Things they didn't tell you about

Now matter how hard I push the children into putting a bit more effort into their blogs they are basically pants. So here's a few more what we dids.

We hired a dragon boat to take us up the Red River to visit the Thien Mu Temple.

It was actually rather less charming/romantic than it sounds. We were in a dragon painted rustbucket (They pretty much all are, the high humidity and river water plays havoc with both metal and wood.) and trawled our merry way up the the very murky river. Caitlin sat there thoroughly bored with the entire affair and  Cade stared out of the window gleefully pronouncing which of the riverbank houses was doomed to plunge into the rivers manky depths at any minute, charming child.

The temple itself was lovely, with gorgeous, tranquil gardens, the entire effect was spoiled somewhat by vehicles screaming past the front steps, blaring their horns at the foolish tourists (me included) that were daft enough to stand in the road to take pictures of the pagoda. Talk about fair game.

We did visit Hue Museum, only to find that the curse of the museums had struck again, it was closed. The kids did have time for a good rummage around the tanks etc in the gardens. When we left, we nearly lost Cade as he was inside an M41 tank and didn't hear us shouting.....or so he says.

We managed another trip to the swimming pool before we had to pack to leave for Hanoi.

I had to put this picture in, Shorty just looked so cool.

By the way....Hue airport is a very, very, VERY boring place to spend a few hours. I was even thinking fondly of my 18 hour hangout at Bangkok Airport three years ago. At least there you could get decent ice cream, and coffee that won't eat a hole through your stomach lining. The only thing to be greatful for was that their a/c was working - unlike our hotel room for the first two nights.

Well, we have to go for dinner, this will involve braving a pretty hefty thunderstorm (already gotten drowned once today...soooo not looking forward to a repeat performance.)

This'll be our last entries, it's our last day tomorrow and we've got some last minute shopping to do (yes, I know Cade, suck it up!) then I have to squeeze our booty into the cases so we probably won't be doing anything else exciting.

Em

On Friday we saw Trang Tien Bridge, at night it is lit up with lots of different colours.

On Saturday we went on the plane to Hanoi.

On Sunday we went gift shopping.

On Monday we went, guess what, more gift shopping and today we did even more gift shopping.

Cade

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Citadel

It kinda goes like this:

Grandad: 'Hello'

Me: 'Hi  Pops, where are you?'

Grandad: 'In Hanoi, having a beer?' (Note the slightly confused questioning tone.)

Me: 'That's funny, so are we, well at the airport, waiting for you.'

Grandad: (slight pause) 'S..., that's not till next month!'

Me: 'No, very definitely now.'

Which meant Dad was totally unable to give Yen a hard time when we arrived at Hue airport 3 1/2 hours early for our flight to Hanoi because she read the tickets wrong LOL!

Long and Dull

We decided to go to the kingdom of Cham and have a look around. At least, what was left of Cham. First we visited the Cham museum. I took lots of pics, because several of the Hindu gods we were learning about in RE had statues that were still intact.We had a peek in the gift shop, but everything was WAY overpriced.
So we carried on.

Unfortunately, my DSi ran out of power, and this drew attention to how bored I was. Mum told me to have a look at the scenery and this is what I saw:
Tumbledown houses, pigs in cages on wheels(attached to a motorbike),Tumbledown houses,cows, Tumbledown houses, paddy feilds, tumbledown houses, more paddy feilds, tumbledown houses, dogs running on the road, duck farm, tumbledown houses and... A house that was still standing up! Amazing!

When we finally got back we visited a kite shop. I choose a weird dragon thing with a long red tail. We flew our kites in a large feild, with just about every other kid in Hue. I ended up tangled round someone elses kite string, falling in a rabbit hole (curse those Vietnamese rabbits!) and breaking my dress, and rubbing my feet raw with a new pair of sandal-flip flop things. Ouch!

P.S. Thanks very, very much for your comments everybody

Hue

I feel I should point out that we arrived in Hue just a few short days before the start of the Hue Festival, to find the place a hive of activity. Everywhere is festooned with lights, banners, posters and decorations. They are busy turning the Citadel into a massive auditorium with tiers of seats, stages and huge pieces of sound and lighting equipment. All week the town has been swelling with a steady influx of people arriving for the celebrations. They are building the biggest Bia Hoi right on the waterfront (now there's an accident waiting to happen if ever I saw one.)

The weather has been brain fryingly hot and our visit to the Citadel was a short uncomfortable one. The world and his wife were wandering around and there was cabling and piles of timber everywhere. The HSE would have a major meltdown.

The children enjoyed the worlds smallest funfair (all of four rides) but at a wopping 16p a ride, we managed a couple of hours of fun on what amounted to, well, a couple of quid, including the candyfloss.

Our visit to Da Nang was cooler as it had been raining, in fact, it carried on raining, and on, and on. You get the picture?

After dinner we went on a shopping trip and ordered a new frock for Caitlin and then we went to fly the kites the children bought. Great fun was had by all, including our cyclo drivers who joined in to help the kids. There were loads of people flying kites of all shapes and sizes and there were some nasty collisions.

The Citadel

Two days ago we went to the Hue Citadel.

I went through the biggest doorway I have ever seen. I now have a model of the Citadel I can build out of blocks,

The next day we went to a funfair and rode on the rollercoaster.

We went to the Cham Museum in the city of Dong Ha. We had Chinese food for lunch.

Last night we rode all over Hue on a cyclo and bought and flew kites at the Citadel.

Cade

Hue We Are!

On Wednesday we went to the Citadel in Hue. I don't remember too much, it was too flippin' hot and Mum refused to buy us a drink until we left. I know the decorations were beautiful and that it was a rip-off to get in (tourists pay more than Vietnamese.) We only saw about a quarter of it as there was a lot of construction going on and there were people everywhere.

In the afternoon we went to a swimming pool. Thankfully we were the only people there, so no-one interfered with our game of Capture the Elephant, where everyone climbed over, swum under and around a marble elephant, conveniently plonked in the middle of the shallow end of the pool (handy as Ni can't actually swim.)

Caitlin

Sorry for the delay in posting, firstly we've been seriously busy and secondly, the tintaweb has a whole 'now you see me, now you don't'' thing going on.'

To bring you up to speed, we left Dong Ha on Tuesday and drove to Hue, on Wednesday we visited the Citadel and went swimming. Yesterday we went to Da Nang to visit the remains of the Cham kingdom, we also flew kites. Today we took a boat up the river and visited a Buddhist Temple and after lunch it's the onerous task of lounging by the pool and doing some swimming.

Tomorrow we're leaving for Hanoi. - Emma

ps anyone care to take a guess as to how many kilos of king prawns I've eaten since we got here. That's my lunch that is.

Useless facts about Beer in Vietnam

It costs a mere 15p, yes 15p for a glass of beer at a Bia Hoi (government run bar/restaurants) They serve the beer in big yellow plastic jugs drawn directly from big yellow plastic barrels. I'm not entirely sure that this stuff actually should be called beer as it must be pretty weak judging by the amount the Vietnamese consume without faceplanting the pavement (if there actually is one handy.) The fact that they put ice in it and have to toast every swig may also slow them down a bit. Vietnamese on a bia quest are somewhat reminiscent of a Monty Python sketch, and just don't get me started on their beer chants.

The real beer ranges from 80p to £1.50 of a bottle/pint depending on where you drink, if you are dumb enough to drink in the backpacker bar you pay an awful lot more. It actually usually costs more to buy a can of coke than a pint of beer - isn't life grand.

I've attached a picture of the Carmen bar, Cades favourite watering hole, we ate lunch there three times, in the basement. No prizes for guessing why........

I Must be Crazy!

What's even scarier than a crazy person on a motorbike paying no attention to the Highway Code? Being one of the people on a motorbike paying no attention to the Highway Code! I had a ride, and we drive wherever we want to on the road. But I managed tto ride no hands!!!

Even though it was only for about 5 minutes each way, it was really fun. It turns out that our destination, was closed, AGAIN, anyway. My brother didn't have the guts to ride the motorbike, but I did, and thats what counts.

Following on from 'getting to know the local wildlife' post, we went to the beach the other day, where they gave us raw baby squid heads and tentacles!!! OMG!

P.S I'm doing a Gecko Count. So far, 23 geckos and 3 of them are iddie biddie baby ones. Bet you wouldn't be able to find that many in England!

P.P.S Dad, we had egg-fried rice and Panko chicken for lunch, and the Prawns got mum back for eating loads of them by squirting prawn juice all over her new trousers when she ripped ones' head off to eat it.
Good enough detail for you!?

We also stopped near where Phuong Mot used to stand (it was demolished recently though Yens sister rolls out lots of chairs and tables and runs a very busy bar in the remains after work. Caitlin, Li and I climbed all over an old M41 tank

We went back to Yens house for lunch, there was chilli con carne, tom yam kung, some soup with fish heads floating in it, fried rice, boiled rice and pancko chicken, Caitlin and I had rice and chicken.

We went to a restaurant on a riverboat that night. There were 9 of us and the dinner cost 500,000 dong for 11 dishes, beers, soft drinks and water. There are 30,000 dong to £1. That dinner cost us about £16.50. Mummy ate giant prawns.

Here in Dong Ha

Yesterday we went to another museum but it was closed so we had a look at all the military hardware in the grounds, there were tanks, anti-aircraft guns, trucks, helicopters and a USAF jet. We climbed all over them and Mum and Grandad took lots of pictures. This picture is of a M48 tank

Here we go again!

Well, we spent Friday in our lovely air conditioned hotel room as it was just too darned hot to step outside. One foot onto our balconey was enough to melt your eyeballs so we stayed in and repacked our cases for the trip to Hanoi on Friday evening.

We spent another night at the Lucky Hotel enjoying their hash brownless, Bacon, Egg and Hash Brown breakfast before trekking out to the airport to catch the 12:30 flight to Hue. After another couple of hours in a bus full of Yens rellies we arrived at Dong Ha.

Did I ever mention quite how much I disliked squid? -Emma

Getting to know the local wildlife!

Yesterday we went to Ha Long Bay. It was awesome! We took a trip on a tour boat around the bay. Then we visited two caves. I strongly protested about visiting the second one, because it was really hot. 3-1, so I had to go. The first thing I noticed, was that the cave was crawling with bats! They were everywhere! I kept seeing them fly from rock to rock on the cave ceiling.

Finally we got out of the bat infested cave. On the way down, I heard a strange noise, like a wind up toy car being wound up too far, but twice, maybe three times as loud. "What a strange bird," I said to my mum. "that's a cricket!" It sounded way too loud to be a cricket though. According to mum, they make the crickets in England look like babies!

Oh yeah, we went out for tea with my Grandad and his boss. They ordered a plate of fried chicken. She tried to convince me and Cade to have some, but we refused. I'm glad, 'cos later someone told her it was Turtle Dove! Yuck!

P.S. My mum would like someone to send me homework via this blog!

Caitlin over and out!

Ha-Long Bay

Yesterday we went to Ha-Long Bay to visit some of the caves, one of which had bats, lots of bats. Which dive-bombed us. We rode on a boat as well as a small ferry. We went onto one of the bay villages and saw huge fish. There was even a police station on a boat, and a bank. - Cade

The definition of scary!

is two plastic-ponchoed, behelmeted, stiletto-heeled young girls on a scooter deciding that a collision with your car is a better option than a collisoin with another scooter!!! Why???

The road to Ha Long Bay brought a new meaning to the phrase 'white knuckle ride', I actually shut my eyes and prayed on more than one occasion. - Emma

Hi to Everyone

This blogging is fiendish stuff, I'll get the hang of the whole getting-stuff-in-the-righ- place eventually.

HI MISS! HEY 7E!!!  WISH YOU WERE HERE! I had goat for tea! YUCK!!! Have fun at school.

The only good reason for bad internet conection is... My Mum can't make me do SAM learning! WOOHOO!!!

Hi From the Boonies

We're now in Hai Phong, a delightful little seaside town full of mini sailors and not a lot else, even internet access is a sporadic visitor here, hence the slow updates. In fact we're currently staying at the Vietnamese Navy's Guest House. I'll let the kids update now.

The Jade Temple.

On Sunday my Grandad took us to see the Jade Temple. We had to cross over a bridge because it was on a small island! As we crossed we saw huge ballons with great long ribbons flying over the lake!

When we got over, we went to see the Ho Guom Tortoise. It was a perfectly preserved tortoise that used to live in the lake. It is said to be connected to a legend around King Le. I soon had to step out though. They used so much incense for one temple that it was making my head swim!!! That and looking at a dead tortoise.

Caitlin, over and out!

My Grandad took me to the Vietnamese Air Force Museum, we saw helicopters, fighter jets, antiaircraft guns and tanks, as well as comms vehicles and APCs. There was an American heavy machine gun which had been left in Russia during WW2 that the Russians gave to the North Vietnamese army during the American War. The American planes were shot at by their own gun.

We then moved to Hai Phong, where Grandad works.

Cade

Hotel 1

WE arrived at our first hotel, called Lucky Hotel. It was 2 star.

The rooms we have are quite cosy, with good air conditioning systems, a nice on-suite bathroom, pretty curtians and furniture. The bed was a bit uncomfortable, sure, but a great room nonetheless.

All night we hears honking and beeping outside.

As soon as we stepped out side, we were almost knocked flat by a speeding scooter, impressive, considering there were three people on board.

Here We Go

Today's the day! The excitement has reached fever pitch in our house, we're all packed (well, almost,) papers and milk have been stopped, all arrangements to care for Scamp and the beasties are in place and we're just about ready to go. All I need to do is hoover up all the hamster poop the children have left EVERYWHERE from when they cleaned out the two remaining hamsters (Timothy went to the big hamster wheel in the sky on Wednesday.)

I've set this blog up so that the children can post their diary entries and photos as and when we're able to get online,I know it's probably horribly dull for everyone else but it'll be good for them.

I must point out thatI always said that I would NEVER have a blog.

Having said that, enjoy.