tonight is sadly the last night of the trip. We are in Phan Thiet, at the lovely Victoria Hotel, and I know in my mind I have to prepare to say good bye to this trip, to this country and this continent, but in my heart I am not ready at all. I fell in love with vietnam, with cruise on river, with pampering the asian way, the kindness of its people, their shining beauty, the grace of their soul! What a new and wonderful experience, and i never even had a chance to talk about Angkor Wat and how amazing it was! It was so stimulating and exhausting with the heat, the excitement, we would just collapse into bed at night and start over the next day. I was not able to keep the blog , lack of stamina and no free time in a full schedule. But in all, a much rewarding experience with a new look into this fascinating continent.
I miss my kids, my Mabel, my Cookie, we bought loads of presents, it was fun and rather affordable . We made friends with all the people on the boat , even some of the japanese ones who smiled back, in a totally unorthodoxe way.
We rode on all sorts of mode of transortations, our beautiful cruise ship Jayaravama, Sanpan boats, touktouk (rickshaws) motorbikes, private cars, vans, elephants, hot-air balloon on a stick etc.....
We shopped in local markets, streets sidewalks, hotels boutiques, post offices, museums, we ate incredible food, I made crepe for the entire ship one morning, that was a lot of fun! We took 2 cooking classes, one on the boat for cambodian food and one yesterday in Saigon for vietnamese food, after shopping a the local market for all the ingredients (great pictures to follow)
it's late now, we had the Thai dinner on the beach and we have to go to bed after the horrendous ride this morning to get here : 4 and half hours of incredible traffic, motorbikes with 3 or 4 people generally on it, riding in the middle of the road, trucks, buses riding mad and fast, and no highway, just a regular 2 lanes poorly paved road where you have to fend for yourself, a jungle of a traffic....., I will elaborate more on this topic, but it's time to go to bed under our ceiling mosquito net...... tomorrow we have time for a few hour of suntan on the beach or the 2 pools and a massage before we go back to Saigon to the airport, our flight is at midnight. bonsoir tout le monde