Mekong Delta

We recently had a week off of school, as it was The King's birthday, Freedom Day, and Worker's Day all in one week! Since we're saving furiously for NZ, we decided that a week away would be a bit too much of a splurge and we had a few errands to run in HCM. Mel ended up getting really sick, so it was lucky that she could rest and try to recover. We did however, finally go down to the Mekong Delta! Our friend Duyen is from a town called My Tho, so we headed down there with her and Michael for the night.

First, we had to find the bus stop, which was burried deep in District 5. Duyen organised tickets on a 'local bus' rather than a tourist bus and this bus company only goes down to the Mekong. It was really nice and clean and pretty spacious, we would definitely recommend using them if you go down to the Mekong. It only took and hour and a half to get to My Tho. We walked to Duyen's house, since it's super close to the bus stop, and then we caught a taxi to drop our bags at our hotel. We then made our way across the street to the dock, where we were meeting our tour guide.

Duyen the ninja! She didn't want to get burnt so she wrapped her jacket around her head.

Duyen organised a private tour for us, rather than being placed on a boat with loads of people. This meant that the four of us and our guide had a boat to ourselves! We made our way across to the first island. Here, we got to try some honey tea and dried banana. When we were finished, we walked down a path to our next stop which was to sample some of the local fruit grown in the Mekong. There was nothing new that we hadn't tried before, but it was a very welcome snack.

Our boat - just for the four of us!

'Yummy' green guava.

After we had eaten our full, we made our way to a little dock to catch a row-boat, which meanders through the palm trees along a skinny tributary. As we got on the boat, we were each handed a Vietnamese hat to don for the boat trip. (Just try not to think how many other heads have been in it before yours!!) There were loads of other people there, so it was a bit of a bun fight, but with some clever angles we managed to get some of the pictures to look like it was just us cruising down the river. The people who row the boats are extremely strong and we were well impressed by them. They sit in such an awkward position but manage to row with ease.

Traffic!!

After our little boat journey, we went to see how coconut candy is made. First, they cut open the coconuts and then scoop out all of the flesh. Next, the flesh is squashed in order to get all of the juice out and to make it a smooth consistency. After that, sugar is added to the coconut and it is churned until it is completely combined. The coconut mixture is then poured into moulds before being cut and then wrapped. The ladies wrapping up the candy were amazingly quick! We took a video of one of the ladies and it's hard to believe that it hasn't been sped up at all. After sampling the candy, we bought some of the plain coconut flavoured ones. There are a couple of flavours and we thought of buying some durian flavoured candy for Mike, but we decided against it. (Mike HATES durian with a passion!) We climbed back on the boat and headed to our next island.

Churning the coconut.

Coconut candy squares.

Phoenix island was rather interesting. There was a man who lived there for years and he didn't eat anything except for coconut. He only drank coconut water and he even showered in coconut water! He lived there with 8 ladies, all of them naked, and he travelled around talking to people about his religion. Apparently he weighed 28kgs and he lived to be about 80!! So anyone wanting to lose weight... eat coconuts exclusively.

A random pool of crocs on the island. You could buy meat to tease / feed them with.

There were loads of beautiful lotus flowers on Phoenix Island.

A hollow ball of rice being cooked.

Group shot

Now change position (nice one Ross)

The tour guide then took us to the next island. It was finally time for lunch and we quickly ordered because we were hungry. We then waited, and waited, and waited for our food. They had forgotten about us! We eventually got our food after almost an hour, and then made our way to the next attraction... a horse drawn cart! The poor horse had to pull 6 of us along behind him, luckily it wasn't for long. We then had a refreshing water-coconut drink before making our way back to the boat. Here another coconut awaited us! Fully hydrated, we made our way back to shore for a rest before dinner. We went to have Michael's favourite Vietnamese dish for dinner, Sa Te (pronounced - satay). Sa Te is like a really rich stew with noodles in it, it was delicious and no photos were taken as we ate it too quickly!

They even cut us a straw holder.

On day two of our Mekong trip, we went to a temple near Duyen's house. Here we saw three huge Budda's, one sitting, one standing, and one lying down. We also walked through a temple that has monks living in it.  It was then time to head back to Ho Chi Minh City. Our trip to the Mekong was a great break from the hustle and bustle of the city - thanks for showing us around Duyen!

The monks were having lunch

Life Lately

We've been back in Vietnam for over two weeks now and we haven't really been up to too much. Apartment hunting and sorting out our work permits has been our main priority.

Stacey told us about a cool restaurant in the backpacker area that's really cheap and good value for money. While we were waiting for our bike to be fixed we went and tried out some chicken burgers. 

We've been hunting for an apartment to live in and with that you get to see some great places, some ok places, and some 'how on earth do you expect to rent this place out??' places. The one apartment had a glittery basin in the bathroom!

We went to go and see Jurassic World and we got a Minions popcorn combo. We now have a Minions lunchbox which is so cool!! Not to mention the major street cred we're going to have with our students.

Ross has been doing loads of shoe testing lately, so he's received a few new pairs of running shoes recently. Here is his latest pair:

Our new school is called the American International School (AIS). They've recently built a new campus which has held just an elementary school until now, but from this year the high school has moved out there too. To say it's over the top is putting it lightly. It looks like a palace or hotel and it has really big school grounds (for a Vietnamese school). We aren't working at this campus, but will be at a much smaller campus in town. 

We always love a sweet treat and decided to try out Gloria Jeans the other day. It was delicious!

We spotted this great family vehicle at the shops the other day!

Tom and Stacey have very generously allowed us to stay with them while we look for an apartment. We went to an old faithful Vietnamese restaurant the other night. The menu is in Vietnamese so we weren't quite sure what we were ordering, but the food is always good so it didn't really matter!

We've decided that we'd like to have a poker evening some time soon. Stace and Mel are a little bit rusty, so we had a practice round the other night. We rounded up all of our 200, 500, and 1000 dong notes and shared them out so that there was something at stake.

Soon much money! (Ok, about R10)

 We love a good deal, so when we were deciding what to have for lunch and saw a buy 1, get 1 free sign outside Carl's Jr we couldn't resist. The burgers are huge and quite nice, but we were super excited to try the fries with mayo and bacon! Unfortunately they were a bit of a let down.

Rugby season is always a fun time here. We went down to our favourite pub (Harry Casual) for some drinks and what we hoped would be a Springbok victory. Unfortunately it wasn't to be but, we had a good time anyway.

Our favourite thing about New Zealand (besides seeing family and friends, the beautiful scenery and pies) was the flat whites! It's the perfect coffee. We were super excited when we went out for brunch and discovered them on the restaurant's menu. There was a storm brewing so, even though it was mid-morning, it was quite gloomy. The aircon was also quite cool so we tricked ourselves into thinking we were still in New Zealand. If anyone in the Phu My Hung area is looking for a flat white... Eden is the place!

We finally found an apartment!! We searched for two weeks and nothing really came up. We'll give you a tour as soon as we move in (they need to re-paint and fix up the kitchen a bit). After we signed the lease we went to Dunkin Donuts to celebrate!

Life Lately

So this post is about two months late, oh well better late than never I guess! 

Mel was busy reading a book called Rebecca by Daphne De Maurier which was published in 1938. In it they mention the banting diet... maybe there's some merit to Tim Noakes' ideas (just joking Lyndall!).

A new mall opened in our district called Vivo City. For some stupid reason a few of us thought that it would be a great idea to go on the opening weekend. Well we thought that there would be some made opening weekend sales... but nope... just LOADS of people, long lines to get into the parking and no sales, half the shops weren't even open! Rookie error.

Sadly for us, our friend Michael got a new job and so he left VStar. We were of course very happy for him but being the selfish beings we are we weren't that stoked that we wouldn't have our mate with us at work every day. It's worked out though since we've also left the school and Craig is moving to China, it sucked at the time though. On his last day we went bowling after work which was loads of fun (except for when the bill came and they charged us the wrong amount and we had to have a few words with them). After that we went to a bar called Wa Bar for some drinks and dinner. We had delicious spaghetti with pesto, chicken and parmesan cheese. It was so good that we only managed to snag a pic of the last little bit.

Craig's pretty much a gangster. 

We had a braai on the roof and we had an unexpected visitor... a white pigeon! It was shy at first and just sat on the bench next to Ross but slowly it got more comfortable around us. From the bench, he hopped onto Ross's knee which was fine until Ross wanted to move. The pigeon was having none of that and it started to peck Ross, cheeky thing! To get it off him, Ross stood up and the pigeon flew and landed on the braai grid! We almost had roast pigeon but we decided to shoo it off. Later in the evening, Tom sat where Ross was sitting and the pigeon decided that his shoulder would make a nice perch. Stupid pigeon.

 

At the newly opened Vivo Mall they have an Imax cinemas. We decided that we had to watch the Avengers on Imax and in 3D. It was great and we got a really cool Avengers cup. After the movies we went shopping for some work clothes for Ross at Sea Collection then we went for delicious burgers at Chuck's for lunch.

We are always up to try some new sweet treats so when we went to our favourite place, Master's Cup, and they had banoffee pie we knew that it had to happen! It was deeeeelicious (we paired it with a slice of classic baked cheesecake).

A new coffee shop opened at the mall near our school - we obviously had to try it out. We had caramel ice blended which had big chunks of jelly in it which Mel found weird but Ross enjoyed.

We went for pork chops at a restaurant near our school and we gobsmacked by the fact that they brought us each a knife!! Most places just give you a fork, spoon, and chopsticks with no knife in sight which is always fun when eating pork chops.

We've been testing shoes for Adidas for almost a year now and have gathered quite a collection of shoes. Since this picture was taken, Ross has managed to score two more pairs of running shoes and we both have a pair owed to us!

Before we all went our separate ways for summer (and Craig left for good) we decided to have a farewell dinner with some friends. We ordered some roast chickens and Mel made some sides to go with. It was a lovely evening filled with lots of laughter and good food!

Craig, Tom, Stacey, Mel, Ross, Nicola, and Steve.