The DeSmet Family Worldwide: Holiday in Vietnam

The kids had a week of school off for the Autumn Moon Festival, a Chinese National holiday, so we took the opportunity to travel to Vietnam. We flew from Beijing to Seoul, South Korea and then down to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. We stayed in Ho Chi Minh for a night and then left the next day to fly up to DaNang. DaNang was home to one of the world's busiest airport during the Vietnam War. There was a US air base there and it was also where many soldiers would go for a little R and R.

We stayed at the Intercontinental Sun Peninsula Resort. It was absolutely one of the most relaxing and beautiful places that I have ever stayed. The kids got to enjoy one day of swimming before all hell broke loose and we were hit with a Typhoon.

The resort took proper measures and had most of the lower level rooms and restaurants boarded up, and moved us to a villa on a lower point of the mountain side just in case the wind speeds got too high. There was a lot of rain and huge waves rolling in, but nothing that kept us from losing sleep over. Yep, we slept right through the worst part of it. Oh well! We still had a lot of fun relaxing, playing games, hitting the gym, and catching up on some TV shows and movies until the storm passed by.

Once the storm passed, we hit the beach for some swimming, fishing, and beach football (soccer) with some Aussie friends we made. It turned out to be a great time but I wished we could have stayed a few more days to actually catch some sun rays (this white girl needs a tan.) but we had to head back to Ho Chi Minh City.

When we were back in Ho Chi Minh it started pouring down rain again. (I swear those rain clouds were following us around!) We still tromped through the busy streets of Ho Chi Minh to go visit the "American War Remnants Museum".

It was interesting to see the war from their perspective. They call it "The American War" and it was definitely a bit biased against Americans, but I guess that was to be expected. It had a lot of graphic pictures from the war. A whole section was dedicated to the after affects of Agent Orange and outside there were US choppers, planes, tanks and artillery that were left behind. You definitely did not leave feeling all light hearted and happy. We had to take the kids back to the hotel and give them, and ourselves, a bit of a history lesson to help them understand why we got involved, and to hear the US's side of the story. I have always heard the saying that "war is hell" and now they know that it goes both ways and there are always 2 sides to every story.

The last day in Ho Chi Minh we had fun strolling through the streets, watching the thousands of motorbikes whiz by. It is a very busy city and there are people everywhere. There is also a lot of good shopping so we headed to their market place to see what we could find. Market places are always interesting and Ho Chi Minh's didn't disappoint! I almost bought a bottle that had a disgusting snake preserved in it and one with a huge scorpion in it. Why???? I don't know exactly. I think it would be a really interesting conversation piece sitting on my kitchen cupboards with my bottles of wine and decorative peppers in a bottle. Unfortunately, we weren't checking our bags so I am pretty sure it would have been confiscated.

We headed back to the airport after eating some pho (traditional Vietnamese noodles) and spent the night sleeping in an airplane. We had a great trip despite the weather and the best part was the last day we were there, my beautiful eldest daughter turned 13 years old. YIKES! We have a teenager. I don't look old enough to have a teenager, do I??? (Don't answer that unless you are a good liar!) Not many 13 year olds can say they were in 3 different countries on their birthdays. Vietnam, Bangkok, Thailand and then Beijing, China.

Seoul, South Korea (taken by Ella out of airplane)

Ella in the pool in Ho Chi Minh

Sweet sisters

Roof top pool with glass enclosure made for some fun pics.

Sisterly LOVE

Checking in at Intercontinental Resort in DaNang.

Our room

Checking out the view!

Girls in the hot tub.

Catching some pool time in the rain.

My littlest sweetie is all tuckered out.

They had these lifts to take you up the mountain side to get to your villa.

The very nice Gondola driver.

Red flags blazing for 3 days of our vacation.

The typhoon is starting to bring in some rough waves.

Workers boarding up one of the restaurants on the beach.

View of rough water from our room.

This resort is prepared. What do you do when there is a typhoon?? They had pool, chess, wii, x box and all kinds of board games to entertain.

Ella

Julia

I practiced some photography while we were waiting.

See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil
(probably my fave pic)

Hallelujah! we have sun and a yellow flag. Lets hit the beach!

Beach soccer with some new friends.

This is a basket boat. We were supposed to go fishing in one of these but to much current. If you looked at the hand woven boat you would have question it's ability to stay afloat!