Worldwide Wanderers

If you ever get the chance to visit Vietnam you will be in for an amazing treat. Once you get through a rather officious immigration process which leaves you in no doubt you’re entering a Communist country the people are incredibly warm (although Gabriel was slightly alarmed when he was carried off to join a Vietnamese family photo session), the colours heartwarmingly vibrant and the food ridiculously delicious..

Africa’s song is her beautiful diversity of religion and worship which became ingrained into our mornings for the last 10 years waking up to the call to prayer or church choirs singing so it took us a while to realise why the mornings felt so quiet in Vietnam until we worked out that it is a predominately atheist country and their wake up call is the endless sound of scooter horns. The city of Hanoi is a gentle balance of French and Chinese influence – for a city of 8 million people there are also 4.5 million scooters – if you thought the Boda Boda’s of Kampala were hectic this is another level of chaos which made walking the streets a slightly unnerving experience.

We immersed ourselves in Hanoi’s eclectic history visiting Uncle Ho’s Mausoleum (although the microphones in the flower beds were slightly alarming), the Temple of Literature and a traditional water puppet show which Evangeline commented was lame, Gabriel fell asleep and when mentioned to Debs that we had been commented it had been the longest hour of her life…realised my love of puppet shows is a bit odd and perhaps not to be shared – it’s clearly borne out a visit to Bethnal Green Toy Museum with Dad…Dad – Evangeline is blaming you entirely!

Having been to Vietnam a few times to visit Debs and Jamie I thought who better to give us a crash course of Vietnamese language, bartering and culture.. Uncle Jamie definitely didn’t disappoint and after practising our pigeon Vietnamese and negotiation skills we hit the night markets….not sure what we missed but Pads went in strong on some sunglass bartering only for us all to be aggressively chased out of the shop by the owner shouting “no money”, I think perhaps we need a second lesson….

I always find the best way to see the heartbeat of a city is in the early hours – a morning run around Hoan Kiem didn’t disappoint…the sight of groups of old ladies practising a form of Tai Chi, stretching and aerobics along to traditional Vietnamese music was mesmerising and the encouragement to join in was too good to turn down…..

Vietnam is famous for its food and coupled with Pads’ love of everything food related this was always going to be a foodie itinerary. We arranged a kid friendly food tour of Hanoi with the fabulous Giang and were blown away by the experience – the Bun Cha was deliciously fresh and full of herbs, the Xoi Xeo sticky rice is proper comfort food, the Bahn Mi ridiculously addictive – we’re already hooked!, the Bahn Ran or Mung Bean Doughnuts were smashed by Gabsey but not the rest of us….brilliant when you have a kid who will eat anything! washed down with Cafe Cheung or Egg coffee which has now become a firm favourite and may even replace my love of Irish Coffee….basically liquid Tiramisu….even better with a splash of rum…All wrapped up with a beautiful Tuk Tuk ride through the French Quarter and Old Town.

Halong Bay and Phong Nha bought the next adventures and a further realisation that double kayaking is not to be entertained if you are in any way related as will only end in divorce, separation, and the need for therapy…..Pads and I had clearly erased our previous joint kayaking experiences from our memory and jumped into the cold waters of Halong Bay full of enthusiasm….what a peaceful 24 hours followed with neither of us speaking to each other apart from the odd mutter of “what part of left didn’t you understand”….

I’d decided we should experience rural Vietnam in as local a way as possible and found a very unique farmstay which was free to stay and you just had to labour in the fields for 5 hours a day to earn your keep…some locals suggested that this might be a bit tough on the kids, although I felt very character building, unfortunately was overruled and so we switched to the fabulous Phong Nha Farmstay….no child labour encouraged. This undiscovered region of Vietnam is unbelievably beautiful, famous for the Phong Nha National Park and some of the longest caves in the world it was the perfect place to unwind for a few days. We took some bikes out into the countryside for the day (after the kayaking experience decided to turn down the offer of a tandem bike…..may have been the shortest travelling trip in history if we had!) and discovered the “Pub with Cold Beer” where the beer was indeed cold and lunch involved catching your own chicken – very farm to table, and then hit the Duck Stop – one of the more bizarre hours of my life involving watching Evangeline get a duck massage (whilst I screamed in the background….my fear of anything that flaps was not conducive to this experience) and Gabriel riding “Donald Trum” the resident Water Buffalo…no words….although we did feel the need to return to the “Pub with Cold Beer” afterwards. We spent a day exploring Paradise Cave and the Dark Cave…truly majestic and meditative experiences, the scale of the caves and the fact that they were only opened to the public from 2012 made you realise what a special experience it was. The kids surprised us yet again with their fearless attitude to adventure and were the first on the 200ft long 50ft high zip lines, first through the tunnels in the caves and first to jump into the ice cold water…..have worked out there is no response to. “Mum, you have to do it, I’m only 6 and can do it, you’re how old…”

Next stop a whole week in Hoi An….