The hunt for suncream and deet...

Well I spoke too soon... Unfortunately our Vietnam mum was booked up! (I need to stop telling people how amazing she is). We had quite a panic in the 5 mins when we arrived to the bus station to decide on accommodation but we found a lovely little apartment instead. The problem was now we had to sort out dinner 🤔 After a very quick search we realised we were very much in a locals section of District 1 and actually had the dilemma of wanting to go to two places... So we just went to both!! 😂 I thought I was losing weight but maybe won't be for much longer if we keep eating 2 meals in one haha!! First we went for the famous Thịt bò nướng là lỗ which I grilled beef in betel leaf. For dinner number 2 we had Bún thịt nướng. Yum yum yum. Why I see anyone go to a western restaurant I don't know! As it was still quite early we had been advised to go that the main tourist street might sell suncream and deet so off we went. By golly they were charging 300 Đồng for a 75ml bottle! That's £3 a bottle... Although to be honest at least we found some! However we decided we will try a big supermarket on the edge of town instead tomorrow.

Luckily we woke up to a message from our Vietnam mum and she said we can stay at hers tonight. So we headed over to drop off our bags in the morning. Then the hunt for deet and suncream began again!

Well... When I initially started today's blog it was 7:30am and I was up and although Will was also awake somehow it took him till 11:30am to actually leave the flat. So we had Bánh xèo for brunch and then headed to our Vietnamese mum and dad. We got in and was instantly warmly welcomed by the dad and then the mum on his telephone! Also Will's credit card had arrived from the UK, which was due to expire this month, so all was great! We then did a bit of planning and headed out for bùn thit nướng downstairs and then out of town to Big C in hope that a vert big supermarket will sell big bottles of deet and suncream!

Well we were able to get suncream and deet but unfortunately they are 90ml bottles. However it was a very successful trip as we were able to get cheapish peanut m&ms something I was craving last week! I think I'll have to save them for a special occasion! We then went to what is known as phone case street as my new Huawei came with a super crappy one. When we arrived there is literally shop after shop of phone cases!!

In the evening we had a yummy dinner and planned our next destination Dalat. Although a very slow start it ended up being a pretty successful day.

It's Wednesday today and it's our last day in Ho Chi Minh. Although I'm excited to move on we absolutely love this city and our Vietnamese family so I'm sad to say bye. The mum insisted on us staying for dinner before we headed off for our sleeper bus to Dạ Lát so we spent the day exploring with the first stop eating the yummy Bun Thit Nuong. We then explored areas not seen and saw some temples, drank coconut coffee and had some ice cream. Finally we had a huge feast with the family and then headed for our bus! Now... I decided to post this before getting on the bus... Vietnamese sleeper buses are notorious for being quite uncomfortable and a bit... hairy... But hey can it really be worse than our trips in Laos? Watch this space for an update!Read more