Ho Chi Minh City - Day 4 (28 Aug '10) Part 1

Day 4

We had a 2 + hour drive to another town known as My Tho. The road to My Tho is many times better than the road to Vung Tau. It is wider and not as bumpy. Click here for more info of My Tho.

The main reasons of visiting this town was to ride on a boat along Mekong River, visit the orchards, villages and handicraft workshop. Then, we had an adventurous sampan ride along a very narrow creek. YX enjoyed that the most !

Along the journey to My Tho, we saw picturesque rice fields and something caught our attention. It was the tomb stones / graves of the dead being planted in the middle of the rice field / farm. Our guide told us that those are freehold lands and the people here (especially the old ones) wish to live and die on their very own land.

We rode on this bigger boat along the Mekong River to get across to the orchards and handicraft workshop.

YX did not hesitate to try on the hammock when he saw one. There are a lots of hammocks in Vietnam and you can see them especially at more remote places, tying onto trees.

While having some honey + lime at the bee farm, this boy suddenly brought out a huge python for photo shot at no cost. Dad was the only brave one to carry the python and had his picture taken with our own camera.

Visiting the coconut candies factory. All were handmade.

Next, we had some local fruits. Whatever was served, we had it here in Malaysia. While back in our country, most of us eat fruits with plum powder. Over there, the Vietnamese eat fruits with salt + shrimp powder. (The small plate in the middle is salt + shrimp powder). Don't really like it.

While enjoying our fruits, a group of Vietnamese singers sang some local and Chinese songs to entertained us. We just gave them some tippings.

After the fruits, we had the sampan ride. YX was so happy and kept on singing 'Row Row Row your Boat' while gong gong helped him to row the boat with a stick we found inside the sampan. Gong gong used the stick with the permission of the boat man of course. The sampan went through a very narrow palm shading creeks before coming to a bigger opening of the river mouth where we migrated to the bigger boat which we rode earlier.

Upon approaching to the bigger boat, it started to rain heavily. Phew ! We managed to get into the bigger boat on time! Inside the boat, we were being served with fresh coconut juice.

Coming up next is the famous Elephant's Ear fish and Dragon's Egg for lunch ..........

A price to pay

After our dinner on Day 3, we requested to try the French Bread which is a popular delicacy in Vietnam. We had them in our hotel's breakfast but we wish to try the road side stall as we thought they would be more authentic.

Click here for more info of the Banh Mi (French Bread).

At the meantime, I requested to buy some buns for YX so he could eat them whenever he is hungry. The guide did not give us a YES or NO answer but she said she will inform the driver about our requests. We assume everything were ok.

Once the van stopped, the guide brought us to a very busy shop selling the French Bread and cakes. Too bad, they do not have any buns suitable for YX. So after purchasing the French Bread, the guide brought us further down the road to a bakery.

After the purchase, we walked towards our van and we saw a traffic police was talking to our driver. Gosh! We were given a SUMMONS !

The guide later explained that in certain areas in the city, all vehicles are NOT allowed to stop at the roadside for more than 3 minutes, even the driver is there. Vehicles are only allowed to stop within that 3 minutes to drop off / pick up passengers. In our case, our van stopped for more than 3 minutes and hence, the traffic police issued a summons. It is equivalent to RM80. Between, their Traffic police worked day and night and are good in hiding. Moreover, getting a summons is also depending on one's luck.

Back to the hotel, we put aside the summon matter and enjoyed our French bread. It was generously spread with fillings and the bread were soft and fluffy. Delicious. It was slightly different from the hotel's type as they have special sauce and cut chillies in it. The cut chillies were very very spicy until we felt the sting feeling on our tongue. For more picture, click here.

The next day, our guide requested us to help out the driver by paying 50% of the summons while she paid the other half. But dad and cousin S offered to pay 100% instead.

Coming up next, Day 4.

Ho Chi Minh City - Day 3 (27 Aug 2010) Part 2

After visiting the Christ Hill, we proceeded to the Guan Yin Temple which was just a few minutes drive away. According to our guide, as Vietnam have majority of both Christian and Buddhist, you will noticed that whenever there is a Chinese temple, nearby to it will be a church and vice versa.

Guan Yin's statue.

Two ladies were enjoying their bowl of 'taufu fa'

At the entrance of the temple, an old lady were selling hot 'taufu fa'. It has added sagu and the ginger syrup were so thick and flavorful. The original should be eaten with coconut milk but we did not go for that.

Look at who is praying. He looked cute, isn't ? I love to see him pray.

And he insisted to put the burning incense on his own.

After visiting the Guan Yin temple, our next stop were at the Whale Temple. Click here for a virtual tour. It is a very small temple and we only stopped for about 5 minutes or so for the guide to tell us some of the history.

After lunch, we headed back to the city. We will be staying at the same hotel (which we stayed on Day 1) until the end of the tour.

By the time we reached the city, it was already dinner time. The journey back to the city were longer, comparing to the day we came because there was a massive jam at the jetty. That night, we had beef noodles at a local restaurant. YX and mum had lemongrass BBQ pork rice.

Something happen after dinner.

something to do with the roadside French Bread (Banh Mi) ......

Diamonds

When hubby and I decided to get married, we did everything at the very last minutes. That includes buying our wedding rings. We only went to hunt for it 3 days before our registration took place. With this rush, we did not have the time to hunt for the best price nor to choose the best ring in the market.

How I wish the time could turn back and I will definitely choose a diamond ring instead. Since I personally like yellow color, I will choose the Canary Yellow Diamonds which am sure will bring the glow on my fingers when I put it on.

If I get mum to choose for me, she will definitely choose the Fancy Red Diamonds because mum loves anything RED. She believes RED color could makes a person looks outstanding.

Ho Chi Minh City - Day 3 (27 Aug 2010) Part 1

To read the previous part, please click on the below :

Day 1

Day 2 Part 1

Day 2 Part 2

Day 2 Part 3

We were given a wake up call at 6.30am. After breakfast, we were all ready for the morning 'exercise' as mentioned by the guide.

And this were our morning exercise ! Climbing some hundred / thousand of stairs (I can't really remember how many steps) of Christ Hill. Click here for more info. You can also click here and scroll down to Statue of Jesus.

We were panting all along the way up. We got to rest a few times half way while climbing as it was not an easy task! Mum gave up half way as her knee hurts, so she sat at some benches to enjoy the view while waiting for us.

Breathtaking view from half way of the hill. This place was quiet and less polluted as you can hardly see any cars on the road. A great place for relaxing.

In case you are wondering, that person in the photo is not me. While I'm focusing to take the Jesus's statue, this lady happen to stand there for a photo shot too.

Both sides of the Jesus's arms had a small opening for visitors to stand to have the best view from the top. Inside the Jesus's body, there were staircases for us to climb up to reach the arms. The stairs were very narrow in spiral shaped and glad that we made it! Including YX too! He did not even complaint of tired. Lucky me. Else, I can't imagine carrying him while climbing up the stairs! *faint*

Views from the top of the Jesus's arms.

One side - view of housings and hotels / resorts .....

.... and the other side - view of seasides.

The guide explained that as Vung Tau is a tourism destination, the government set rules that constructions of houses and hotels / resorts must be at one side only so they will not block the view of the sea.

Coming up next, Part 2 .............

Ho Chi Minh City - Day 2 (26 Aug 2010) Part 3

After lunch, we proceeded to Vung Tau, situated about 125km southeast of Ho Chi Minh City. It is a famous seaside where many locals will travel over there on the weekends for a short vacation. Click here for more info of Vung Tau.

Even it is only about 125 km away, but the journey took us almost 4 hours. The road were very narrow and bumpy. In between, we need to catch a ferry across (about 10 minutes ride) and required some waiting at the jetty.

This was the hotel we stayed. Not as impressive as the one we stayed in the city. Luckily it is only for 1 night. The breakfast served were not as good too. But the scenery was beautiful. I love beaches but did not manage to take any photo of the beach because by the time we arrived, it was raining. Ended up, we only rest in the hotel room while YX enjoyed watching Tom & Jerry (they have Cartoon Network).

Soon, the guide came to pick us up for dinner before we proceed to the town area for some shopping.

Fried 'ham chee peng' and some local cakes. 1 piece only cost RM0.35 comparing to Seremban which is selling at RM0.60/piece.

Yummy ..... The outer skin was crunchy and soft while the fillings are mung bean instead of the usual red bean which we had over here. Simply delicious !

Then we had a walk at the 'night market' which is along the beach area. Something like the night market along the Ferringhi Beach in Penang. Most of the stalls were selling similar items made from seashells.

Further down, we finally saw a few stalls selling drinks and BBQ seafood! That lady was BBQ-ing octopus.

A variety of shells, fishes and seafood. We only tried the octopus and scallops. NICE ! The scallops were being prepared in a very special way. They cracked a quail egg onto the shell and added some seasonings before bringing it to BBQ. Once done, they topped with some spring onions.

We also tried their stir fried corn. Not really tasty. I still prefer our style of corn in cup with butter + salt. Over there, they stir fried with margarine, salt, sugar, shrimp powder and cilli sauce (optional). The corn somehow taste sweet + salty + oily. We did not add the cilli sauce because of YX.

After all the heaty stuffs, we proceed back to the hotel to sleep as the guide told us the next morning, she will be bringing us to have some 'exercise'. Hmm....wonder what is that?

Day 3 coming up soon.......

Ho Chi Minh City - Day 2 (26 Aug 2010) Part 2

- 2nd stop @ Notre Dame Cathedral. Read here for more info.

- 3rd stop @ Central Post Office. Read here for more info.

After all the quick stops at those places of interest, we proceeded to have our lunch at a Vietnamese Restaurant to try out their authentic Vietnamese food. All of us enjoyed except for mum. She only loves the rice and nothing else.

Rice paper roll. The one on the left is wrapped with vege while the one on the right is wrapped with shrimp. It is tasteless unless you dip with their homemade sauce (forgot to take photo). Read here for more info (in the contents, click wraps and rolls #7.6)

This is steam rice flour topped with shrimps. As usual, need to dip with sauce else they are tasteless.

Top Right - rice paper sheets

Bottom Right - fried rice paper with fish paste. This one taste awesome! We ordered extra because we simply love it. Looks like our 'fu chok' but the taste is totally different.

Top Left - Fresh veges

Bottom Left - shrimp meatball wrapped around sugar cane stick.

Wrapped the shrimp meatball and veges in the rice paper sheets, dip sauce (again) and eat. The fried rice paper with fish paste are to be eaten separately.

Rice Noodle soup with shrimp meatball. Soup was tasty but a little too 'empty'. Besides than 3 balls and some veges, the whole bowl consists of noodles.

This was mum's favourite ! Rice wrapped with Lotus leaf. She almost finished this rice alone because she did not fancy the others. We, on the other hand don't really fancy the rice because it is a little too hard. LOL. The rice consists of carrot, nuts and pork.

Another dish to be wrapped, dip and eat. I can't recalled what was that yellow color stuffs but the white one was another type of steamed rice paper wrapped with banana leaves. Removed the steamed rice paper from the banana leaves and wrapped with the yellow thing, dip and eat.

Day 2 part 3 coming up soon.........there will be 12 more post to go.

Ho Chi Minh City - Day 2 (26 Aug 2010) Part 1

Day 2

- woke up around 7am

- Had the best breakfast of the whole stay in Vietnam because they served bacon. ^_^ The remaining days have got no more bacon and breakfast is more or less the same type of food. Bread, porridge, noodles, etc

Plate no. 1 - French toast with jam, salads, fried potatoes and bacons.

Plate no. 2 - Vietnamese beef noodles. I did not add the mints and some other kind of green leafy vege because I do not like the taste.

Our private van - merz brand. Noticed the flower in front? The guide told us that every 1st and 15th month of the Chinese calender, the Buddhist will pray (at home) to their ancestor(s). After praying, they will place some flowers in front of the car they drove, in believing that their ancestor(s) will protect them.

Note : In Vietnam, 40% are Christian ; 40% are Buddhist ; 10% others.

- 1st stop, we visited the War Remnants Museum. Read here for more info. Or here for a virtual tour.

YX was overjoyed when he saw huge planes , helicopters, tankers and live bomb.

Ho Chi Minh City - Day 1 (25 Aug '10)

Our flight was scheduled to depart at 2.55 pm. We arrived at LCCT via taxi which was already prearranged a week earlier. We had early lunch that day and I bought some buns for YX in case he will be hungry while in the airport. Glad that the flight was only being delayed for about 10 minutes.

The boy with his never ending Ultraman / monster pose.

The plane at the background is our flight to Vietnam. This boy...showing us how the fight took off, high up in the air.

Once we arrived at Ho Chi Minh city (around evening time), our Chinese tour guide was already waiting for us at the arrival hall and guided us to our private mini van. Just for the 7 of us. Some history of Ho Chi Minh City if you are interested. We 'wow' in disbelief when we saw the motorcycles on the road. And they rode in style. Criss crossing from one road to the other. The guide told us that besides than those VERY OLD and VERY YOUNG people, the rest of the population have at least 1 motorcycle. So you can imagine how many motorbikes are on the road, everyday.

This is the hotel we stayed. It is located very near to the Ben Thant Market where we had our shopping there on the very last day. It is a newly operated hotel, clean and comfortable.

As most of Vietnamese food consist of lemongrass, they even used this spices to chase away the mosquitoes. This picture was taken in the hotel's restaurant entrance.

Day one is more on our own. After taking a short rest and bath in the hotel, the guide brought us to have our dinner at a local Chinese restaurant. During dinner time, we had a good laugh. The waiters served us the dishes pretty fast but they did not give us rice. Our guide was no where to be seen, so we were all making some wild guesses. Dad thought they will served us fried rice, C thought we are suppose to eat those dishes WITHOUT rice and so on. As YX needs to eat RICE, I asked one of the waiter and he gave us an embarrassed look because they actually FORGOT to serve us rice !

After dinner, the guide brought us to the night market near to our hotel (just like our pasar malam) and we bought some fruits, namely mangoes and custard apples. The mangoes were SOUR but C loves it. However, the custard apples were SWEET. I love it!

Part 2 coming up soon.......

8 月15 日 - Mid Autumn Festival

Last Saturday night, the City Park, S2 held a Mid-Autumn celebrations. We thought, why not bring the kids to have some fun.

Not a fun place for us anyway. It was crowded. Hot. And the kids were running non-stop. Gosh! Hubby and I surrendered and said this is going to be our 1st and the last visit to such event. LOL !

The decorations were very nice with lots of mini red lanterns being hang all around the park. Many people brought their kiddos and own lanterns to the park. Some even brought those traditional type - paper and candle. I can't imagine if somebody were to accidentally knock onto the little kid and am sure the lantern will be on fire ! Remember, the park was CROWDED!

Since both my parents were in Seremban over that weekends, we invited them along. My brother brought nephew JS along too. It is not a very nice place to chat but a nice place to see those beautiful lanterns. Dad and mum could hardly hear what we said and vice versa. LOL. Not until we walked further in (away from the crowd and stage), we were able to chat for a while. The doting grandparents bought 2 battery operated lanterns for the kids.

YX with his train lantern (but with Hindi songs) LOL !

XJ with her car lantern (with traditional Chinese song).

Both kids enjoyed holding their lanterns around the park with the music blasting loudly. Back at home, I quickly pasted a thick PVC tape over the speaker to lower down the music. Hubby even suggested to cut the wire which I disagreed as they can still use the lanterns next year with the music ON (if the kids did not destroyed the lanterns) !

The swell is gone

Today is YX's appointment to see the eye specialist after the last visit over here.

We are not sending him over because we don't think it is necessary anymore since the swell is gone! YAY! A good news indeed. Over the past few days, MIL have been brewing Chinese Herbal Tea for the whole family. It is actually a norm for MIL to brew Chinese Herbal Tea 3 times a week but this time, she gave YX a bigger portion. The elders believe it is 'heat' that trapped in YX's body which leads to the swell in his eye. Luckily he did not develop cough after taking a huge dose of the Chinese Herbal Tea *touch wood* ^_^

We did not even managed to drip any eyedrop into his eye because he was afraid he won't be able to see clearly after a single drop. We explained, but that does not work.

On that very 1st night, I waited till he slept and put a drop into his eye. Gosh! My roof and bedroom windows nearly crash. He screamed and got so angry while saying "I can't see, I can't see". LOL. This silly boy. Then, he insisted me to wipe away the eyedrop (and his tears) before he is willing to sleep again.

Since the swell has now gone, hopefully it will not pop up again in the future. Sometimes I wonder if he took too much of milk which makes his body heaty?

At the meantime, my toe is 1/2 healed. It turned blue black. :(

'La Zha mee' @ Lukut

Excuse me of my poor photography skill. The last word (name of the shop) was accidentally 'eaten' up. haha... The name is actually 'Mian Jiu'.

Yesterday, we brought the kids to PD for a fun time again. Since my parents were here in Seremban, we invited them along. The smiles on their faces were just priceless !

We planned to have our breakfast at this famous restaurant @ Lukut. Hubby and I had tried once many years ago but it was my parents' 1st. The Chinese wording on the sign board (pic above) read as 'La Zha Mien' which sounds like 'Dirty Noodle'. But it does not carry that meaning. As I heard from people, long long ago, this shop accepted fresh ingredient brought by customers and the chef will cook and served. However, sometimes the chef got confused and mixed the ingredient of customer A with customer B which leads to arguments. This is how the name of the noodle was created. Interesting huh!

And I also heard from people that the noodles are handmade!

Dried version mixed with dark soy sauce. The noodle were served 'kosong' because it is suppose to be eaten with the main 'star'.

Fried version with added pork and vege.

We personally prefer the fried version despite it is more oily because it has some kind of unique aromas. It is also softer (not soggy) compared to the dried version.

This is the MAIN 'star'. A big bowl of soup with mixed ingredient like fishball, meatball, pork (very very tender), leafy vege, soft taufu and 'fu chok' (beancurd sheets).

They do served seafood soup with prawns and white pomfret but we opted for a non seafood style because dad and mum prefer something simple.

Both of my parents simply loves it ! This is the 1st time they did not complaint of SALTY when eating out but they still complaint of OILY. Mum always said Seremban food is very salty and oily. *shake head* Eating out is like that, isn't it? haha

Dad loves the soup and he thinks it is unique to be eaten with noodles plus the ingredient. Maybe next time we should order the seafood version. Bet the soup will be sweeter !

For 2 plates of noodles and a big bowl of soup (for 2), we paid around RM20.

I do not have the address for this shop, but it is located opposite of Lukut KFC. It is along a stretch of shophouses and look out for the shop's name. You will be able to find it. Be there early, else the shop will be packed. If not mistaken, they only served breakfast.