First destination

We arrived into Ho Chi Minh at like 6am after a 9 hour flight with Vietjet. It was not a full flight so Brandon took advantage of 3 seats, not knowing we needed to pay for the upgrade but he was fast asleep so they didn’t wake him. Inara and I dosed in and out throughout the flight and josh was squished next to an old lady and got very little sleep.

Getting the visa on arrival was easy. It took over an hour and half to get through passport control. The kids were getting restless but did really well keeping themselves entertained with games on whiteboard markets and hand clapping song games. (We got a SIM card while in line and was a great decision)

As we ended up being 15 min late for our taxi we quickly got food at the airport , where the kids got yummy mango smoothies and iced coffee for josh.

We had a three hour drive north east, through the city and to the ocean, to get to Mui Ne. The kids were very entertained with the many motorbikes and with very little traffic control. After the city we saw rural areas and lots of different plants. Dragonfruit, acacia trees, banana’s and a coconut are the ones we knew.

Inara has been talking about Dragonfruit for weeks so we got her a whole bag (11)for $1.20 aud (20,000 dong) on the side of the road.

We finally made it to just past the coastal fishing town of Mui Ne and made it to our hotel, APEC Mandala Ocean Resort.

Kids were more rested than the adults , Josh being the least rested meant I took the kids to the infinity pool on level 25 (in a different tower) and then down to the pool bar, following some time on the very fast water slides.

Tourist season is from Nov to April, so it’s a bit quiet and we pretty much had the pool to ourselves as well as the only people at dinner. We are pretty much the only non asians. Mui Ne seems to be a a weekend getaway from Saigon and is also a big kite surfing destination for Europeans. It is mostly visited by Vietnamese though.

I had a nap while the kids had some downtime and Josh finally got to read his book, before we headed to our first Vietnamese dinner. We all enjoyed our fried rice plates while we played Phase 10.

Downtime again and early to bed so we get a good nights sleep.Read more