long bamboo aerials above their boats. We even had coffee from the coffee boat – so much nicer than Starbucks!

A stop at a large bird conservation area, included another boat journey through some of most stunning mangrove forests we’ve ever seen.

Brick making on the riverbanks.

Our tour around some of the 50,000kms of waterways in the Mekong, meeting some of the friendliest people, and watching people go about their daily lives in this incredible delta area gave us a taste of the real Vietnam, and we felt privileged to have experienced what many tourists don’t. Thank you for showing us your beautiful home Quang!

Sadly, we had to say goodbye to Vietnam, as we headed off to Chau Doc, to catch the ferry to Phnom Penh in Cambodia to start the next part of our South East Asian adventure. We will miss Vietnam, it has been an exotic, vibrant and often thought-provoking visit and we would love to return some day.

Caodaism is a popular religion here that combines Christianity with Buddhism and Hinduism.

This is the Vietnamese version of the motorway services (the coffee shop!!)

Despite the name change after the end of the Vietnam War, Ho Chi Minh City is still called Saigon by many of the locals, especially District 1, the backpacker ‘party district’, where we stayed. Our hotel, the Luan Vu, was a little gem, tucked away off the main strip, so it was in the heart of the action but still quiet enough to sleep, and all for the mere sum of 25 GBP a night, including breakfast for all four of us! Amazing value.

Saigon roads are hard to cross!

Ben making crispy filled pancakes on the street food stall

We had also, on the recommendation of an Aussie family we met in Hoi An, booked a food tour with the Back of the Bike Company. Seven Vietnamese university students picked us up at the hotel, and for four hours drove us around Saigon on the ‘back of their bikes’ taking us to 5 different food areas to get a taste of real Vietnamese cuisine. The kids were absolutely in their element getting a ride on the back of the scooters, looking very relaxed while I, for one, held on for my life as they merged into the crazy scooter packed streets of the City, a literal white knuckle ride! But soon you realised that the girls were excellent riders, well used to negotiating the chaos, one of the girls noted that there are over 6 million scooters in Saigon and one thing they were good at was avoiding hitting one another!  I can confidently speak for us all when I say it turned into one of our most memorable nights in Vietnam!

Our ‘girls’ were so interesting to talk to, we asked them so many questions about the City, the food and their lives and they were great fun with the kids. And the food? Amazing. We had street food from a stall of grilled meats, green papaya salad with beef jerky, whilst sitting in a park, a busy locals restaurant specialising in seafood soup with rice puffs and a speciality desert-only café for a selection of the most delicious ice-creams, fruits and sticky rice – yummy! And we even learned that the word yum is rude, not to cross your fingers and how to pronounce Pho (soup)properly so you were not asking for something unmentionable! We also found out why people sometimes laughed when Ben said thank you in Vietnamese – it’s all in the inflection apparently – he’s been telling them to ‘shut their mouths’ instead!

And finally when the girls dropped us off at our hotel that night they asked if they could take the kids out for ice-cream the next afternoon (how could we refuse?), and so the kids all got another scooter ride the next day, free ice-creams and their faces all over the girls Facebook pages! The kids are just as popular here in Saigon as they were in Hanoi, stopping daily for cheek pinching, hair stroking and photograph taking.

Ice-cream with the girls

This gave the adults a bit of child-free shopping time. We had already enjoyed a brief but alarming encounter with the hawkers at the Ben Thanh Market the day before, where the kids were manhandled a bit too much for our liking, so Saigon Square 1 was a welcome relief.  We did return later for some souvenirs, but stuck to the ‘fixed price’ stalls to avoid the aggressive sales tactics.

Then it was history curriculum time with a trip to the Cu Chi Village where the infamous Vietcong tunnels system was used very successfully in guerrilla warfare against the American soldiers inthe Vietnam War in the 1960s and 70s. We went on a private tour with Quang, a very knowledgeable tour guide who explained how the tunnel system worked, and demonstrated some of the ingenious, but brutal, man traps and ambush techniques the Vietcong used.

And these tunnels have been increased by 30% to accommodate European tourists!!

There are also some tunnels that you could go down to ‘experience’ how the Vietcong lived and fought for nearly 20 years. The kids loved it but far too hot and claustrophobic for me.  It was interesting viewing the war from the Vietnamese point of view, rather than the war movies of the Americans. Quang also talked about how his family was affected as his father fought for the South Vietnamese Army, the SVA, on the side of the Americans and how his father was later ‘re-educated’ by the Communist government. Ollie was quite shocked to hear the term ‘American Killer Heroes’, used in the displays celebrating the Vietcong victory, but it made for an interesting and lengthy discussion about how we write history with Ollie afterwards.

Ben and Rob both had a go at firing an AK-47 (at $1 per bullet)

Considered too graphic for the kids, Ben and Rob followed up with a visit to the War Remnants Museum. We later took the boys to see the tanks, jets and armoury in the museum courtyard.  Ollie wanted his picture taken with every single one.

The Post Office – designed by the famous Eiffel (lots of steel!)

Sadly, this was also where we had to say goodbye to our awesome travel companions, Cath, Rob & Lani. We had such a ball with them, we walked, drove, cycled, flew, swam, biked, rowed, floated, chugged, laughed, played, haggled, ate and drank our way through this amazing country together and have some incredible memories to take with us. Thanks so much guys, you made Vietnam a very special experience – how does same time next year sound??

Everyone loves having their photo taken

Electrician is a high risk job in Vietnam

Another great scooter shot!

The nice bit away from the city.

On the gondola

After the ancient splendour of Hoi An, Nha Trang was a bit of a let down. It’s a kind of Benidorm for Russians. All the restaurants, bars and shop names are all in Russian first and Vietnamese second, which feels like total cultural confusion for us. Still, we did have dinner in a restaurant called Gorky Park, and ended up dancing the night away with some very energetic Russians! One guy even bought the kids ice-cream afterwards.

Best ride ever!!

Nha Trang is a party beach resort, with a strip of neon lit hotels offering sunbed and cabana packages, bars, spa’s, tours, seafood and just about anything you like. It is good for shopping though, as it caters for European sizes, which is helpful when everyone else here is a size 0.   The kids amused themselves getting fish massages (skin nibbling), Ollie loved it, and we had some RnR around the rooftop pool.

Nha Trang also has an excellent theme park Vinpearland, with rides and a waterpark that, in the stifling humidity, was just the spot to spend an afternoon. The kids, and big kids, had a ball, especially on a 1km long luge ride, the Alpine Coaster, which is something else- all of the kids doing it without using their brakes!   The amusement arcade was free and the wave pool was awesome fun.

Even getting to Vinpearland was great as you travel in the longest gondola ride over water in the world, 3kms over the harbour. The scenery is stunning, but unfortunately gave you a good view of the amount of rubbish floating in this busy waterway too. You can see the environmental issues Vietnam will have to deal with in the future.  But it’s not all bad, we did find a nice temple and a Catholic church to visit

Everyone’s taking selfies!

We are all looking so hopeful..

When planning the Vietnam trip we were concerned that in taking flights we might be missing some of the ‘real’ experience of travelling in Vietnam (internal flights are cheap), so rather than fly we booked tickets on the SE5 train from Nha Trang to Ho Chi Minh City.

But be careful what you wish for! Our 8-hour day trip to the capital ended up being an epic 18- hour overnight adventure, as the train line had broken 4 hours into our journey, and we just had to wait until they fixed it before the train could move. Luckily we had booked sleeper seats, so we could bunk down overnight, but frankly the train probably hadn’t been cleaned since it was built in the 1970s, and I can’t begin to describe the toilets, so the Orient Express it wasn’t!

The kids were so great at amusing themselves

Rob’s new best mate

Finally at Saigon

The kids were horrified when we first boarded, especially as we had to ‘remove’ 4 young guys who had appropriated our cabin (and Cath and I were relieved to think we wouldn’t have to be in our cabin overnight- ha!) but eventually we all got used to it and our fellow travellers were really kind sharing their food with us, and translating the delay information. Ben and Rob even made a few friends on the train, particularly with one guy who just wanted to repeatedly have his photograph taken. But I think we were all very glad to see Saigon train station at 6am the next morning, a mere 10.5 hours late! Not sure even British Rail could beat that…

The train staff settling in for a long wait – making lunch on the tracks

The Walker and Schnitzerling grand tour of Vietnam continues south to Hoi An. If you’ve been to Vietnam, then you’ll understand when I say Hoi An Ancient Town is just fantastic. It is a small port town that has managed to keep its historical old buildings intact, despite yearly flooding, retaining its unique character of Vietnamese culture yet catering from the demands of a growing tourist industry. It’s a city of lanterns, decorating the old town and river by day and night, with children dressed in dragon costumes, dancing and banging drums in the run up to the annual Children’s Festival of the Full Moon.  It was a lot of fun just to walk around.  We feel very lucky to have experienced it, as it is very different from the larger cities.

Our accommodation also set the tone for Hoi An, as we are staying at the beautiful Orchid Garden Homestay with huge villas set amongst an orchid filled garden only walking distance from the old town. Yummy & Tammy are the lovely hosts here, and with the rest of a fantastic staff made us feel so welcome and relaxed here. Yummy also took us out to dinner one night, to the amazing Bale Well Restaurant where the waitresses hand-roll you rice paper rolls stuffed with omelette, spring rolls, bbq pork and veg all inside. It was delicious but felt like an exercise in force-feeding the customer! Yummy also took Lani to buy a traditional Vietnamese dress, an ao dai, on the back of her scooter – she had a blast but also looked beautiful in it.

With Tammy & Yummy

We had also pre-booked a cooking day with Mrs Linh at the Golden Lotus Cooking School and what an experience, starting at the markets buying our produce from the stallholders with Linh explaining what things were, such as oranges and mandarins with green skins, water spinach, dragonfruit and an incredible array of fish and seafood.  Back at Linh’s home we cooked up an 8-course banquet, under her professional guidance and to celebrate our culinary achievements we ate ourselves silly! This is a fantastic way to spend a day here, Mrs Linh was lovely, telling us about her life, and we got to meet her family too. Cooking schools are plentiful here and we would recommend it to anyone considering a trip to Vietnam, just make sure you come to Hoi An to do it!

At the market with Mrs Linh

Rob’s amazing pork stuffed squid

Cath and I in the kitchen – a rare event for me!

After all that hard work we decided some relaxation was needed, and booked a family package at a beautiful spa, at a fraction of what it would cost in the UK. It was also in an idyllic setting, overlooking the paddy fields, and I loved having a pedicure whilst watching the ducks waddling around in the rice fields. The boys were a bit sceptical, Ollie thought it might be a bit girly, but we booked them in for a kids massage, herbal Jacuzzi and mocktail – this might have swayed it. While the grown-ups were having their massages we could hear the kids laughing and giggling, they were sitting in three wooden Swedish tubs looking out over the rice-fields having a fantastic time! Ollie and Lani wanted to do it again and Cam was annoyed when we said he couldn’t have a facial too! What have we created?

Spa with a view!

After this it was back to the serious business of sightseeing on a bicycle tour with Heaven & Earth tours. We had two guides, Moon and Maia, who took us on a day of cycling around island villages, explaining local customs and handicrafts to us. It was such a great cultural experience, as we watched locals making sleeping mats and carving wood to in-lay pearl, had a go in a bamboo fishing boat and Ben & Rob’s favourite stop, rice wine making in a home still – potent stuff. They even use the pig manure to power the still with natural methane!

So, if you come to Vietnam make sure you put Hoi An on your itinerary, as you will be mesmerised by the architecture, the friendly people and the festive atmosphere it encapsulates.  We all LOVE Hoi An, and only wished we could have stayed longer.

Hoi An is gorgeous

Rob making boats old-style!

We left the winding bustling streets of Hanoi behind to travel to the serene beauty of Halong Bay. We had pre- booked 2 nights on a cruise ship, the Glory Legend, to see the 2,000 or so limestone karsts that rise out of the bay in this incredible Unesco World Heritage Site, and both the ship and the bay were a revelation. We had two beautifully furnished connecting wood-panelled cabins with floor to ceiling sliding windows to take in the view, quite a step up from the camper trailer!!

Our gorgeous cruise ship

The food was also sublime (but too many courses) and the cocktails were plentiful on the extended Happy Hour. We went kayaking, swimming (with Luc our brilliant host), and squid fishing (Ollie got a great specimen), and they took us to one of the biggest cave systems Ben & I have ever been in.

Huge Cave!

But best moment for the kids was a bamboo boat trip to see the Cat Ba Legurs (monkeys) they have introduced on one of the tree covered karsts as part of a conservation programme, and they seemed to put on a show for us, swinging down through the trees to the waters edge to get a closer look at the humans!

So we practically rolled off the cruise ship, to fly to Hue, an hour south, and the site of the imperial palace of the Nguyen Dynasty, the last royal rulers of Vietnam. They built an impressive citadel with a ‘forbidden’ city inside for the royal family and their retainers. Unfortunately, the Vietnam War of the 1960-70s destroyed many of the historical sites in this City, but much of it is slowly being rebuilt. We also visited some of the splendid royal burial tombs of the Nguyen Dynasty that are dotted around the City.

It was an incredibly hot day and the kids all did really well walking around so much, so welcomed a lunch break in a restaurant owned by a Vietnamese Poet, which has some of the most elaborately displayed dishes we’ve ever been served. The Vietnamese food is generally less hot than Thai food, with a more subtle spice and fresh herb palate, and is very reasonably priced outside of the more fancy restaurants; one evening, we paid only 7 pounds for 4 big bowls of chicken & noodle soup and 8 drinks – including beer!

Learning to make incense sticks

Our visit to the Thien Mu Pagoda, where the Buddhist Monks worship, live (and have been politically active from) was fascinating as the kids, through our guide, spoke to some of the trainee monks, learning that they often come to the pagoda at age 7-8 to begin their spiritual apprenticeship, often as orphans. Around 18 they decide whether to become fully fledged monks or to leave. Shaving your hair is part of this so the monk ‘juniors’ all have these wacky hair-styles while they can. It was a definite cultural learning experience for us all.

Our time in Hue ended with a dragon boat ‘’tour” along the Perfume River which unfortunately turned out to be a relentless and unavoidable hard selling opportunity for the boat owner – we lost count of how many times we had to say ‘no thanks’, it was a relief to disembark! We were yet to learn the true meaning of hard-sell, which we got on the next leg of our journey from Hue to Hoi An. Our itinerary included a stop at Marble Mountain near Danag, but we instead ended up in a Marble Shop with a ‘helpful’ assistant so hot on Ben’s heels that she actually kept stepping on the back of his thongs!

Some of our favourite scooter photos:

Always wanted to say that!! Vietnam was number one on my list of places to visit when we did our travel year planning, so expectations are high. And so far our impressions of Hanoi have gone from complete sensory overload on our first couple of days (but we have come from the Outback!) to being totally captivated by the whirlwind of sights, smells and noises this bustling, scooter-crazy, horn-beeping, crowded city keeps throwing at us. Crossing the street is a death-defying event and pavements here are actually for scooter parking not walking but we just love it!

We also have company…being joined by Cath, Rob and Lani, our long time friends from Brisbane (Cath & I are High School buddies). So we are fortunate to get to share our Vietnam trip with much-loved friends, and Lani is giving the boys some much-needed kid company.

Staying in the Old Quarter gives you a great feel for how Hanoi, and the world, looked before modernism, where each street has its own speciality selling a particular good or service, for example coffee street (they are massive coffee growers and consumers here), linen street, sewing street, copper & stainless steel street, grave goods street, spice street and where our hotel is located, hardware street! Where deliveries of everything is made on scooters as well as whole families out for the day (so far the highest count was 5 people on 1 scooter).  Rob and Ben are actually engaged in a photography competition to see who can capture the most overloaded scooter shot – so watch this space. They are also determined to eat their way down Vietnam and try as many different culinary and liquid delights as possible!  Today they actually managed to find a micro-brewery… well, more like a corner “canteen” with vats of home-made beer for 35p per glass!

Hanoi, once controlled by the French, retains much of this influence in the grand avenues, houses and public buildings, as well as being very definitely an Asian city, with temples, lakes and no obvious building regs. We walked past a shop on the first day to witness the ceiling falling in on the unfortunate ladies inside having their hair styled – no one was hurt but it was an interesting event! We’ve also visited the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum Complex, where the body of the father of unified Vietnam, is kept (he is, unfortunately, not on display at the moment) and covered Vietnam’s turbulent history with a visit to the Ho Chi Minh Museum and the Hoa Lo Prison (nicknamed the Hanoi Hilton by American POWs), originally built by the French to house the Vietnamese Revolutionaries captured during the war, complete with a well-used guillotine.

Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum

The popular Night Markets

Less political was a night out at the popular Hanoi Water Puppet Show, watching the ‘puppets’ performing on a stage made of water, replicating the shows put on in villages during the wet season in the rice paddies. Our kids have subsequently put on their own puppet shows inspired by this; surely this covers the ‘drama’ part of our travel school curriculum? A trip to the night markets covered Cath and my own alternative curriculum requirements too.

The temples are a feast for the senses and spirit.

Mmmm food is pretty good here!

Not sure what he bought!

To get a break from the scary prospect of crossing the scooter-fumed, gridlocked roads on foot we’ve also tried the more traditional Cyclos, or seats on bicycles, and the new Green Tourism electric cars (large golf buggies) forms of transport, both of which are much more fun and a great way to explore the hidden gems of the back streets of the old quarter, to find a cool coffee shop for Vietnamese egg-froth topped coffee, to hole-in-wall local eateries with one dish menus or the sumptuous velvet chaise-lounge filled Green Mango restaurant.  Now this is travelling!

Finally, a word on the kids… to our amusement they are quite simply the most fascinating things many Vietnamese people have ever seen – both young and old, being constantly asked to take photos with them (sometimes quite forcibly pulled in front of selfies) and have so far been very obliging and patient with it all. One enthusiastic teenage girl actually ‘smelled’ Lani’s hair while getting her picture taken with her?! None of us were sure what to make of that!