Month: February 2026

Week 9 – Sunday 15th February – Saturday 21st February 2026

Sunday 15th February

We are moving rooms today, hopefully into the correct one that we booked! We spent the night in what they call a ‘suite‘. It looked nice but was terrible. Half the windows had no curtains, there was dodgy plumbing and a bathroom, where the gaps between the walls and the roof were open to you and your neighbours. Not great.

After a reasonable breakfast, we pack up our bags, finish the week 8 blog, and wait in reception. At 2 pm, we are finally given our room. It’s got a good bathroom with a proper shower, at last.

It’s also in a nicer, leafier area of the property. It’s a wooden hut, but done out nice, the power sockets are all in the wrong place, but we will survive! We unpack, have showers and take a walk around the local area and settle down with a salted coffee. Very nice. Things seem to be back on track.

We are both without sunglasses at the moment, we’ve both broken a pair, and H lost her original, favourite ones in Penang, she left them in the back of a cab, Del sat on his! So we decide to go into the main busy town of Duong Dong to see what we can find.

The taxi ride takes us down an unusually huge, wide and long road with no markings, which isn’t strange in itself, as most roads here have no markings and if they do, nobody takes any notice of them, but it’s only when H looks at Google maps that she sees that it’s the old airport’s runway. It has even kept its runway numbers, 8/26. Here is an interesting wiki about the airport for our reader. The traffic seems to work, though in the usual chaotic Vietnamese way, and we’re soon in the town.

It’s business as usual here, Vietnamese street life of food carts and markets selling all sorts of food from fresh herbs to whole chickens.

It’s a big fishing port here on the river, and the huge fishing boats are rafted up.

We find the night market and some sunglasses, hurrah! We can stop squinting! 

There is a seafood restaurant in the market right next to the fishing boats, so we stop and decide to dine and have some fried rice, grilled squid and chicken skewers, which are all tasty, if expensive, compared to ‘normal’ Vietnam, but we are in a bit of a tourist trap, which consists mainly of Russians.

We need a few essentials: water and deodorant. Del is starting to kick up a bit now. We find a small supermarket which has a resident kitten running around the aisles and climbing on the shelves, a tiny little thing with a pearl collar, quite tame and chatty.

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Monday 16th February

It’s New Year’s Eve here today in Vietnam, in fact, in most of Asia today. They call it Tet in Vietnam.

We are up at 6:30 this morning!!!! We have to be at the hospital for an 8am appointment for H’s 2nd rabies jab. We are first at breakfast, instead of almost the last, then we are off in a cab.

The doctor who said she’d meet us, and to come early, sees us and directs us to A & E. It turns out we didn’t need to get here early after all… We were told that because of the Tet, New Year holiday, there won’t be many people in; however, when we get to A&E, it’s just as busy as a normal day. No 8-hour waits here, though. People are in, seen to, and out…!

H gets her second jab, and the paperwork is filled in. The next one will be in Hanoi on the 21st of February. We are looking for a coffee, so we take a cab to Grand World. It’s all part of the Vinwonders tourist attraction.

It’s all done in that nice fake Italian style here that they like so much. We visited last week at night. It was chaos, people everywhere, noise, and so much colour and light, your eyes and ears hurt. We haven’t seen it by day, and as it’s close to the hospital and we want coffee, we decide that we will have a look.

By day, it’s even more weird, with high-speed gondolas whizzing about with hardly anyone on them, and bright Italian buildings with British red phone boxes (in Italy?) The town is deserted, dead. It’s New Year’s Eve here tonight, so they are preparing for that, with a large area cordoned off as they set up a load of fireworks around the lake.

Back at our garden hut, we sit by one of the pools and read. H goes and gets a couple of bahn mis, the famous Vietnamese sandwich, but on this occasion, they are disappointing, we eat them on our terrace. 

Later, we sit by our second pool and read and talk about the future. A long conversation that was!

A few of the local restaurants are shut tonight because of the New Year Holiday, so we take a stroll and decide to go to the family restaurant we went to on Saturday night.

It’s nice there with all the family working in there, and they are always so smiley and friendly.

We have crispy prawns and a BBQ platter of chicken, squid and prawns. It’s delicious and all served by the kids!

They wish us a happy new year and give us bananas and water when we leave?! We end the day with a walk to the very small front where someone is letting off fireworks. It’s a bit different to New Year’s Eve in Kuala Lumpur. We find a temple, most of which is dedicated to fishermen. It’s all very peaceful and serene, quite nice. We stroll back to the hut. We have the intention to stay up until midnight, but decide not to bother. Once you’ve done one New Year’s Eve, you’ve done them all…!

Happy New Year!

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Tuesday 17th February

Today is 30 years to the day that we had our first date! Oh, the pain…! It took place at a Chinese restaurant in Manchester while Del was working up there. He met H, who at the time was working for Granada TV, on ‘Stars In Their Eyes’ (who remembers that?) 30 years have gone very quickly.

We are still reeling from the excitement of the fake Italy yesterday, so we sit by the pool and read and generally don’t do much, no places to visit, no taxis, no masses of people and trying to cross the road, we just sit by the pool, read, eat and go for walks.

There is a gym here, but it’s a big disappointment; it’s outside, and everything is rusty. It looks more like a scrapyard than a gym. 

For dinner, we try what is considered a nice restaurant in the local area.

It looks impressive, and the reviews look good, but it doesn’t go very well. Del has a watered-down cocktail, a Moscow Mule, which tastes like a ginger beer on ice! For a starter, we have their fresh summer rolls, which are just tasteless. Normally, these things are packed with lots of different herbs, and are very tasty, but not on this occasion, these were just packed with lettuce and shredded carrot! H has a Vietnamese pancake which is supposed to be crispy and again chock full of herbs; however, it’s soggy, limp and tasteless. (It’s actually pancake day today, but we didn’t know that until afterwards.) We pay and leave. Del consoles himself with an ice cream, which is also disappointing. It’s going very well…! A lot of the businesses are shut today as it’s New Year’s Day, so maybe that explains a few things. 

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Wednesday 18th February

We are a bit tired today, and no gym to get some life into us, so we have a slow morning. The hotel provides a free buggy to the beach, so we have the idea of getting ready and going; however, today, of all days, it’s broken! (We are becoming less impressed with this hotel.) We are considering walking the 20 minutes to the beach, but the heat is stifling, mid to high 30s, so we decide instead to have lunch nearby.

Del has a traditional Vietnamese broth called Pho, and H has a more successful Vietnamese pancake than last night’s. All very tasty. We stroll back to the hotel and elect to just have a lie down in our AC’ed room and read. Del has a bit of work to do, so it works out well.

As the afternoon turns to early evening, the temperature drops, and it’s much better, so we sit by the pool with a drink, chat about the future, again, and swim. There’s not really a lot to do here, which is kind of what we were looking for, but we are finding the hotel is not as comfortable as it should be, or as we had hoped for.

We are not hungry for dinner tonight after our lunch, so instead we go for a cocktail nearby with a side of spring rolls and fried prawns that are just delicious.

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Thursday 19th February

Still no working buggy for the beach today, so we will do the 20-minute walk after all. The beach is supposed to be very nice, so we shall see. We set off at about 10am before it gets too hot.

Indeed, the beach is lovely, with comfy sunbeds and palm trees providing the shade. We relax and get an iced coffee and a fresh coconut.

The sunbeds back at the hotel have no cushions, just hard wood or plastic, not very comfortable at all. Not sure if we’ve mentioned it, but we are not impressed with the hotel for a lot of things, uncomfortable sunbeds are just one of them. In fact, we have decided that it’s the worst hotel of the trip and a big disappointment, their website says one thing, but the reality is something else.

We spend a pleasant 3 hours on the beach on the comfortable sunbeds in the shade of some palm trees. It’s lovely. Del has recently got into a new app called NotebookLM. It’s your own AI notebook. You collect sources from the internet or your own documents and stuff them into the app, which you can then chat with. It’s a fabulous learning tool that generates podcasts, slide shows, quizes and flash cards to help you with whatever you are studying or researching. So he puts together a roller coaster knowledge base and generates a quiz all about rollercoasters for H, who is very sceptical about AI.

An hour is spent quizzing her. She’s very good at it. She knows all the fastest and highest coaster, who makes them, types, and so on. What a nerd. After demonstrating her knowledge of global coasters, we head back. It’s hot… Very hot, and we can’t wait to get back to the cool AC room…

Dinner tonight is the good old, tried and tested Streamside family restaurant just down the road from the hotel, which has become a regular eatery. We like it there, you get served by the whole happy, smiley family. They do excellent crispy shrimp and a BBQ, which we enjoy with a glass or two of wine.

Tomorrow we escape, sorry, move on to Hanoi.

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Friday 20th February

We are up and about by 9 this morning and on our way to have breakfast, after which we will pack and leave the room at 12. The hotel has kindly arranged for transport to the airport, but what they didn’t tell us is that it is a shared car. When it arrives, it’s all too cramped and cosy. The cases have to be literally kicked and punched in the back of the car, with three of us snuggly squeezed in the back and one in the front, complete with our carry-on bags on our knees.

We politely refuse and book our own cab to the airport, a nice, roomy six-seater with plenty of room. We are not sure if we have mentioned it yet, but we are glad to be getting away from this hotel….!

Our original flight at 13:20 to Hanoi has already been moved to 15:35, and now we find out that it’s been moved again to 17:00. We are on a local carrier called VietJet. They have a bit of a reputation for moving flights, with some people complaining of up to a 9-hour delay. Unfortunately, there is no real regulation here, so the three-hour delay and claiming compensation as you can in Europe doesn’t exist here.

We will have to kill time at the airport, so we have a light lunch, and a rather nice tea and coffee. With all of the horror stories we have heard about our illustious carrier, we are expecting the worst, but despite the delay, the check-in goes well. The flight goes well, we arrive on time, our bags come on the flight with us… What a result. In all, despite the delay, it wasn’t altogether a bad flight. We have another one with them in a few days to Bangkok, let’s see how that one goes.

We are soon on our way in a taxi and on to the hotel. The temperature here is very nice, it’s 8pm in the evening now, and it’s 23 degrees, compared to 30 at this time when we were in Phu Quoc. 

The hotel is wonderful…! We are in the Hotel de Lagom. A far cry from our previous accommodation.

We drop the bags in the room and make our way to the rooftop bar. It’s a lovely space with a pool and a proper ‘sit at the bar’ bar, cushions everywhere and comfortable seating. Simple stuff.

We can see the mausoleum where Ho Chi Minh is laid. Fabulous. We have a glass of Merlot, some fries and a Bao bun to share – a steamed roll filled with beef, herbs and pickle. Delicious. We toast our safe arrival and are happy to be away from the Herbal Spa Resort.

We get the bill and nearly fall off our barstools. £45.00…!!!! The wine is over £10 a glass – expensive for London, even. For Vietnam, that is an extraordinarily massive sum of money. We look around and realise that it’s empty, we are the only customers on a Friday night in the capital of Vietnam… We laugh about it but decide there and then that although we have had a nice night, we will not be frequenting this bar again…

Back to our lovely room, shower and bed…!

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Saturday 21st February

We wake up in our fabulously comfortable room, but have to admit that we didn’t sleep as well as we thought we would. The bed is super comfortable, it’s quiet, but we only got 5 to 6 hours. No matter, we have a busy day ahead of us, so hopefully we will wear ourselves out for tonight!

We have a delicious breakfast. It’s à la carte table service and a buffet with some tinkling piano music in the background. Very civilised compared to last week. 

Our priority today is to get H’s third rabies jab booster. There are plenty of vaccination clinics nearby. She has already decided which one it will be, a short walk away.

What we have noticed in Vietnam, in general, is that the pavements are not really for pedestrians. You only have to walk a few feet, and you have to walk around a tree, an electricity sub-station, and some mopeds.

The moped is the main form of transport in Vietnam, and we have seen so many strange things on the back of them, from fridges, trees, luggage and gas bottles.

We arrive at the clinic, which is immaculate and very efficient. No sooner were we in than we were out…! A few questions, some paperwork, and a quick once-over from the doctor, and she is injected with jab number 3 of 5. After being monitored for 30 minutes to ensure all is well, we set off towards Train Street.

Train Street is just what it says. It’s one of the main railway lines into Hanoi central station that is very narrow. The trains run right through the middle of a street that is lined, in some parts, on both sides with cafes and restaurants.

When the trains come through, the tables and chairs are moved back, and the huge trains pass by slowly with less than a foot to spare from your knees. This area sometimes gets shut down due to safety reasons, and there have been accidents, though nothing fatal. It’s staggering how there aren’t more problems, as there are the usual dopey, Instagram-obsessed tourists trying to pose too close as the train arrives.

The cafe owners are very strict and constantly yell and shove people to clear the line. It’s quite an experience having a huge train pass so close to you. We visited here 8 years ago, and it was a lot quieter, so quiet that there were chickens casually picking around on the tracks. Now it’s rammed with so many cafes, restaurants and tourists, of which we are part of!

Back at the hotel, we are desperate to go to the gym after missing a week, because of the rusty outdoor gym at the last hotel (did we mention that?), but H has come over quite dizzy after her jab. It’s one of many side effects you can get, and the side effects increase in intensity with each booster, which is normal. It means the immune system is working. She has a lie down, and then goes nearby for a light lunch while Del does an hour in the gym. 

Del has had a good workout, and after a shower, we venture out into Hanoi again. 

The temperature out today is much cooler and much easier to walk around in than in Phu Quoc or Saigon. We are visiting a small lake in a built-up area where a B52 crashed after being shot down in 1972 during the Vietnam War.

There’s a bit of fuselage and the wheels sticking out of the water, and it has been left untouched for over 50 years. The other bits of the plane are in the B-52 Victory Museum, which we walk to, after getting a little lost down tiny backstreets where all the locals live.

At the museum, they have laid out the rest of the B52, it’s a huge plane with 8 jet engines, it must have made quite an impact when it crashed.

While we are at the museum, H visits what she has classified as ‘the worst toilet in the world’ and comes out looking visibly traumatised, which lasts for most of the rest of the day!

Quiz of the week. In one of the ladies’ toilet rooms (not even the worst one), H came across this….

Is our reader able to tell us what’s going on here? A man has clearly used the middle one!

We jump in a cab and head to the shopping area.

The traffic here is just manic with mopeds and scooters weaving around each other, cars everywhere and people. How there are no accidents, we will never know. It’s like watching a ballet. We have a few things on our list to buy. We manage to get H a new coat, sunglasses for both of us (again, the last ones fell apart), some caps and sandals for Del. It’s a successful shopping trip, and we celebrate with some very tasty craft beers. 

We have always said that one day we will be brave enough to try a Grab bike taxi. Moped taxis are very popular here, but the Saigon traffic has always put us off. We decide that we will try it here in Hanoi, where it is less chaotic, as it’s only about half a mile to the hotel, so how bad can it be?

We both order one separately, the bikes turn up, we put our helmets on, and we’re off. It’s certainly a new perspective on the creative ‘rights of way’ rules and quite fun. We arrive at the hotel in one piece. 

Dinner tonight is on Train Street. We sit by the tracks and have a simple Vietnamese dinner, which is very tasty while not one but 2 trains pass by just a foot away from our chicken and fried rice… 

Before turning in, we have a look at our rooftop bar. It’s a Saturday night, and it’s empty, nobody there, which is such a shame because it’s a fantastic place, one of the best we have seen, but it’s just so expensive. Before we are tempted, we leg it…!

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Week 8 – Sunday 8th February – Saturday 14th February 2026

Last week was a week of history, learning more about the Vietnam War and the atrocities that went on here. A visit to the coastal town of Vung Tau and some more good eating. This week we are going to have some ‘fun’ with a visit to Phu Quoc, riding cable cars, theme park rides and visiting a local hospital!

Sunday 8th February

We are starting week 8, and today we are getting the high-speed boat back to Saigon, which is very busy. Vung Tau seems to be a weekend retreat for some of the residents of Saigon, as we all pile onto the boat.

The trip passes quickly, though, and we are soon back into the mayhem and noise of Saigon and on our way to check into a hotel we have been to a few times on past visits. It’s a tiny boutique hotel in District 1; they even remembered us by name when we popped in for a drink last week, the week we stayed in a bigger 5-star hotel here in Saigon because it had a pool, but in reality, it was too busy, and we really do prefer our little TripleE Hotel.

It’s in a charming local area with good, basic local eateries nearby. They also have a little bar with a small terrace that faces the street. We love to sit here and watch life go by; it really is an education just sitting here, people watching.

They do make the most amazing cocktails at this hotel, probably the best we have had, and we have had a few of those in our time! They really are quite delicious, and the price is very reasonable. They are so good that we have one before we go out.

We take a walk to the busy local market, followed by dinner in a back street, where we have delicious meatballs and a Vietnamese pork pancake. We take a rather warm walk from there to the famous ‘walking street’, which is the party area of Saigon.

It’s quite a place, so much colour and noise. We’ve never been to this area before, it’s a bit mad. Noisy neon-lit bars with women dancers (and men, or at least one that we saw) with live music. This place is set up for thousands of people and reminds us of some areas of Bangkok. 

Back at the hotel, we just have to have one more cocktail and then turn in quite early. It’s hot and noisy, but we quite like it

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Monday 9th February

We are flying to Phu Quoc Island today. It’s a Vietnamese island just south of Cambodia and known for its beautiful sunsets, a rarity in the mainly east-facing Vietnam mainland. We have a steak and eggs breakfast at our favourite place, Bo Ne Ba Nui. It’s very busy with people queuing up, but we time it just right and get a (miniature) seat and table inside. 

Dining here is done on miniature tables and chairs. They like to squat, so when in Rome…

Our cab is whisking us off to the airport, T1 domestic, for our flight; the only problem is that we are at the wrong terminal. Vietnam Airways moved all of its operations to T3, similar to BA moving to T5. This is not on any of the paperwork, but when you ask to go to ‘domestic’ to the cab driver, even they don’t know that Vietnam Airways moved in May. We have to quickly find another cab to get us sharply from Terminal 1 to Terminal 3, which ends up having to navigate around the busy Saigon traffic, as the terminal is nowhere near the rest of the airport.

We make check in with less than an hour to our departure, only to then find out that the flight is delayed. 1 hour 30 minutes later than our scheduled time, we touch down at Phu Quoc airport.

We are staying in Sunset Town. We have booked a small hotel with a sea view (and a cable car view!). This was a change that we made to our plans last month, sacrificing 2 days in Saigon for an extra 2 days at Phu Quoc.

Sunset Town is a strange place. It’s like a theme park, everything is new and manicured and themed with an Italian style, with all of the buildings, roads and bridges all looking like something from Rome or Milan, there is not a scrap of litter anywhere.

If you’ve ever been to Rome or Milan, however, then you will know how wrong they have got it here! It’s all a bit weird.

The cable car station is in a mock-up of the Colosseum in Rome.

They’ve gone mad spending money building in this place, which includes a huge bridge called the Kiss Bridge. It’s a huge walking bridge that curves out into the sea and has a gap where it meets. The gap is approximately 30cm, enough to lean over and kiss your partner! Of course, you each have to walk on one side to meet in the middle, though there may be some who think that they can both walk up one side and climb over the gap.

There are two shows here that perform every night. We have bought tickets for both, which we think are expensive at a total of £68; we shall see. We grab a quick snacky dinner and head to the bridge to watch the first show, ‘Symphony of the Sea’. It is a spectacle on water with jet skis, flyboarders, lasers and fireworks. It’s jaw-droppingly impressive, well worth the ticket price. All the performers wear LED suits and body-mounted fireworks.

H is most impressed with the flyboarders. A flyboard is a water jet platform powered by a jet of water fed via a long, flexible, thick hose, which is connected to a jet ski! You stand on the platform and can raise yourself out of the water by up to 14 metres (45 ft). There are 5 of these performers, and they are incredible to watch, doing backflips and dives; it’s an amazing show. It all ends with a spectacular fireworks display. This would be impressive even if it were just once a year, but they put this on every night.

The next show is nearby in the world’s largest water projection theatre, which is made up of lights, lasers, dancers, fire and of course water projection effects! The show is called Kiss of the Sea. This, too, is unbelievably spectacular. What the heck is going on in Vietnam? Every show we have seen is the best of its type and shockingly good. It has to be said that when Vietnam decide to build something, they do so on an immense scale. We are just amazed at the effects and vision of the whole thing. This show ends with another, even better, fireworks display.  Wow. Del has proclaimed after 40+ years in the business, the best shows he has seen are both in Vietnam, this one, Kiss of the Sea and the amazing Hoi An Memories. The scale and visual presentation are second to none.

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Tuesday 10th February

The hotel we are in is unusual in that we have to walk to the hotel-owned restaurant a couple of blocks away. The hotel is good, but a bit odd in this respect. However, after the short walk, we arrive at the restaurant and have a delicious à la carte breakfast underneath the cable cars.

It’s all very pleasant. Today we are going on the cable car, the 8km (5miles) to Hon Thom Island. The ticket includes a water park, so we will have to give that a go too. 

We have been a bit dubious about cable cars for a while now, after hearing of recent accidents and fatalities. We did do the terrifying Mont Blanc cable routes, one of which is almost a vertical pull. We then did the route over Mont Blanc, which runs between France and Italy directly above the Mont Blanc tunnel.

We decide that we can’t miss this cable car. It’s the longest over-sea cable car in the world, and the views are amazing – from the manicured European-looking Sunset Town over the hundreds of fishing boats and then the cramped fisherman’s towns, over forests and sea and different islands.

The view of the immense concrete towers supporting the cables, and the catenary of the long stretches of cable hanging down under the weight of the cabins, is truly an amazing piece of engineering, but it’s one that we don’t hear enough of. It’s beautifully engineered and smooth, being built, of course, by the Austrians, Dopplemayr, for fellow nerds like H. 

Aquatopia, the water park and amusement park at the other end of the cable car trip, is lovely, well-manicured, very green, and very well maintained. There’s a big wooden roller coaster here, but it’s shut just for today, so H misses out on it, and so does Del, doing his duties of bag carrying. Whew!

We do get to go on some other rides and then head to the water area. We’re not very well prepared for this, but there’s a shop here, so we get some water shoes and rash/UV tops that will be handy back home on the kayaks. We start off with some small slides sitting together in a double inflatable and then have a float down the very calming lazy river. H has spotted some bigger slides, so has to try some out. It’s all very good and well designed.

Our ticket includes a free beer, so we take a rest and get it down us! Buoyed on by the rush of alcohol, H decides she will try the huge funnel slide, followed by the terrifying vertical drop slide.

She’s seen these on the internet and thought, Who would do this? After slowly staggering up the stairs to the top of the tower, she is queuing up when the operator asks, “does anyone want to go on the extreme vertical slide?’ There have been no takers for this thus far, as everyone is opting for the more gentle of the two. H shoots her hand up in the air, which elicits a round of applause from the rest of the queue. She is ushered to the front to stand in a vertical cabinet, which, inside, has a trapdoor. The cabinet door is closed, the operator asks for a thumbs up, then…

The floor disappears, and she free-falls down and into the long deceleration area. Del is watching this with other spectators who give up a spontaneous gasp and cheer as she is released and kind of gracefully deposited below the slide. H is grinning from ear to ear, but a bit shaky. The terror of standing on an opening trapdoor hasn’t put her off, and she’s back up for another go. It’s amazing what courage a litre of free beer does. What an idiot. 

After spending a good day at the water park, we get changed and join the queue for the return cable car.

Once back in Sunset Town, we can access the Kiss Bridge with our ticket, so we each walk on the separate walkways to meet in the middle for a kiss over the gap.

It’s full of Instagrammers and drones, of course, but we get our chance. While we are doing this, another water show is starting, and the flyboarders are back doing amazing tricks. One raises himself up to the bridge and gives us a high five!

The skill and control of these guys is impressive, and apparently, 5 of them are world champions from Canada, the UK and other countries. 

After all this excitement, we have a quiet dinner out at our hotel’s restaurant on the terrace, which is fabulous, despite the Italian music on a loop… After dinner and a few ‘buona nottes’ to the confused Vietnamese staff, we take a gentle walk around the night market before heading back to the hotel. It wears you out with this fun stuff..! We make it back to the hotel just in time to watch the fireworks from our balcony. 

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Wednesday 11th February

H had a bad sleep; she was bitten all over by mosquitoes in the night despite spraying herself with repellent. That will teach us to leave the balcony door open while watching fireworks.

We spend the morning looking around the town and having a coffee before moving off in a cab for the 1-hour drive north to the Vinpearl Resort and Spa Hotel, for some more fun…

The hotel is a luxury resort connected to Vietnam’s biggest theme park, run by Vinwonders. Unlike the last one, which was run by Sun World, this one is run by a huge corporation here in Vietnam, going by the very creative name Vin Group, who own hotels, theme parks, schools, hospitals and car manufacturing. They are huge…

We get a lovely ocean view room and sort our bags out now that we have plenty of space.

After a drink on the beach, we visit Grand World, which is part of the complex and is a mock-up of Venice, complete this time with gondolas. (What is it with the Island of Phu Quoc and the Vietnamese and Italy…?)

We have a Vietnamese dinner and wander around the town. It’s all rather odd, all very Italian, all done rather too well! Back to the hotel and a walk around the lanterns. Which are Vietnamese…

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Thursday 12th February

We are up early to get the most out of the Vinwonders theme park today. Del has had a good sleep and is limbering up, preparing to carry the bag while H goes stupid on some coasters! The park is huge and has a touch of the Disneyworld look about it, but done with a Vietnamese twist, with a few Italian buildings amongst the Disney-style castle.

This place also has a water park inside. H has plans to go on a couple of roller coaster rides first, however.

Joking aside, this place is done very well and is a popular ticket, which, for what you get, is very well priced. There is the theme park, a water park, a safari park and what is probably the best aquarium in the world, housed inside a huge building in the shape of a giant turtle. It is just amazing what they have done here.

It’s a pretty empty start to the day; it’s like we have the park to ourselves, which sort of makes up for some incredibly slow operations. The two main coasters are very good for their type. Del performs his duties very well, and as a reward for his good standing is given time off to go on the big wheel, which is 120m high, but H draws the line there and won’t go on. She’s scared…!!!

It’s getting hot, so it’s time to cool down in the water park. We have all the right gear with us now, and soon we’re floating about in the wave pool, bobbing alone on the lazy river. H goes on a few slides, but none as scary as the ones earlier in the week at Sun World. Is it the lack of a small libation? We visit the amazing aquarium, which on the outside is incredible, but inside it’s something else! The scale of the place is jaw-dropping, with a huge collection of fish and vast spans of glass and water, all very clean and first-rate. We have never seen anything quite like it.

Dinner is on the beach tonight at the hotel with a glass of wine. It’s a very nice evening.

We are both exhausted, having walked miles and worn ourselves out in the heat, having so much fun…!

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Friday 13th February

Today we are visiting a safari park which is connected to the theme park and is part of our fun-filled ticket price! They also have an enormous zoo there. All the animal enclosures are huge and nicely presented. The animals all seem to be well cared for. Some offer feeding opportunities for the animals. We get the chance to feed giraffes and capybaras (our favourites), and there’s even a place where you can feed and stroke Binturongs.

Binturongs (otherwise known as bearcats) are native to SE Asia and famous for smelling of popcorn. They are extremely cute, docile and friendly. We take the opportunity to feed them. We are given a cup each of fruit with a stick. They love it, walking along their enclosure fence, sitting in front of you while you feed them fruit from a stick. The Binturong that H is feeding gets a little too excited and reaches out to her, scratching her arm and drawing a little blood, nothing major, but a scratch all the same, which we clean up and wash thoroughly.

We carry on looking around the park and enjoying the animals, then realise that H probably needs to get a rabies shot. Rabies is very common here, and you can’t take any chances, as once symptoms develop, it’s 100% fatal. If the shots are given soon after the bite or scratch, it’s not a problem. So it’s off to the hospital with H…

We drop everything at the hotel and set off for the short drive to the Vin Group-owned hospital.

We see a nurse and a doctor, and straight away she is on the course of 5 precisely timed shots. The second of which falls on the national holiday of Tet, so we will be back at 8am to see a doctor that day; the first two shots are the most critical for timing. The follow-up shots will be in Hanoi and Thailand, with the final one in the UK. We notice that it’s Friday the 13th!!! Unlucky for some. Once she has had the first jab and is monitored for 30 minutes for any adverse reactions, she’s released. 

We have time to revisit the theme park, and we head to the aquarium again, which is excellent. Del says the best he’s ever seen. 

H squeezes in a couple of more coaster rides and gets her bravery up to go on the big wheel, the one she is scared of…! It’s a fantastic view of the current park and an abandoned park that shut down 3 years ago, complete with abandoned rides and a castle. 

We watch the impressive evening show from the park lake only to then end up in a scrum to get the shuttle bus to the hotel.

There are no chances of taxis. Once back at the hotel, we relax at the beach bar with a drink, listening to a three-piece acoustic band playing a few relaxing tunes to bring to a close another fun-filled day…!

We are ready to move on now… We’ve had enough fun…!

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Saturday 14th February

It’s Valentine’s Day today, so we exchange cards. We both thought the other had forgotten. After breakfast, we finish packing and take a last walk along the beach. It’s certainly a beautiful setting here. 

The beach is fantastic, and the water is properly aqua blue.

We take a 15-minute taxi to our next place. It’s a boutique hotel in the more ‘normal’ non-Italian-influenced part of the island. It’s easy to forget where you are in a luxury resort and theme park. We are back to the good, family-owned restaurants and busy backstreets. We are early, so we have to wait for our room to be ready.

When it is finally ready, and we go in, we are surprised.

What we paid for, and what we are expecting, is a wooden-roofed, glass enclosure shower with a rainfall head, all part of a garden view wooden villa. All very nice. What we get is a bath with a handheld shower mounted 3ft off the floor, with previously abandoned mounting holes and a tin roof through which the mosquitoes can fly under. It’s a shack; the bathroom is a lean-to.

We complain to the front desk about the blatant misrepresentation, and show them the pictures of what it should be and what we are being given. Del insists on seeing the manager, but we have to wait, and wait we shall… We explain the situation; however, she is in a tricky position, it’s the Tet holiday and therefore busy.

H did our booking to stay here way in advance in May 2025, but it looks like they have palmed us off with the bottom of the barrel. Eventually, she puts us in an ‘upgraded’ room. Which is smart-looking but on closer inspection is all style and no substance, complete with no shower again and a leaking bath. It is brand new and hasn’t been finished. We go out for a beer, miserable, to consider our options.

The only accommodation left for this week on the island seems to be villas for £6k plus or hostels for £15 a night, oh, and our old room dishonestly re-advertised with the nice bathroom with the rainfall shower again. We will have to stay, we guess. We also need to be not too far from the hospital for H’s next crucial jab that has to happen on Monday. 

We spend the rest of the afternoon doing this blog for you, dear reader, before setting off for some dinner. The area is very nice, as is the hotel. H carefully vets every hotel, and every hotel so far has been very good. Today they have just given us the worst of all the rooms left. We shall see how we go tomorrow and the rest of the week. Del is not letting it end here…

We forget the room issue and set out for dinner. Most of the restaurants here are what are called family restaurants. They are called this because the business is literally run by the family. The one we go to has three generations working there. We are served by an 11-year-old, a 30-year-old and what we guess is the grandad, but daren’t put an age to him! It was a nice end to a shaky start.

We shall see how our room issue will be resolved tomorrow.

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Week 7 – Sunday 1st Febuary – Saturday 7th Febuary 2026

Finally back together this week after Del spent a week in Portugal working, and Hayley moved around Vietnam all on her own. We are now here in Vietnam for the next three weeks. This week sees the 14th National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam. Which will be nice...? We intend to do some history this week…

Sunday 1st Febuary

It’s February already! H has breakfast in the huge hotel restaurant; in fact, it’s so big that she has trouble locating the table where she left her coffee! Del is currently on his way back to Asia from Portugal and will be back tonight. 

H has a wander around the local streets of Saigon, which is more nerve-racking than it sounds due to having to cross the mad, crazy roads here. She has put together for our dear reader this cut out and keep, step-by-step guide to crossing the road in Saigon. This can be applied to almost anywhere in Vietnam.

Beginner’s guide to crossing the road in Saigon…

1. Find a crossing (This is optional, as all road users completely ignore them).
2. Keep scanning the roads and look for a 2-second gap in the torrent of mopeds, cars, scooters and buses, but mainly mopeds.
3. Step out into the traffic (Pay attention, looking in ALL directions for riders on the wrong side of the road). 
4. Keep walking at a constant speed while maintaining eye contact with the moped riders. Do not stop, or you will be run over, as they predict your progress and flow around you like water.
5. Pray!
6. Once you get on the other side of the road, take a deep breath and go on your way. Congratulations.

You can spot the newcomers to Vietnam; they stand by the crossings looking nervous and hoping the traffic will stop. It won’t. It’s terrifying the first time you do it, and it still makes us nervous after 4 trips here, but it all seems to work, and we’ve never seen an accident yet, apart from a couple of years ago when a guy with a fridge/freezer on the back of his moped overbalanced going around a corner. 

She can’t find her first choice of restaurant for dinner, so she goes to one that looks and reads nice on a busy corner. She is the only westerner in here, and she peruses the menu of brains, chicken cartilage and ‘fake dog’(?), eventually opting for a pork and aubergine clay pot minus the brains, cartilage and dog! It’s very tasty. 

Del finally arrives from his 20-hour slog, and we have a glass of wine in the hotel rooftop bar overlooking the city of Siagon. Very nice. 

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Monday 2nd Febuary

Del has slept very well considering and is rested and ready for the day. After breakfast, he unpacks properly and dishes out some of the goodies he’s brought from home. 

We have been to Saigon a few times, but we decide to visit the Independence Palace again. It’s a very famous building, and it’s where Saigon finally fell in April 1975 when the tanks of the North Vietnamese army (No. 843 and 390) stormed through the gates, ending the Vietnam War.

The building is preserved in its original state inside and has a very 1960s feel about it, and it serves as an excellent piece of history.

It’s hot here today, though, and we are feeling the heat walking around. We fancy a bit of lunch and jump in a cab to go to one of H’s favourite places to eat. Bo Ne Ba Nui. It’s a very basic local street cafe on a busy street corner with stainless steel tables and miniature plastic chairs. They specialise in Vietnamese steak and eggs served sizzling on a hot plate.

The sauce is delicious and rich, and it’s served with the best Vietnamese baguettes ever. The inside of the bread is light and fluffy with a delicate, crispy exterior. It’s fabulous, and it is just as we remember. Nothing has changed, not even the chaos and noise of the entertaining junction.

Del is desperate for a haircut, not having had one since mid-December, so we find a barber, and soon he is looking much neater, and according to the barber, 10 years younger. Ok, 5 years. Alright… A couple of years younger with his £4 haircut. 

Time is getting on, and so is the heat, so we jump in a cab and head back to the hotel for a freshen up and a rest. We spend the afternoon sorting out the blog and pictures. 

Very soon, it’s 7 pm, so we head up to the rooftop bar for a cocktail. The view is great up here. Saigon is immense and sprawls in every direction. 

For dinner tonight, we will visit the street food market that H passed 2 nights ago.

It’s a short cab ride. When we arrive, we take our time and walk around the stalls trying to decide.

H goes for a local dish of crispy fried rice cakes with a pork and mushroom filling, while Del has barbecued chicken with a side of spring rolls. Del has chosen wisely; his dinner is delicious; however, H isn’t happy with hers as it’s all a bit tasteless.

Next, we opt for a dessert each. Del has coconut with pandan jelly, and H has a Thai sweet soup. Again, Del’s is a winner, H’s includes a stealthy bit of Durian purée hiding on top. Oh dear, she still hasn’t grown to like durian, no matter how many times she tries. Del has a taste and pulls a disgusted face, saying it tastes like propane. Which isn’t far from the truth. 

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Tuesday 3rd Febuary

Today we spend the morning at the hotel, visiting the gym and sitting by the pool. The infinity pool on the roof is huge, and it takes H 10 minutes to explore how vast it is. It goes on forever. “All that weight”, she says when she gets out, she’s always concerned about engineering logistics.

While we are lying in the sun, enjoying the heat and the light music, we are interrupted by a huge swarm of insects that has appeared and lingers for a while before they fly over us and away. The staff are out and looking concerned; we’re not sure what they are, but glad they have gone. Asian Hornets are here, and they are deadly! Just saying.

We get showered, dressed and freshened up and head to the Landmark 81 building, which is the 2nd tallest building in SE Asia (after the Merdeka 118 in KL) and the tallest observation deck currently open.

The ticket is only £10, and we get access to the observation deck, which is deserted, a tethered walk outside, a VR experience and 2 photos. It’s a great value ticket and a fantastic view of the sprawling city. We can’t figure out why there is no one here.

Back at the hotel, Del has a work call that lasts for an hour or so. We get freshened up again and set off for dinner. H has found a nice French restaurant very near the hotel. The entrance off the street is a little quirky, but once in, we are welcomed by a very professional and courteous staff. We start with a salad, then duck with orange sauce, dauphinoise and a lovely cheese board, all helped along with a delicious French red. Remember, the French once colonised and held onto Vietnam until 1954, so there is some good French stuff still to find.

We finish off with a tea and coffee, and Del has a superbly smooth Remy Martin brandy. It has been a delicious dinner and for Vietnam, expensive at £80, but it has made a nice change and is the first western food that H has eaten in 6 weeks, so it was well worth it.

When we checked into the hotel, we were given a $25 voucher to use in the casino here, but only on the slot machines. We are not visitors to casinos, so we thought that the slot machines might be a nice, easy way to lose the credit that we were given!

However, the machines don’t resemble anything we have seen before. Gone are the familiar BAR, CHERRIES, ACE OF SPADES pictures and a simple Play and Hold button; we could just about deal with that. No. Now they are replaced with noisy, confusing graphics of dragons, turtles, fireworks, and noises that resemble a toilet emptying or a cat being sick! We have absolutely no idea what is going on, or what we are pressing or why, the two large displays just keep flashing and bleeping and gurgling as we just randomly touch the bright colourful displays and buttons.

5 minutes later, we cash out, and are staggered when a ticket is spat out of a slot announcing that our payout is $153…!! Surely not, we don’t believe it even when the cashier is counting out the money.

We leave, but we leave quickly, waiting for a hand on the shoulder and to be escorted back in! We can’t quite believe it…! But here it is below… 153 US dollars. That’s paid for the expensive French dinner and some!

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Wednesday 4th Febuary

It’s another hot day, and we head out to visit the memorial of the monk Thich Quang Duc. We saw his famous car when we were in Hue about a week or so ago, and it was here in Saigon at the memorial where he set fire to himself.

It’s a large, impressive memorial with pictures showing that terrible day. It’s a very sobering moment. What we found out later was that despite setting himself on fire, the only part of his body that was not damaged was his heart. Strangely enough, there were copycat events by other monks, where again their hearts were the only undamaged remains from their self-emoliation. Time for an iced salted coffee to cool down.

Our next historical stop is the War Remnants Museum. We’ve done all the war museums here and in Hanoi before, but we’ve learnt a lot more about the Vietnam War since our last visits, so we have a look around.

The outside area is full of old US helicopters and tanks, and a prison area dedicated to the South’s torture and capture of the North Vietnamese soldiers. There are no niceties here; the photos and descriptions are brutal and probably the worst we have seen.

The photo displays carry on inside the main building, but are not the same intensity of the prison area. Still, they are very disturbing, showing war crimes and the effects of Agent Orange and Napalm, which were both widely used in their millions of litres. Some areas of Vietnam will take 100 years to recover from the deforestation effects of Agent Orange. 

The museum is heavy-going and is also very hot; it does not have AC. We are worn out now and return to the hotel.

Dinner tonight is in town, and a traditional Vietnamese pancake for Del and beef wrapped in betel leaves for H. Both are wrapped in rice paper with an abundance of herbs and dipped in a tasty sauce. 

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Thursday 5th Febuary

Today we are catching the high-speed ferry down the river to Vung Tao, a coastal town. The ferry takes 1hr 45, the alternative is a 3-hour trip in a limousine van, but the traffic in Saigon is terrible at the moment. We nearly miss the ferry as the hotel cancels our cab to the ferry pier so they can get their driver to take us after we had a bit of a moan about smelly AC and a far too busy breakfast. Here in Vietnam, especially in Saigon, they are mortified by any bad reviews on the internet, and they are taken very seriously, so much so that establishments have been known to ‘rugby tackle‘ customers to change or even delete anything that might be close to a bad review… Del was asked to delete his Google review, but refused. They still provided the car and gave us some very nice cakes…! The review was a good review apart from the AC and the breakfast crush…!

As a note. The ‘review thing’ these days is becoming the new ‘currency’. It’s a slippery slope, and one that we should all be watching out for. Everybody wants you to review them. The day will come when you will be denied service if your review is not liked by whoever you have bought a product or service from. Don’t say it can’t happen…! It’s not long now. If you want a taster, have a look at an excellent Black Mirror episode called Nosedive. Anyway, we digress…

This free car and cake goes well until we get stuck in traffic, and then the driver takes us to the wrong pier. He doesn’t understand us, and it takes a while to get him to take us to the correct jetty. We are 25 mins late for check-in, and we just make the boat with just 5 minutes to spare!

After about 2 hours, and a very bumpy end to the boat journey in the bay, we disembark and go to our next hotel. We have a deluxe sea view room, and it’s lovely, lots of room, a massive balcony with a spectacular view of the bay of Vung Tau. It’s a refreshing change from Saigon as it’s quiet and coastal. Nice.

It’s so quiet at our end of the town that there’s not a huge choice of eateries, but we find a nice BBQ place nearby and eat well.

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Friday 6th Febuary

Del has some work paperwork to do today, lots coming up in the new year, and opts to stay at the hotel on the rooftop cafe/bar, where he will be hard at work. Yeah right. Look at his view…

H walks down the beach and sets out exploring some of Vung Tau. The front here is relatively new, and they have spent a lot of money on it. Clearly, they are expecting a prosperous future.

It’s all beautifully manicured and has art installations all the way along the stretch of beach. It’s all very impressive. After an hour of walking, she gets a cab to the older part of town and has a delicious bahn mi for lunch and attempts to walk it partway back to the hotel, but enough is enough, the sun is too hot with no shade. She gets a cab.

After a beer in the rooftop bar with Del, he suddenly declares he wants a pizza tonight! H is ok with that as it will make a nice change, and she knows just the place, she passed it on her walk about earlier today… Handy.

The pizza place is oddly enough called David’s Pizza. It’s a wonderful place, full of locals and served by locals. The pizzas come in three sizes; the medium is more than enough for us. We start with a shared salad and a glass of chilled red each. It is all delicious and comes in at a rather expensive 25 quid for a salad, two pizzas and two glasses of red…! Outrageous… Kidding. For vietnam it is ever so slightly expensive, but for us, it’s still good value.

We take a short cab ride back towards the hotel, but we stop on the beach and walk back, taking in the “LED art fest” that’s on the beach. The locals set up karaoke machines that anyone can have a go at, as well as ice-cream carts and drinks. It’s all very nice, and all very community spirited.

A very nice end to the day.

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Saturday 7th Febuary

This morning we have woken up to another bright, warm day. There is a prevailing wind here in this part of Vung Tau, which is quite refreshing and pleasant.

Del wants to see the town, which he missed because of yesterday’s work, so we set off in a cab and have a look around the beach and busy town area. We are keen on finding a salt coffee, which we find in a very basic-looking, rustic place.

As usual, it is delicious. You look at some eating and drinking establishments here, and you do wonder about how they look and what the level of cleanliness is, but we are surprised at how hygienic they really are. They are very good. Most are family businesses and news travels very fast now if things are bad. We have found the quality of all the food and drink here excellent, despite some appearances.

We have wanted to try “Com Ga“, chicken and rice, a famous Vietnamese dish. During our long walk about, we find one. Run by a couple, he cooks the rice, she looks after the chicken.

There’s no English menu, but we have Google Translate to help us. It’s so cheap at £1.20 each, made in front of you on a gas burner in the street, and it is maybe the most delicious chicken ever. The skin is crisp and marinated with a crispy sugar, soy sauce and five spice mix. Wow!

The place is supposed to be closing, but there’s an endless stream of Grab delivery bikes and people turning up, but not a westerner in sight. We are it!

Tet is coming soon, and many shops are decorated in red and gold, and are selling drinks and food at discounted rates.

The Tet holiday is a big deal here; we now know what it is, but we have no idea what it will be like. We will find out on the 17th February when it all starts…

It’s our last night in Vung Tau, but instead of traditional local food, H has found a very local restaurant that specialises in Western food called D’Lisa & Lida, so we think that we will give it a go. It’s an unusual place, an ex-library which has been converted to a restaurant, a “book coffee shop” and a wine gallery. The wine gallery alone is quite impressive, with a good collection of world wines, brandies and whiskies.

It doesn’t disappoint. We start with excellent calamari to share, followed by Fuji steak, rare, served with a beetroot mash and French fries. To go with it, we have a Chilean red. The food is very well-cooked and well presented.

We are both a bit tired tonight, so we leave it there and take the short walk back to the hotel for showers and bed.

We have enjoyed our three-night stay in Vung Tau. It has a lot to offer and is very popular with the Vietnamese. Would we come again…? Yes, we would. It doesn’t have a lot of attractions or things to ‘to see‘, but it does offer a nice change from the madness of the major cities. It’s calm, peaceful, the people are nice, and the beaches and the beach walks are lovely.

Tomorrow we are taking the ferry back to Saigon for a 1-night stay, and the start of week 8. Many thanks to our reader for following us this week. It has been a busy week, but one we have enjoyed.

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Week 7 – Sunday 25th January – Saturday 31st January 2026

Last week saw an excellent trip on a bus to Hue, an overnight stay and the train back. Del set off to do some work in Portugal (yes, we still need to keep the pennies coming in), leaving Hayley behind in Vietnam. His trip started ok but he ended up with a touch of food poisoning and recovered just in time to start work. In Hoi An, Hayley spent time on the beach, visiting the beautiful town of Hoi An.

Sunday 25th January

Despite the promise of sunshine today, it’s cloudy again, so instead of going to the beach, H seeks out a recommended coffee shop on the river. Just 2 blocks behind the hotel is a riverside pathway with very ‘rustic’ looking restaurants. One of them has laid a lavish spread on many tables on the pathway. Must be a Vietnamese Sunday lunch thing. Amidst all this is a coffee shop tucked away; by luck, the owner approaches H to tempt her in, which is fortuitous as she might have missed a rather wonderful coffee shop.

Inside, it’s beautiful and quirky, with bonsai trees and antique furniture; there’s chilled out jazz playing in the background, with a view of the river and the local fishing boats ‘put-putting’ along it. She orders a salted coffee, which is delicious. The balance of savoury and sweet with the coffee background is truly a superb invention. It’s probably a good thing we can’t get these in the UK, as they are quite calorific with a large layer of salted cream on top! 

H wanders around the neighbourhood, the Vietnamese children all smile and wave, keen to try out their English; they are very sweet. 

The sun has finally come out, so she heads off to the beach, where it’s very quiet. Lovely. 

In need of a toilet, she asks the man who runs the beach bar and sunbed hire where she can find one. “Later, later” he says, and jumps on his moped and sets off, leaving a rather confused H. After five minutes, he returns with a key to a very basic toilet in a shed with a roof weighted down by a stone on a rope. The plumbing is equally interesting, requiring a stop cock to be turned on to flush. It’s not the most basic of toilets that H has seen, but it’s pretty close… 

Later, she’s off to find another massage followed by a delicious dinner next door in the usual family restaurant. 

Meanwhile, in Portugal, it’s day two, or is it three of the load-in? This is a nice event, it’s big, very big, so big that it requires a lot of personnel, and Del is being a bit of a social butterfly, meeting people whom he’s not seen, in some cases, for 10 years or more.

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Monday 26th January

In Hoi An the laundry is building up, and we miss having our own washing machine, but getting your washing done is cheap and easy here. There is a shop and restaurant next door that also does laundry (and airport taxi, etc., etc.). They weigh it, and you can have it back the same day if you like. There are a lot of restaurants here that are all very enterprising, offering all kinds of services for the visiting tourist.

H has just under 2.5kg, and it costs 100,000 Dong, which is a staggering £2.80. 

A lot of the laundries here hang the washing out on the street. This one has its own space at the side, fenced off, but it’s still interesting to walk past and see your underwear hanging up for all to see!

After a visit to the beach, H goes into town. They are laying new tarmac on the road, but it doesn’t stop all the mopeds weaving around the road workers, not a single traffic cone in sight.

She has a tea in a small coffee shop next to the main market, which has about 6 really friendly kittens.

She orders an orange cinnamon tea, which is homemade and delicious, and buys a small tube of cat food, and soon she has 2 kittens on her. One settles down to sleep on her knee, seemingly not bothered by the noise and beeping of mopeds that whizz by all day. 

It’s dark now, and H has dinner in a beautiful old building in the old town. She has summer rolls and barbecued beef noodle salad.

It’s amazingly tasty and so fresh. Vietnamese food is packed full of herbs and very healthy compared to Malaysian food, which is more deep-fried. 

It’s going reasonably well for Del on the work front. The set is in, the projection is working, and all the lights and sound are up and working. Now he can get on with some programming and be ready for some kind of rehearsal tomorrow.

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Tuesday 27th January

It’s raining this morning, but H still takes her favourite table outside by the pool for breakfast, but undercover. 

All done, she makes a return trip to the beautiful coffee shop by the river that she visited on Sunday for another delicious salted coffee. The interior is even more beautiful than the exterior, with a koi carp pond. 

She picks up the laundry from yesterday and irons it all. She will be packing her bag tonight, ready for the next move to Da Nang. She takes advantage of the complimentary foot massage the hotel has offered and sits for a while in the sauna. The heat is like being back in Kuala Lumpur!

A late lunch of a bahn mi is had, followed by a quick sit on the beach with the last cocktail of the week, and then into town for the last time to see the pretty lanterns in Hoi An.

Got to try and fit it all in before she leaves! The time has gone quickly here, and H will miss this place very much. She wanders around the streets of the town and enjoys a mango and a coconut pancake from the street market, and sits with a drink later listening to some live music. A lovely last night in Hoi An.

Rehearsals are finally underway for Del… This is going to be a long couple of days.

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Wednesday 28th January

Today it’s time to leave the lovely Wyndham Gardens hotel and the town of Hoi An and move on to Da Nang. It starts off as a lovely sunny day, but soon turns cloudy, so after breakfast, H sorts the rest of her packing out. We had some heavy ‘logistics’ to do last week when Del left.

We had to make sure that neither of us had too much weight or bulk of packing as we would be taking flights separately, all with different weight limits. Weight-wise, we manage fine, but the amount of stuff is too much for the suitcase that H has been left with. She loads up her backpack to the brim, which is ok for the taxi trip to Da Nang, but she will need a solution before her next flight to Ho Chi Minh City on the 31st.

Finally, she arrives and checks into her next hotel in Da Nang. The room has a spectacular sea view and has the largest bed ever – about 3 metres wide. Who makes bedding for a bed that size?

It starts to rain here, which is such a shame as the beach is quite beautiful. Da Nang is a great city/beach destination being the fourth largest city in Vietnam. The My Khe beach is beautiful with golden fine sand and palm trees. It stretches for miles.

After a while, H heads into the backstreets to a highly rated restaurant. She has pork lemongrass skewers, which you wrap in rice paper with a handful of herbs. It is delicious and bursting with flavour. She follows this with mango chicken, which sounds unusual, but is lovely.

While Hayley is zipping around Vietnam and checking into hotels with super sea views, Del has started rehearsals. So far, so good.

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Thursday 29th January

This morning, when H opens her curtains to her spectacular sea view, she finds that it’s foggy! It’s been raining again, or she has been teleported to Grimsby!

She has a healthy breakfast of Pho (Vietnamese noodle soup with a flavourful broth) and fruit, followed by a session in the gym. Today she will head to the Marble Mountains. We have visited this area a few times, but for some reason, we have never made it to the Marble Mountains. They are a cluster of five marble and limestone hills home to Buddhist and Hindu temples and considered sacred sites. They are quite beautiful.

After queuing twice and some ticket confusion, she is finally in and going up in the elevator on one of the mountains.

You can walk up, but the steps are very slippery because of the rain, and she is already clumsy enough.

Once up in the lift, she discovers that there are still lots of slippery steps to climb, and she makes her way up and into some small caves, which involves a near-vertical hike up large boulders, which she doesn’t quite like the look of; it’s a bit like pot-holing. There’s no way back, though, as there’s a queue of people climbing up behind her, so with no choice she presses on. Now she knows why a stretcher was on standby at the bottom. 

She finally makes it to the top, the way down is a different route and much easier – just your standard slippery steps!  H recovers from the hike with a well-deserved fresh coconut!

There are a few temples dotted around and one spectacular cave with shafts of light coming through the roof.

H is lucky that the sun has finally come out and she’s able to grab a few snaps.

Back in town, H has a delicious bahn mi and then walks on the beach for a couple of miles. This is a great beach for walking in the warm surf. She sits in the late afternoon sun and has a beer, the tide is coming in, but slowly, so she will be ok where she is for now.

It’s while she is researching tonight’s dinner that a rogue wave sneaks up and engulfs her, soaking everything and floating her shoes off up the beach. She has no choice but to return dripping wet to the hotel to get changed. 

After a local dinner, costing a staggering £4, H walks to the river to see the dragon bridge. It’s a pretty cool bridge which spits fire and water at the weekend. The riverfront is very vibrant, with a very impressive skyline, with some skyscrapers doing their own colourful light shows. Some of the buildings are covered in LED lights that turns them into huge video displays at night.

For Del, it’s just another day at the office…! The last day though…

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Friday 30th January

H is woken at 6:45 am, sharp…, by pounding dance music resonating through the building. It takes a while for her to work out where it’s coming from; it’s on the beach below. Someone is having an early morning promotional event. Well, why not?

It seems that it’s on for the day, so she gets up. No gym today,  everything aches after her heavy gym session yesterday and the boulder climbing at the Marble Mountains, plus she walked over 8 miles too!

Today, Del is on his way back from Portugal to the UK. She can’t wait to get him back, though there are worrying stories emerging about many airlines cancelling flights via the Middle East because of the Trump/Iran issue. Del’s flight is via Dubai on Saturday, so fingers crossed he will be ok. 

She walks down the beach for a coffee and then sits by the hotel pool. It’s much hotter today, and finally, there are clear blue skies.

The weather here in central Vietnam has been a bit hit and miss, tomorrow H moves on south to Saigon, where she will meet Del on Sunday. The weather there will be a lot hotter and more humid. 

H has a massage for an hour, which is fantastic, the best one yet. She emerges out of the spa onto a quiet road and nearly gets run over by a couple of mopeds as she’s a bit spaced out by the massage…! Good job, she doesn’t have to cross the 4 lane chaos in front of her hotel in this state. She will have to improve her ‘road crossing’ skills for Saigon tomorrow, as that’s quite another experience altogether! 

Dinner tonight is a delicious chicken in lemongrass in the backstreets and a last, for now, drink on the beach. 

Today, Del starts the long slog back to Saigon. He’s up at 4am for a 6:30 flight to London, which, despite some chaos at the airport, leaves and arrives on time. Once at Gatwick, it’s a two-hour train journey, which is delayed, followed by a 1-hour ferry to the Isle of Wight and then home. The plan is drop off some clothes, check on Jess as it’s been very cold in the UK, then head back to Gatwick tomorrow morning for the Emirates flights back to Saigon. A busy 24-plus hours…

He arrives back home and when visiting Jess the van, it’s not good news. Both the habitation and starter batteries will need replacing for our next trip in March. They were not in the best of condition in the first place, but the recent cold weather in the UK has completely rendered them useless. The weather is cold and damp as Del unwraps and re-wraps the van, disappointed. He does recover the tracker, which is also due a charge.

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Saturday 31st January

We can’t believe that it’s a month since New Year’s Eve, when we were sitting on the balcony of our apartment in Kuala Lumpur toasting in 2026…! The time is flying by. Today, H flies to Ho Chi Minh City, or Saigon, as we will call it, because it’s easier!

The airport is only 10 minutes away, but it’s chaos with hundreds of people and only one baggage drop open. H has to fight and keep her place in the queue as people try to push in; it’s a very stressful and irritating 50 minutes. 

The flight is delayed, and an unbranded plane eventually turns up with a European crew. I guess Vietnam Airlines has had a bit of trouble!

Once in Saigon, she checks into her hotel, which has a casino, 3 restaurants and the best gym she’s ever seen. The room is also very good, but she is already missing the village charm of Hoi An beach and the hotel there. 

Saigon traffic is worse than she remembers. From the safety of a taxi, H watches as the mopeds weave into every last gap, somehow they manage to miss each other and the side of the taxi. The hotel is in a busy bit of town, and she finds a nice restaurant and later a street market with live music, where she stops for a drink. It’s warmer here than Da Nang. 

Del finishes off some laundry and takes Lucy, the car, for a spin and a check over… All good with her.

He completes his packing and is off on the ferry for the long trip back to Vietnam. The first leg of the trip is Gatwick to Dubai. Let’s hope that the latest fun and games by Trump in the Middle East doesn’t stop that flight from happening…

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