Vietnamese people are the best!!

We got up first thing and it was raining... although we were a bit hesitant to have a full day out on the scooter they persuaded us to go anyway so we headed out. First stop coffee. They took us to a hip coffee shop with a terrace looking over the canal. We ordered the slow drip traditional Vietnamese coffee and sat practising English and chatted. Then the fun began! First stop was Thien An Monastery and then the much talked about abandoned water park! The water park was very fun, first we went past the "No Visitors" entrance and went to see the large dragon with the old aquarium inside. This was actually super cool, but slightly creepy! The park grounds were really big so we jumped back on the scooters to explore the other side in hope to see the water slides! When we got to the other side we had a bit of a wander round and were about to go to the water slides when a man dressed in white "looking official" on his scooter came honking his horn. We had read about this and the guy claims that he is the guard but he's not. The kids said they would go back to the gate, distract the guy and then we can quickly scooter off to the slides. It wasn't such a smooth getaway... By the time we worked out where or how to get there he was back on us. Then all of a sudden 6 other scooters with tourists came. We chatted for a couple of minutes to come up with a plan (the guy was still crazily honking). We decided to be the decoy and head back to the exit to distract him while the others disperse in every direction. It was like a scene out of Tom and Jerry. Will turned the scooter round, ended up driving on some grass, hit a mound and I went flying into the back of him causing a minor injury to his leg, but luckily it was OK. The guy led us to a completely different exit so it took a while to get back to the kids but eventually we reunited. After a couple of minutes the rest of the tourists arrived and decided to try their chances again through this entrance! We'd had more than enough excitement and decided to exit the scene of the crime and head for lunch.

Lunch was really yummy and really different from anything else we ate. To To be honest I'm not sure what it was but it was fab 😊

After lunch we headed to our final stop with the kids, Thien Mu Pagoda. We had a nice wander round, went for refreshing bean drink. It was just the most amazing start to our day. They were so hospitable, fun and caring. We couldn't stop beaming with happiness the whole time!!

We then decided to part ways and we headed off to see the famous emperors tombs. The architecture was so grand for each emperor and quite impressive and the drive to each was really fun. We are beginning to love driving a scooter 😊 However... Most bikes we got over our 1 month in Vietnam always had some sort of issue. Eg only one mirror, petrol gauge not working, speedo not working. Its never been an issue until now. We were at the very last tomb and when we got there it was closed so we started heading back. The petrol gauge on the bike was broke but we had put in over 3 litres which would normally do for any day trip... until today... All of a sudden the bike cut out and we were completely bone dry. Luckily a local came to the rescue and bought us some petrol in a plastic bottle and all was fine! Phew! In the evening we went for dinner, skyped the family and had an early night!

The next day we went to the imperial city, visited the local market, bought more of our beloved rambutans, had 2 dinners as we forgot to eat lunch again and then met up with our Chaing Mai Family again for drinks. After being away for so long you do begin to really miss seeing your friends and family so it's so nice to see these guys every so often to give our travels a feel of normality!

Tomorrow we have planned a crazy day... I'll start a new footprint for that.Read more