La Veranda Resort

So this new adventure began on the 23^rd September and it started off badly – mum has assumed our flight was at 9.45am, when in fact it arrived in Ho Chi Min city at 9.45am it was actually 7.45am... so after leaving our luggage in the hands of the Bangkok airport in hope it would arrive in Ho Chi Min city on the same flight we had to RUN and I mean seriously kick off the shoes and run through Bangkok airport to get to the plane at 7.45am! Luckily as we were boarding the planes our bags were too being put on board!! How lucky were we!!!

 

After a short stop in HCMC we caught a connecting flight an hour southwest of Vietnam to a little island called Phu Quoc and were transferred to an amazing resort on the beach – we lazed around and drank some cheap and pretty nasty chardonnay wine then headed to the restaurant for cocktails and dinner – my first real meal after being pretty sick for a few days!!

24^th Sep

It was so nice to have a sleep in and then get up and go and just laze on the beach and then laze by the pool as well as eat and drink J definitely what i was in need of after the 49 days of camping in Europe!

       

We got chatting with our kiwi neighbours who informed us the restaurant places along the beach were delicious and cheap so we headed out at sunset to sit literally ON the beach watching the sunset and drinking cocktails and eating fresh seafood (cooked on a bbq thing on the beach) for dinner!

25^th Sep – Happy birthday to me J  

Another lazy start to the day, we headed down to the same restaurant for breakfast where i treated myself to a banana pancake... yummmm!

Then we decided to head into the local markets (our neighbours had told us they were good to see) our taxi driver seemed reluctant to take us... and when we got there we could see why – it was chaos! Motorbikes, live fish jumping, people, stalls, chickens, frogs, clothes, toys, more motorbikes, bicycles – it was all too much – we weaved in and out of stalls and along the road but decided to walk back to a taxi stand across the bridge and go back to the comfort of the resort. I have never seen anything like that before – it was insane – so much going on at once, and we almost got run over by bikes several times!

So back at the resort we decided it was time to have a beer with our seafood lunch and then relax by the pool. I was pleasantly surprised coming back to the room to find a huge bouquet of flowers for my bday!!

The afternoon was spent having a Vietnamese style massage – which was super relaxing and kinda different at the same time and then it was down to the beach early arvo for more cocktails at the different places, and watched another gorgeous sunset and relaxed until bed time!

 

26^th September Bye bye Phu Quoc and hello Hanoi