Phu Quoc

We had a five days away in Phu Quoc. It's a beautiful island in the Gulf of Thailand, about 45 mins on a plane from HCMC.

We stayed at Mango Bay, which was lovely, and some of the others stayed next door at Coco Palm. 

Our cabin was quite open, with an open ceiling and an outdoor bathroom, meaning we shared it with lots of 'friends'!

The food at the hotel was lovely and you could sit watching the fishermen at work whilst munching away!

We spent one of the days on a snorkelling/fishing trip in the south.

Lots of people tried out the sea urchins but I gave them a miss!

We also rented out a kayak for an afternoon and made full use of the spa facilities for massages, but other than that, it was just a lovely week of sunbathing and chilling! To say I had a fab week on an island with friends, I don't seem to have taken any pictures of people, or the island for that matter...whoops...although a sign of a good holiday I suppose! Back at work now after a lovely chilled week away...dreaming of the next one!!

Saigon-Long Hai-Mui Ne

So I did my second easy rider last weekend...I didn't think much could top the original one, but wow...it was amazing!

On Friday, Spencer and Lou met us at our apartments and we travelled from HCMC to Long Hai. We did a short boat crossing and a few stop offs for drinks on the way (including one very long stop when one of the bikes broke down!)

On the Saturday, we made our way from Long Hai across to Mui Ne. 

We visited a few places on the way, including some sand dunes, a dragon fruit farm, and some caves/tunnels where, back in the war, people hid away from everyone, including their families, for years.

We walked up to the top of the mountains to a pagoda overlooking the villages and the coast..it was beautiful. We met a lovely old man there..

He reminded me of the Indonesian character in Eat, Pray, Love who advises Julia Roberts!

From there, we visited a fishing village, and ate the most amazing meal, freshly caught and cooked for us. It was a random set up, with people sleeping all over the place...apparently they paid to lie down in the cafe/guest house for the week whilst they were visiting the local temple.

We visited Tien Thanh beach with beautiful views and special rock cliff formations (interestingly shaped!!) and then ended the day watching the sunset from the temples.

Our hotel in Mui Ne was lovely...first chance to deep our feet in the ocean since arriving in Vietnam too!

On Sunday, we travelled back from Mui Ne to HCMC.

We visited the whale monument, which holds the biggest whale skeleton in Asia. Here, they believe that whales are sacred, as they protect the fishermen in the storm. They hold big funerals when a whale dies!

We also visited the Binh Chau hot springs, where we could buy eggs and watch them boil within minutes in the fresh spring water. Although it was interesting, it was a bit disappointing how commercialised they'd made it all...it looked more like a theme park than a place where natural springs are found!

We finished the day by visiting a local meditation centre. A lovely, calming atmosphere! What a beautiful weekend!

Next stop...Phu Quoc!!

A weekend of mourning...or not!

So General Vo Nguyen Giap passed away on 4 October, aged 102 years old. As he was held in very high esteem in Vietnam, a two day state funeral was arranged. Our principal sent us all an emailing telling us that "He was best known as the Commander in Chief of the Vietnam People’s Army at the battle of Dien Bien Phu when the French colonisation of Vietnam was finally ended and throughout the war with America. He was widely regarded as a tactical military genius and is historically significant in world terms".

Because of the 2 day funeral, lots of entertainment activities, like the Oktoberfest, were cancelled. Night clubs were shut, and small bars and restaurants were kept open but without any live music playing. So although Lucy was arriving on the Friday, I half expected it to be a chilled weekend with not too much going on...it didn't quite work out like that...whoops!!

Friday night was great- met Lucy at the airport and got a takeaway. Saturday daytime was quite chilled...other than a potter to the shops, we didn't get up to too much. It was Nicola's 30th, so although we'd celebrated it last week at the pirate bar (I made a mosaic mirror), 

we had a birthday cake and a few drinks at mine, before heading out to The Deck. 

We had a fab night, including watching the sunset from a private boat, having a lovely meal overlooking the river, enjoying the 2-4-1 cocktails, and heading over to Jon and Zaya's for their party (indoors due to the list of do's and don'ts we'd been sent from the principal!).

On Sunday, we continued the weekend of drinking by celebrating Emma's birthday at the all you can eat and drink Intercontinental buffet! So the weekend of none partying, dancing or drinking etc, which I had originally thought would be happening, ended with heading to bed at 4pm on a Sunday night with the room spinning! A great weekend! Now on the count down to half term...only 1 week at school to go!

Book Week

This week at school we celebrated World Book Week. The corridors were all decorated as scenes from our favourite books, and each Mile Post had a book that all lessons were linked to over the week.

On Friday, we all came to school dressed as our favourite characters. The children chose a range of book characters. EYFS staff came as dinosaurs, MP1 staff came as characters from The Wizard Of Oz, MP2 staff came as characters from The Wind In The Willows, and MP3 as traditional nursery rhyme characters. Office staff came as the characters from Charlie and The Chocolate Factory.