All About Your Child

The commenter from my previous post made me realised that some of you might be interested to contact my friend, to organise a private Vietnam trip for you and your family/friends. Here is his main sales enquiry email : hellovietnam@pacifictravelworld.com

Ok! Let’s begin our post for today. We are still on the second day of our 5 day trip to Vietnam.

After Cu Chi Tunnel and lunch by the river, the boys were VERY excited as they were going for their very first fishing trip. Its our first time fishing as a family too. *Thumbs Up*

Throughout the first day, I noticed that Lan, our tour guide is closer to Kitkit than to Binbin. Probably because their Chinese Zodiac sign is an awesome match. *double wink* But I never expected her to go to great lengths just to please my elder boy. A very rare tour guide.

When we were ready to take the mini-tram to our fishing place, a bad news came.

Lan got to know that the pre-arranged fishing activity was cancelled because there were no fishing activity on weekdays, only weekends. 19th March 2013 was a Tuesday. Somehow there was some miscommunication somewhere……..

When she told us, Kitkit went: “Huh?????…..” *super pout*

Immediately she picked up her phone again and made a number of calls. Then she came back and told us to wait for a while as she was waiting for a call to confirm that a special arrangement of the fishing activity can be done for us. She said she does not want to disappoint Kitkit. She could tell that Kitkit was REALLY LOOKING FORWARD to this.

Aaawww….isn’t she nice or what?!?!
*hugs*

So while we were waiting, the kids got off the above vehicle and went to be ‘bulls‘ pulling a cart. *giggle* Nah…. just a photo-shoot.

*Phone Rang* And it was GOOD NEWS! YEAH……….! *clap clap clap* Everyone cheered!

In a short few minutes we arrived at a big pond that has a hut equipped with fun items and one of them was the fishing rods.

As it was a ‘last minute’ thing, the staff were still preparing the fishing rods for us. We waited for many minutes and the rods were still not ready.

So my boys walked with the turkeys, which were roaming freely in the vicinity, to pass time; but the rods were still not ready when their birds amusement was over.

Seriously, I have no idea why it needs to take that long to prepare two fishing rods.

The kids were getting impatient and I suggested to take them for an ‘elephant-on-water ride’.

Finally!
After that ride, the fishing rods were ready!
Whoo-hoo!

Errrr… Wait A Minute!
That’s not a normal fishing rod!
That’s a loooooong wooden stick!
The very ‘Ancient‘ fishing rod!!!

What’s going on?
I have no idea!
But Binbin did not mind at all and skipped off with his rod on his shoulders. *Grin*

However….I realised that Kitkit were not given the wooden rod, he had the ‘professional‘ fishing rod instead. Hhhhmmmm…..

Anyway, Binbin did not complain about the difference. Their focus was on the chance to be able to fish! Errrr…and HOPEFULLY catch some fish.

Oh well….since its not an issue for my boys, I should not be too particular over it then.
Afterall, it was already a blessing that they were able to fish today.

But fishing was definitely a test of one’s patience….a game that the kids are not very used to.

Even the dragonfly came to rest on Kitkit’s fishing rod and joined the waiting game.

It stood there for a really long time.

So you can tell how MOTIONLESS the rod was!!! *sigh*

 They Waited… standing….

And Waited….. squatting

And They Waited….. standing again….

 Finally, their legs could not stand it anymore….

They Waited….. with their butts on the ground

Seeing that we had no returns from our time investment, the fishing staff volunteered to bring another rod. So we ended up having 3 fishing rods.

While the boys were on the grass, Lan and I had a great chat on the rocks. *wink* We were surprised to see each other in purple top and blue jeans on the same day and with the same hat too, so this photo is really special to me.

A fish came nibbling on Binbin’s bait once but did not bite onto the hook. That was the CLOSEST the boys could get.

After being here for about 2 hours, with an hour or so spent on waiting, the total time allocated for the fishing activity had come to an end.

Just before we hopped back onto the mini-tram to find Mr W.’s car, Kitkit needed to go to the loo. On the way to the secluded toilet, Kitkit and I were so excited to see 5-6 horses strapped onto different trees, chewing away!

I thought it would be fun to play with the ‘camera angle‘ and asked Kitkit to doing a cute shot with the horse :

Though empty-handed they came and empty-handed they left, their hearts were filled with contentment.

With hearts so full, they slept for another hour plus in Mr. W.’s 7-seater car back to Ho Chi Minh city.

We were caught in the peak hour jam and the kids were lucky to have a much needed longer rest. They were hungry when we finally got back to the city and alighted from the car. Lan pointed at a street hawker immediately.

She said that there are too many delicious street food in Vietnam and this is definitely one that tourist MUST try when they are here!

So the kids took a stool each, sat and watched how the street hawker prepared the food.

As parents, kids always get to eat first. They kept eating and eating. I was afraid that they may finish the whole packet and not have any space left in their tummy for dinner.

“Mm! Very nice!” they said.

Finally they stopped and it was our turn to try.
My oh My!
It was Yummy!!!

Lan loves to take motion-photos. She kept clicking and clicking on my camera phone, capturing our different expressions. *laugh*

We did tell our friend that we would love to get some children clothing, so Lan brought us to this place to meet our shopping requirement.

Actually, there are a lot more things inside here beside clothings. I came out with another new pair of wedges (2nd pair from this trip), which the girl skillfully altered for me on the spot. Amazing! The kids managed to get new jeans, polo-Ts and Fluffy Angry Birds T-shirts. Binbin finally gets a new school bag to replace his torn bag and the kids also added a thumb-sucking ape keychain to our shopping loot.

I did not take any photographs of the interior of the 2-leveled mall as Lan kept reminding me to be careful with my phone and not to flash it openly. Therefore, I stayed obedient throughout.

Oh my!
There I go again!
Another post that exceeds the 1000 words mark!
Really not good at summarising. *laugh*

Shall stop here for today.
Tomorrow’s post will be a short one (I hope *bleh*).
Its about our unusual seafood dinner and our FIRST experience on a Sleeping Bus for 8 hours.

Till then, stay cool!
*wink*

BACKDATED POST : 19th March 2013

Okie dokie, had a short break from the series of Vietnam posts, now I am back to share more…

I hope I could illustrate to the best of my ability of our experience in the Cu Chi Tunnels as photos and videos could tell so much but you HAVE GOT TO BE THERE to FEEL IT man!!!

I would not say its scary but there were a couple of moments whereby I felt that there is no end to the tunnel as it gets harder to breathe. What made me carry on was my boys’ determination to keep going on and who were moving so fast ahead of me on bended backs.

Maybe because of their small build….*shrugged* but they had to crouch their backs and walk with bended knees too! Just that we, adults had to bend more.

Not something I would go for again. However, this place “Cu Chi Underground Tunnels” taught my family the true meaning of “When there’s a Will, there’s a Way.”

Ok, before we get down, dirty and dark : Triple Ds, let’s start from the beginning of the day.

The kids had very little problem waking up early, I was surprised, ‘cos the beds in our hotel room were so comfortable!!! Maybe because today is THE DAY they had been looking forward to the most as they will be having their VERY FIRST FISHING experience.

Ever since Kitkit no longer feel alienated towards our tour guide, he had been asking, “Are we going for fishing now?” And it had been “No”, until today.

After bath, it was time to have our complementary breakfast in the hotel. Sadly, the breakfast spread provided at the hotel lobby did not match the standard of our room.

Whenever I get a chance to go overseas, I would want to try as many new food or local delicacies as possible. Which is also why eating assorted insects was a fun experience for Allan and I when we went Bangkok, Thailand years back. *giggle*

Therefore I purposely chose those food items which I have not seen before or had a Vietnamese name tag infront of the tray.

Everything on my plate looked so tempting but in this case, looks can really be deceiving. Its NOT distasteful. Its just bland, regardless of the shape, colour and size of each item on my plate. *sigh*

As usual, my tour guide, Lan was earlier then our meeting time. Nice!
We hopped into Mr W.’s 7-seater again and went on another hour plus ride from our hotel to reach Cu Chi Tunnel.

To achieve faster loading time for this page, I have selected most of the photos to be presented in the form of a slideshow; only picking out certain photos that have things worth mentioning.

The photos on the slideshow is NOT in sequence, so it might be a little confusing. I had been trying to make them go in order, but I just could not get it done. *sigh* Then I typed descriptions below every photo in the slideshow and only after completing the 33 photos, did I realise that the descriptions do NOT show up on the slideshow! *faint* Then I had to transfer all the descriptions into the Title section, thinking that it will show up on the slideshow, just like the slideshow I did for our lunch at the end of this post, whereby you could see the description, BUT IT STILL DIDN’T show descriptions for all all the photos in this slideshow!!! Some can see and some cannot!!! *super faint*

So sorry readers, you can just watch the slideshow without any description, but man! the descriptions are there! Just not showing up. *pout*

Suddenly feel like out of breath when I found out that I had wasted so much time and effort, just like how I felt when I was in level 2 of the Cu Chi Tunnel.

So, just view each photo as an individual, and try not to relate one to another, I think it would be better. If you are unable to view the slideshow on your mobile device, you might need to watch it on your laptop or PC. Apologies.

During the war, everyone living in Cu Chi was a fighter or soldier. None of them were military trained but because of their determination to survive and protect their land, man or woman, even children alike were forced to hold up a weapon and fight their enemies.

It was also through desperation that they thought of LIVING underground, so that while the bombing and fighting continues on the ground, children can continue to study, woman can continue to cook, doctors can continue to treat patients, meetings can continue to take place…….underground.

We had the chance to visit the different ‘rooms‘ underground in the Cu Chi Tunnel. At the end of it all, I only have one word for them “BRILLIANT!”

We were led to this sheltered presentation area where a briefing was done on how the war at Cu Chi started, how the people thought of digging the Cu Chi tunnel and how the more-than-a-decade long war ended eventually.

I was greatly disappointed as we could only understand the video, because it was in English, but the presentation after the video was done in complete Vietnamese. There was another tour guide there, leading a small group of tourists. He was doing the translation for his group and I am not sure if I was too sensitive, but he was ONLY WILLING to let his group hear his English translation of what the Vietnamese presenter was saying. He was literally whispering/mumbling!  I was just 4 seats away from him and even I have problem hearing what he was translating. *Super eyes rolled*

To me, this is a tourist attraction in Vietnam, why isn’t there an English translator together with the Vietnamese presenter? Is it because we went there in the weekdays? Even my Cu Chi Tour Guide speaks good English, why isn’t he doing the translation for us?

It was a total letdown. We just sat there for a long time learning nothing from the presentation which I think was really informative. *Humph*

After that, my 3 ‘men‘ had the first taste of what the tunnels are like while I did the videoing from the ground.

The young and the old had the same response after they crawled out of the tunnel, “Must Bend Very Low!”

And we moved on to the ‘Real Thing’!

It was 3 levels deep and I had the initial thought of exploring all the levels, but Nooooo………

We went into the first level and came out perspiring like mad! But it was still bearable. The tunnel was intimidating as all you can see is NOTHING! It was pitch black until you reach a ‘room‘.

We had to bend our knees and our back so much in order to move in the tunnel and it was a great relieve to see a ‘room‘ where we can finally straighten our body. There is no bad smell, just stale air.

I think it was good that we were able to come out to the surface to get some fresh air every now and then during our tunnel exploration. But during the Cu Chi war period, these ‘exits‘ were NOT available, as these ‘exits‘ were created for tourists.

My tour guide, Lan told us that there were tourists stuck in the tunnel before and everyone behind the big guy had to walk backwards on bended knees and back, as it was IMPOSSIBLE to turn one’s body 180 degrees when you are in the tunnel itself, in order to let the big guy exit the tunnel.

As the tunnels were dug by human, it is NOT of equal width throughout. Therefore if you are a big-sized person, there is a chance for you to get stuck in the middle of the tunnel, even though you were moving fine in the beginning.

It may frighten some of you, but then again, just like how I started this post, in my opinion, it is WORTH EXPERIENCING it once in your life.

Then we moved on to level 2. Further down into the earth. We started to perspire even more and breathing had become a little more difficult. But I remembered my friend who came here last year mentioned that she saw a video that showed bats were living in the tunnel and I have yet to see any! So I was determined to go on.

Then, something which I DID NOT EXPECT happened. There was a slope inside the pitch black tunnel!!!!!

One moment, I could see Kitkit infront of me. Next moment he was gone!!!!

The slope was NOT slippery as there is no water, but it was sure sandy. So this is no playground slide where you could swoosh your way down. The slope was not long too. So just take small baby steps, hands on the sides of the tunnel and walk down.

There were more ‘rooms‘ that served different purposes in level 2 but I was feeling a little giddy by then to really understand what the Cu Chi Tour Guide was saying.

The only sentence I heard loud and clear was, “Ok? Do you want to go more? Next is Level 3.”

Allan turned and looked at me as he could see that I was exhausted. Turn left to CLIMB UP to level 1 to reach the short-cut exit OR move forward to go down and move further to the core of the earth at level 3.

I shook my head and chose to turn left.

It was then that bats started to flap their wings madly out from another tunnel! Yeah!!! *clap clap clap*  So happy! I finally get to see bats face to face!!! You must be thinking I’m mad! *laugh*

This was our Forced-Smile at the camera after our adventure in the Cu Chi Tunnel :

But we were actually panting and our shirts were soaked through when this photo was taken… Can’t tell right? Photos can be deceiving! *laugh*

We were then given plates of fruits and a ‘staple food’ which the Cu Chi People ate during the war. Its nice, but we were really not in the mood to eat as we were still trying hard to cool ourselves down. So we ate one to two pieces each.

After this short rest, we bid farewell and thanked our Cu Chi Tour Guide as we moved on to see the other exhibits in this place, that was ON THE GROUND.
You can see most of the photos in the slideshow above earlier on.

You might think that in this place that records or captures the cruelty of war will never be able to put a smile on your face. I was lucky to meet a ‘cute guy’ that nearly made me burst into laughter. Not going to repeat the story here as I had already done it in my Personal Blog “Anything Under The Sun”, go read the post here in “Song Sharing Sunday #215 – Hands Up ~ 2pm”

Then the bugging question from Kitkit started again “Are we going Fishing now?~!” *laugh* My poor tour guide, Lan had to shake her head once more and said: “Soon. After lunch.”

We had lunch at a nearby restaurant, but we had to get back into Mr. W.’s 7 seater car first and let him drive us there.

The scenery was lovely! Eating beside the river and watching water hyacinth floating on the surface, slowly being pushed along by the river current. But the food did not match the place. It was pretty bland and the meat was hard. But the SOUP…Aaawwww….it was SUPER YUMMY!!!!!!!!

Once again, our dear friend who owns this tour agency had prepared too much food for us, plus we were too tired from the experience at Cu Chi Tunnel, we could not finish everything that was on our dining table.

The food we had in slideshow below :

Woah!
Another long post!
I think I will stop here for now before I take you to our Very First Fishing experience as a family, eating at the street stalls and shopping. All in the next post.

 First Vietnam Trip