Doing my dong on banh mi? Pho sure!

[GarrettM]

28 degrees can do annoying stuff like that. They are so vigilant. However they did catch a fraud transaction before I did but that was after multiple false alarms (like your experience) that were very inconvenient.

I did inform them we were going to Vietnam, and they said all would be good. Meh.

 

[Pushka]

I did inform them we were going to Vietnam, and they said all would be good. Meh.

Yeah. I know. It’s why we always need a backup. ANZ are similar but 28 the worst.

 

[cove]

28 degrees is being run by fringe dwellers of the financial world. Of course that is my personal opinion. Mrscove now really only uses her card to pay her London butler service as so many of our friends have had issues with their cards getting compromised or stopped.

 

[GarrettM]

Good to hear Citibank debit works. Two suits sounds like a great deal. You are missing some humidity in Perth.

Debit?? Oh Cove...
Plenty of humidity to go around here. The pool is a very welcome afternoon relief.

 

[cove]

Citi Credit cards are the other fringe dwellers of the financial world with their surcharges. I use Bankwest for points and fair exchange rates when I am travelling(but not in America as I use US CCs there). I paid your colleagues Madrid accommodation and Bankwest World was a winner on the exchange rate.
Humidity makes me go troppo so you won’t go around a corner and run into me on your holiday.

 

[Pushka]

Debit?? Oh Cove...
Plenty of humidity to go around here. The pool is a very welcome afternoon relief.

We were in Vietnam in June and it was stifling. In HoiAn they were putting huge blocks of ice into the pool to keep the water temperature down. Interesting that it’s already started in March.

 

[GarrettM]

One of MrsGM's must do activities for this trip was a cooking class. Ordinarily this is not my sort of thing, but throw in a boat ride and the chance to do some "fishing" and I figured why not.
She looked at a couple and went for the Bay Mau Eco Cooking Tour. They picked us up in a taxi, and then the group went through the market buying the stuff for the cooking class, before jumping on to a boat to the actual destination.
There's a lot of pics from this, so settle in.
Heading into the market.

Some seafood... none of this ended up in our meals though.

 

[GarrettM]

After collecting our ingredients it was time to jump on the boat. A little difficult with the toddler, as they don't really cater to young ones. But we made it ok. We were first on the boat, and for some reason the other six people on the tour all decided to follow our lead and sit on the port side of the boat, so it started to list very quickly. Thankfully the guides sorted out that quick smart. People are weird.


Anyway in no time at all we were off down the Thu Bon River.


Plenty of activity in these parts, including lots of traditional fishing.


And the netsare big too.

 

[GarrettM]

After about 40 minutes of potting on down the river we neared our target, and then we transferred into some of Vietnam's famous basket boats for a spot of fishing.


MissGM loved it but unsurprisingly we were not successful.

 

[GarrettM]

Once off the boats a van picked us up and took us to the Bay Mau open air cooking classroom. Here our guide Tom showed us how rice milk is made the traditional way, and we all took turns having a turn at the controls.

After that it was into the cooking, with our dishes today comprising Vietnamese spring rolls, Vietnamese pancake, seafood noodles, and beef noodle soup.
The first task being to prepare the beef stock for the beef noodle soup we'd be eating later. It takes about 90 minutes to cook, so while we waited for that we got into the spring rolls.
I won't bore you with specifics... but here are the results of MrsGM's efforts. Mine were perfectly tasty too, but hers are much more nicely presented.





Speaking of MrsGM she is by some measure a better photographer and writer than yours truly. Feel free to chec out her Instagram for more images of our travels. Lest the mods wish to pull me up on this, she gets no income from it... it's just a nice hobby.
Aleisha Orr (@cloudsofwhitetravel) • Instagram photos and videos

 

[GSP]

We'd booked our accommodation through Wotif, and it came with breakfast included.
No one is going to mistake it for Epicurean at Crown, but it's doing a job.
They have a mix of fruits, cereals, toast, salads, bacon, small sausages, and then some more local dishes they seem to change every day. Plus eggs your way - although they don't seem to know what poached eggs are.
And then some pastries. Also tea, coffee and juice.
View attachment 119665

View attachment 119666

Bugger, you've reminded me, I forgot to fee the dogs or give them some water.

 

[GSP]

Hi GarrettM,

Enjoy reading your experiences, Was there in Hoi An about 6 months ago and it was aptly as you described. The pic of the Bia Siagon (which as you point out was 45c AUD) brings back fond memories.

Look forward to further updates.

Cheers

 

[GarrettM]

No updates tonight. Taken more than two hours to get our demon child to sleep. Not helped by the bloody nightmare caterwhauling from somewhere nearby. Can only guess we're close to a local karaoke joint. cough me drunk it was bad.

 

[cove]

We are enjoying your photos and commentary.

 

[GarrettM]

All suited up.

 

[love_the_life]

All suited up.
View attachment 119861 View attachment 119862

They look (from what I can see) very spiffy!
PS - your wife's Instagram photos are great.

 

[GarrettM]

Getting cash out around here is like playing ATM roulette. Went to two this morning and neither worked. Will have to cross the river to try the one we used the other night. Can't have both cards locked out on the same trip.

Anyways....
After our cooking tour we spent a couple hours back at the hotel having a rest and a swim in the pool. MissGM has just thrown herself right into her swimming, and is suddenly super confident in the pool. She wears floaties of course, but has no fear at all. Dog paddling by herself, floating along all alone, and even climbing up the stools at the swim-up bar and jumping off. We allow this because we're usually the only people in the pool, and the swim-up bar is NEVER MANNED!

Which brings me round to a review of our hotel. TripAdvisor would tell you Emotion Villa has a 4.5 star rating. I'm not sure who's doing the calcuations, but I reckon at best it's a 2.5 joint. There's nothing actually bad about it, but the lack of attention to detail really adds up.

The swim-up bar is one example, but I can see that if your guests aren't using the pool a lot, having service there all day is maybe a waste of time.
But the little things that are lacking are all in the room maintenance. They constantly leave us just two towels, despite their being three of us. They don't replenish toilet paper, and there is no storage in the bathroom. There's also no hand soap, so it's handy we bring our own.
Yesterday we had an issue with our toilet that needed fixing before we could use it again. Despite telling them about it at 5.30pm, they didn't fix it until we'd returned from dinner well after 8pm. They said they forgot the room number, and when they remembered it they didnt want to come in because we didn't answer when they knocked. Well we were out.
When they did come to fix it we were trying to get the child down, and it was a major disruption that played a big part in how awful she was trying to get her to sleep.

Rant over.. here is a small child in front of a mural.

 

[Pushka]

Getting cash out around here is like playing ATM roulette. Went to two this morning and neither worked. Will have to cross the river to try the one we used the other night. Can't have both cards locked out on the same trip.

Anyways....
After our cooking tour we spent a couple hours back at the hotel having a rest and a swim in the pool. MissGM has just thrown herself right into her swimming, and is suddenly super confident in the pool. She wears floaties of course, but has no fear at all. Dog paddling by herself, floating along all alone, and even climbing up the stools at the swim-up bar and jumping off. We allow this because we're usually the only people in the pool, and the swim-up bar is NEVER MANNED!

Which brings me round to a review of our hotel. TripAdvisor would tell you Emotion Villa has a 4.5 star rating. I'm not sure who's doing the calcuations, but I reckon at best it's a 2.5 joint. There's nothing actually bad about it, but the lack of attention to detail really adds up.

The swim-up bar is one example, but I can see that if your guests aren't using the pool a lot, having service there all day is maybe a waste of time.
But the little things that are lacking are all in the room maintenance. They constantly leave us just two towels, despite their being three of us. They don't replenish toilet paper, and there is no storage in the bathroom. There's also no hand soap, so it's handy we bring our own.
Yesterday we had an issue with our toilet that needed fixing before we could use it again. Despite telling them about it at 5.30pm, they didn't fix it until we'd returned from dinner well after 8pm. They said they forgot the room number, and when they remembered it they didnt want to come in because we didn't answer when they knocked. Well we were out.
When they did come to fix it we were trying to get the child down, and it was a major disruption that played a big part in how awful she was trying to get her to sleep.

I’m not sure it is a thing in Asian but we’ve found they won’t fix things if you are not in the room. This applies to deliveries, maintenance and so on. The fact that housekeeping does exactly that seems to have escaped them.

 

[love_the_life]

Getting cash out around here is like playing ATM roulette. Went to two this morning and neither worked. Will have to cross the river to try the one we used the other night. Can't have both cards locked out on the same trip.

Anyways....
After our cooking tour we spent a couple hours back at the hotel having a rest and a swim in the pool. MissGM has just thrown herself right into her swimming, and is suddenly super confident in the pool. She wears floaties of course, but has no fear at all. Dog paddling by herself, floating along all alone, and even climbing up the stools at the swim-up bar and jumping off. We allow this because we're usually the only people in the pool, and the swim-up bar is NEVER MANNED!

Which brings me round to a review of our hotel. TripAdvisor would tell you Emotion Villa has a 4.5 star rating. I'm not sure who's doing the calcuations, but I reckon at best it's a 2.5 joint. There's nothing actually bad about it, but the lack of attention to detail really adds up.

The swim-up bar is one example, but I can see that if your guests aren't using the pool a lot, having service there all day is maybe a waste of time.
But the little things that are lacking are all in the room maintenance. They constantly leave us just two towels, despite their being three of us. They don't replenish toilet paper, and there is no storage in the bathroom. There's also no hand soap, so it's handy we bring our own.
Yesterday we had an issue with our toilet that needed fixing before we could use it again. Despite telling them about it at 5.30pm, they didn't fix it until we'd returned from dinner well after 8pm. They said they forgot the room number, and when they remembered it they didnt want to come in because we didn't answer when they knocked. Well we were out.
When they did come to fix it we were trying to get the child down, and it was a major disruption that played a big part in how awful she was trying to get her to sleep.

She’s looking very angelic there. Can’t belive you called her a demon child

 

[GarrettM]

She’s looking very angelic there. Can’t belive you called her a demon child

Oh yes that's how she gets in you. Nothing but sweetness and light. And then... BOOM! Fire and brimstone and burning death.