Forum Thermomix
Welcoming Center, Management and General Chat => Chit Chat => Topic started by: Frozzie on November 11, 2011, 01:00:19 am
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Well I can finally let you all know I am in Vietnam after months of organising a surprise for my mum...only a few knew via pm and I was busting to tell everyone but as mum has access to the forum I wasnt going to risk it. My dear mum turns 60 this week and had planned a trip to vietnam to celebrate with a close friend of hers expatriated in Vietnam who also turns 60 this week and so Luc I and the kids along with my Dad decided to surprise mum by turning up at the airport at Kuala Lumpur and join them on the connecting flight and spend a part of their holiday time here together...well she certainly got a huge surprise and was very happy and so were we. We spent our first day in vietnam yesterday and its a lovely place to visit...the kids are getting ALOT of attention with locals following us all over and people touching hte kids alot lol... especially DD...even at the airport when we arrived everyone kept wanting to touch her and were all getting excited like she was a star...was very funny but she is loving the attention.. and last night at dinner again the same thing with a whole lot of staff in the restaurant hanging around the kids at our table and playing them any chance they got.... We havent got to see too much of this lovely country as of yet only having arrived at lunch yesterday but the people are amazing and ever so friendly as are alot of the asian countries...obviously I will be thermieless for our short visit of 10 days 'DH couldnt get more time off and DS has alot on at school so :( ) but I will be enjoying every minute while we are here and checking out the local cuisine, people and different places to visit...Dad being a vietnam vet also wants to take me to vung tau (sorry if ive spelt that wrong) where he was based if i remember and nueh dhat?? for the tunnels etc and a bit of history of the war..
In any case I will be thinking of you all while being spoilt over here...they dont let you do anything yourself even get the kids etc out f cars and tell you no no its ok when you go to do it yourself and run to help you to do anything..makes a change from some places we have travelled to!!
ill post some photos when we get back and will check infrom time to time but in the meantime willb e enjoying our time here not to meniton my family.
Love to all
;D
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Frozzie what a wonderful surprise for your Mum and how lovely for all of you. Gosh your Mum is 60. I'm suddenly feeling very old. My DH had to delay his national service as he was at uni and then just missed out on Vietnam, thank goodness. A very dear friend did 3 trips and he and his wife are going back next year.
May you and all your family have a wonderful time and HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOUR MUM.
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yes thank goodness for your DH cookie...and age btw is just a thought..we are whatever age we want to be ;D re vietnam I have seen alot of problems and heartache because of that war..and some great guys too that lost alot in the name of politiques but anyway thats a whole other discussion.. :-))
thanks for the well wishes and Vietnam is a wonderful place and the people are just gorgeous....and Im obviously loving the precious moments I have with my parents and seeing them spend time with the kids.... ;D
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Have a fantastic time Frozzie, Vietnam is such a rich and diverse country with an amazing history. I'm sure you will all love it.
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Frozzie, have a great holiday, enjoy your time with family.
Robyn :D
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What a brilliant surprise. Your memories will keep you going for years to come. Enjoy your time in that wonderful country.
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WOW. Fantastic surprise, enjoy every moment
;D ;D
H :)
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Frozzie, so excited for you and your family. Have a wonderful time, it is a fantastic country to visit. Take lots of photos. DH and I were on one of the first western planes to go in after the war. Because we were Aussies we were very welcome. Many Vietnamese came to Australia as boat people and were very happy. They are very generous people. You will find a lot of very good french bread and pastries. Have fun. ;D ;D ;D ;D
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:o and what a wonderful way to celebrate your Mum's 60th!.....bet she was thrilled.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY FROZZIES MUM :)
Enjoy your trip.
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Hope you and all your family have a fantastic & very special time.
Happy 60th Birthday to your mum - and thanks to your Dad without men like him we may not have been able to enjoy the lives we have.
Shan x
P.S Saw on another thread that you were in Vietnam ans asked a few questions so please ignore my post as you have answered them all here!!!!
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That sure was a surprise for us, let alone your Dear Mum frozzie. My initial thoughts were that we had a new member joining us ;D What a wonderful time you are all going to have and would love to see some photos when you have time. Happy Birthday to your Mum.
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Amazing to, as today is Remembrance Day.
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Heh a wonderful surprise, have fun out there. Hopefully it's a bit warmer than Europe ATM; brr!
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My DH and I have been going to one new country each year for the last few years. Vietnam is next on my To Do list so I'll be sure to chat with you before I start my planning.
Have a great time and Happy Birthday to your Mum.
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How wonderful Frozzie! Enjoy every moment!!! :)
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Have a wonderful time with your Mum Frozzie.Happy 60th Birthday Frozzie's Mum :-*
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How wonderful Frozzie, Enjoy every minute (Which I am sure you will) And Happy Birthday to your Mum.
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enjoy your Holiday with your family and mum and dad
you sound like you were about to burst with excitement
and will be good to see the photos later and have a great time being spoiled
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Funny Frozzie I was only thinking about you last night and how quiet you had been. Now I know why. Enjoy yourself and the time with your family (I know you will) and a very Happy Birthday to your Mum.
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those tunnels sound absolutely amazing, and i would love to see them myself. my DD stayed in Vietnam with a friend in what she thought was a cheap hotel. They realised later they were staying in a brothel when the bell kept ringing all night.
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thankyou all for the well wishes and birthday thoughts for my mum...we are enjoying every minute together ;D
haha CP well im sure that would have been a shock...we are staying in a 5 star hotel so no probs there...but the funny thing is you can have luxury hotels or departments stores etc and right next door an actual very run down shack lol...there is something like 6 million scooters in Ho Chi Minh and they are everywhere but have to love when you cross the road they just split and go around you...today still shopping around the city and went over to district 2 to our family friends condo..lovely place but again a mix of wealth and poverty door to door...the funny moment of hte day was it was pouring rain and the roads in some areas were flooded and our driver just drove through it like everybody else even the scooters...it was a sight!..oh and at a late lunch at some beer garden there is alot of open uncovered areas in restaurants i imagine because of the heat and humidity but very funny in the rain when you order a drink and they need to get an umbrella to cross part of the restaurant to get to the bar haha!!
loving our time here...havent got out of the city yet...so much around to see but will organise a few day trips for next week...
tarasis...it is lovely weather and even though today it poured rain it was refreshing....the weather has been lovely and a much needed dose of warmth before heading back to freezing winter at home...ill send you and the UK girls some warm waves :) :)
as for the food I havent yet found anything i would write about...i had a version of a creme caramel th other day but it had an asia twistwhich i find htey do alot here not as nice as the orgiinal...so far i have foudn there are alot of westernise places to eat at except for te first night which is not what we are looking for...still we are still trying to find our way around the city and what places are good and which are not....taking heaps of photos...
take care alll and happy thxing xo
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Glad you are enjoying your holiday Frozzie, what a lovely surprise for your mum
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Well how wonderful for you and your family Frozzie. A few weeks ago I was in Vietnam as well. You will enjoy Vung Tau and the beaches there. Lots of wonderful food and things to see. Lots of sadness too especially for your dad. Great for the kids and a wonderful thing to do for your mum.
Gretchen
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Having a great time and have spent alot of time around hte main part of the city, eaten in a few of the bigger hotels..great views b ut food not so fab to be honest..they seem to be geared more for the westerner ..we had been going to these places as our expat friend was takig us there I imagie mainly for the view but I wanted to experiene more of local vietnam not as an expat style ...anyway today we went to the more local and very backpacker part of town near the Thai Binh Market or Pham Ngu Lao area and that was much more what I thought Vietnam would be...DH and I went out and left my parnents with the kids back at our hotel and we had a great vegetarian meal plus drinks (and we were stuffed) for $6...very basic restaurant but delicious food and all vegetarian in the place we ended up going...we have found nobody speaks alot of english unless you stay in District 1 and the more tourist part of town..even cabbies have alot of trouble..you really need to have the address of where you want to go written down and preferably in their language for them to fully understand...we usually get hte hotel staff to explain where we are going..makes it easier and alot of cabbies take you on a round about route haha to get to your destination but it still only costs about $1.50 to and from the city center so cheap as... we also had a massage today...heaps around and a range of prices...great massage..not so impressed with the Ben ThanH market...you can get cheaper prices in shopping centers like the Tax Center...we found them quite cheap for alot of things...stay away from all things brand name that are imported as the prices are the same if not more than you would get at home unless its a copy of course then its a chepa knock off and you get what you pay for...the people are lovely...tomorrow night we are going on a bonsai dinner cruise so will see what thats like, wednesday catching up with an aussie guy who is marrie dto a vietnamese woman and runs a number of hotels and bars etc in vung tau and also organises tours etc ..heard of him online and got in touch with him and he is organising a tour for dad and us around vietnam vets, the war etc...sounds great
we havent spent much time back at the hotel but are out day and night...great time..will definatley come back although shoppig is not what it used to be according to everyone we speak to inlcuding mum who has been here a few times..apparently prices have gone up several thousand yes thousand percent in the last twelve months or so... still we are having a great time but mum thinks malaysia is much better and cheaper for shopping..hope your all well...will post a few photos when i get a chance..
take care all
;D
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Great to hear your travel reviews Frozzie. How wonderful you can all be together, very special.
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Frozzie enjoy this special time with your mum and Vietnam!
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Fantastic Frozzie, lovely to hear all about your trip.
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today i think we will go back to the pham ngu lao area to have a look in the daylight and tonight is hte dinner cruise but this morning DS needs to do a little school work otherwise he will get too far behind and DH a little work but not for long...im limiting it to 1hour and might pop down for a swim in the gorgeous pool..DS wants to spend everyday in the pool lol!
mum showed us the hotel where they stayed last time and said there were dirt streets and its amaeing how much that part of the city has changed since they were here last time...I havent seen one dirt street even out in district 2...from what we have been told alot of the poverty has been pushed to the outskirts of the city..
here are a few photos..
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and a few more...
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Thanks for the photos frozzie - had a bit of rain whilst you have been there ;) The shop looks just like the one I go to for Asian ingredients, so much stuff in there. Love the cake, that will give maddy some decorating ideas and the lantern picture is just lovely too. What a lovely holiday you are having, thanks for sharing it with us.
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Lovely to hear news of your trip, Frozzie! Thanks for sharing! Glad to hear you're having a good time.
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Like the lantern pic. Hope the weather is kind to you: send all the rain to Tamworth please ;D
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that rain and looks like floods came down in around half an hour but didnt stop anyone driving around...alot of roads flooded then it subsided within a few hours after the rain had stopped..and that was only the first few days..the market shot is ben thanh markets that i found not really worth the visit..and the lantern shot is the garden bar at the rex hotel..lovely view and quite pretty but western food..
had a bit of trouble getting onto the forum..;i have found out htat vietnam block alot of websites and I cant log onto facebook at all and can usually only check my french email account..
yesterday we xere up at 5am and went to Vung Tau for the day...i caught up with a guy I found online that is an aussie and has several restaurant bars in vung tau and we had an amazing day with him on a war/battlefield tour...his name was Glenn who owns the Tommy Bar and Restaurants...great guy and he took dad up to where he was based during the war, where he was hit (and lost his leg on a mine) and also a great museum not yet open to the public which is a private collection (an amazing colllection) of war memorabelia over a thousand years, the location of hte long tan battle...all in all a good day..
today checked out more shopping but this time Saigon 2 whch was worth the visit...not impressed iwht the markets as theyu seem to be more expensive than the actual air conditined shops...
oh got ripped off on a tuk tuk ride..cost alot more htan a cab even when they quoted a different price before leaving....
have found hre are alot of con artists here ..who tend to play dumb and say they understand nothing when they do...mostly cab drivers or some shop owners...most things are just as expensive as at home so we havent bothered much with alot of shopping but its good to check out certain areas...
oh also did some tunnels but not hte chi chi tunnels some other ones..that was a laugh...i crossed the tunnels the whole way ent over at the waist...and came out filthy dirty but can say i have been in them once...thats enough lol
tonight we are out to a vietnemese bbq garden which sounds nice...last day tomorrow bevfore heading back saturday...
enough time for another massage and beauty treatment...a quick look around then will have to pack for the flight etc..
hope you are all well :-* :-*
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Enjoy the last couple of days there frozzie and thanks for the reports.
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Frozzie it certainly seems like you packed in many special moments in the 10 days with your family xx The Vietnamese people are so friendly and can never do enough for visitors :) :)
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well its our last day today...had a lovely time...only had one attempt at swiping my bag and we were all dressed up to go on a dinner cruise so sticking out like a sore thumb!!! the average salary here is around $250 US a month so i can see why they would try to swipe bags or rip people off but generally we had a good time....we only stuck with the vinasun taxis as the others have alot of faulty meters so you end up paying alot more...except the all green cabs apparently they are also ok but vinasun also have staff everywhere who can hail a cab for you....there are many what i call tourist security in green uniform that are there to help out in many things....vietnam is not expensive by european standards but not cheap either...some things are cheap like alot of food, drinks, taxis etc but not shopping not really unless its bad knock offs...
we have enjoyed our time here though and precious tme with my parents....i hate goodbyes but they are inevitable....i loved the ben thanh markets at night...not hte same as the day time but more street markets around the market building...that was worth the visit..also saigon square one and two but i preferred two..less people and easier to bargain! Alot of them think your loaded so ask ridiculous prices also so advise dressing very casually, no jewellery etc...they also know the prices for the same items in the US , europe etc which is why in some places there is on point coming down...they say alot of stuff in shops is genuine but i believe nothing is genuine here...very good copies but not great..we were looking for a camera lens here but the most we could get off it was around 50 so its ont worth it ..
anyway long flgt home ..we will be back sunday...looking forward to gettig back to home and thermie...i bought a couple of vietnemese cookbooks...the best meal i had was a pretty basic restauraant all vegetarian, nobody spoke english but the food was realy tasty!!
i wil write more and add some phtos once we are back home...lots of DD with locals taking photos with her lol...even some tourists at the post office yesterday and DH got interviewed by some local students as part of their degree....had to have an interveiw in english...
lovely people but would have loved to have seen this country ten years ago...even less...everyone keeps saying how much its changed in the last year or two...
ciao for now..look forward to checkig out all the new reicpes you have all posted :P ;D
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Glad you had a great time Frozzie. Looking forward to having you back again and reading your regular posts. Shame about the taxis though, I find this is a common thread in some of the nearby countries and you really need to be on the ball. When we travel I rarely wear any jewellery as it does seem to make you a target at times.
Looking forward to reading your posts about your trip.
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The power line photo made me smile frozzie. It's like that in Koh Samui and Phukett as well.
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Thanks for the photos & all the news about your trip, very interesting.
Have a safe trip home.
H :)
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What type of questions did they ask ur DH Frozzie
if the interview was anything like the bali interviews, it was a scam, it happens all the time in Bali.
Never give out your really name
Room number
Plans that you have like tours, dinner
Have a safe trip home
uni
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Frozzie, thanks for sharing your holiday with us. I really enjoyed Vietnam again. Safe trip home.
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Hi Frozzie, I am glad you have had a good time and loved reading your posts. Have a safe jourmey back ;D
JB
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The power line photo made me smile frozzie. It's like that in Koh Samui and Phukett as well.
they were everywhere and we even saw a guy up there obviously adding a new line lol...no equipment just him and his bare hands..amazing like the window washers who just have a rpe and a piece of wood to sit on... :)
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What type of questions did they ask ur DH Frozzie
if the interview was anything like the bali interviews, it was a scam, it happens all the time in Bali.
Never give out your really name
Room number
Plans that you have like tours, dinner
Have a safe trip home
uni
thanks guys
back home now and up at 4.30am but had a good sleep...one thing i hate about travellig is always the flight itself and then the decalage with the time diff but im very happy that DD is still sound asleep!
uni not to worry they were actual students they had university clothes on and asked pretty standard questions and nothing abut where we were staying etc and luc also had to ask them questions as part of their project...they had to do an interview in english but also be interviewed in english....
im also weary about telling anyone where we are staying or where we are going...some restaurant staffed asked while we were there and I didnt tell them either...people dont need to know where your staying....the big hotels are heavy on security for a reason..and many many shops.....found its mainly to stop pick pockets or bag snatchers entering etc
I didnrt particularly like the idea that if your an expat or tourist and have money etc (money for vietnam which is the average jo ) that everyone dotes on you whether it be to cross the road or in shops or at the hotel etc etc... Dont get me wrong I liked the fact that things were done for us everywhere we went but i didnt like the reaction of others that it was expected....and the expat kids were worse...they treated the locals like their personal help....i know its very typical of asia and i love the service orientate'd attitude but found some people quite disrespectful
but anyway home now, had a grezat trip and lovely time with my family...very hard to say goodbye and DD kept asking where nanny and poppy were...we will be back to skype ina couple of weeks once mum and dad finish their holiday in vietnam!!
today will be post holiday organisation and getting back into a routine..will attempt to read the several pages of posts that have been done during my short absense... ;D spoke too soon kids are both up so its going to be a longggggg day...they are of to school this mornign but will see if they go this afternoon or not ???
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Welcome home Frozzie, the hardest bit of having a holiday
All the washing and organising and feeling exhausted.
So nice to have been there for your mum and a surprise, even better!
Take it easy.x
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Frozzie I have loved looking at your photos and reading about your trip. Thanks.
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Welcome home Kim, I'm so glad all went well and your Mum had a huge surprise. I bet the 10 days together went by so quickly. Now it's back to the cooler weather and the mad rush before Christmas.
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thanks girls...it was precious time with my family and they will be coming over to see us in auguzst next year for a month so that will be great also...nice to be home and yes back to the cooler weather but its not too bad at the moment..its cool but the skies are blue and the sun is out which makes all the difference...but somehow think that the grey dreary weather is just around the corner with icy roads and freezing temps :( :(...mad mad rush before christmas..i havent organised anything yet so better get cracking...thank goodness the kids are at school which gives me some time to get on top of things during the day...missing the hour long massages thats for sure and having absolutely nothing to do!
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Thanks for sharing your trip. Would love to go to Vietnam one day so it's been interetsing hearing your feedback. Glad you had a happy time catching up with family--I don't know how you kept it secret! Good that you're home safe and sound.
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it was very difficult and i hate secrets...someone elses secret doesnt bother me as i tend ot just forget about it but when its a surprise type secret and im talkig to that person regularly arrrrrggghhhhh as well as I coudnt say anything on FB or on this forum etc incase she found out...I was very relieved when it was all out in the open...that sort of thing can give you ulcers..we didnt even tell the kids until the day before...incase they slipped up!