Birthday, Christmas and New Year in HCMC

Well it's very nice to have had Whitney and Cameron here for all of these events, my birthday, Christmas AND New Year.  They have also done some tripping around in between as well.  They arrived on my Birthday night which was a great present.

We had a couple of nights together then they headed to Nha Trang and onto Hoi An to meet us for the weekend.  It's my favourite place in Vietnam so far (we were there last December)...more popular with girls than boys since there is a shopping element in it.

                                   We did some touring around the city including a bike ride....

                                                         Ate some yummy local food

                         Drank some coffee looking at the view....Cam in his newly tailored jacket.

                                             Christmas tree made of silk lanterns...gorgeous.

        Phil found a new girlfriend....she's a bit stiff, doesn't loosen up at all, and I think she's lost her head?

Following that we came back home to HCMC for work and Cam and Whit continued a couple of nights in Danang to look around there.  They got back on Christmas eve for the start of the celebrations.

Amazing decorations at the Legend Hotel where we enjoyed a smorgasbord lunch.

                                                 The room in the hotel where lunch was.

                                                                   Lunch table

We had another couple of work days and Whit and Cam did some touring around then we were off to Mui Ne which is a beach resort area only 230kms from HCMC.  This, however, takes 6 hours to cover so we got a private car which was better than a bus to take us.  Still sitting for 6 hours either way is a long way!

Walking along the beachfront day 1

                                                                In the resort

                                     

                    No lifeguards but of course there are life jackets for the non-swimming people

 Whit and Cam got kite surfing lessons and got up on the board the second day! Cam is in the middle of the picture with a black hat doing his practice too.

                                                                      The resort beach
               
                                      

                                                  Fruit sellers on the beach of course.....

                                    Breakfast, the water is behind that hedge in the background.

Kite school graduates!

                      There would have been around 300 kite surfers out each day...just crazy!

 From the Mia resort along the beach where we had dinner at Sandals restaurant and a coffee earlier in the day.

And the long drive home!

now .... NEW YEARS EVE....we went into the city and had some drinks and dinner at Phatty's Bar where they also had the Lion Dancers to welcome in the New year and bring luck to the restaurant. 

                      Out the front of the restaurant...the lion dancers with all of the audience in the street.

                              We just looked through the window from our seats...perfect!

 On the walk home we stopped to watch the fireworks along with around a million other people

The crazy streets

So Happy New Year from us...hope you have enjoyed our updates for 2013 this is the start of 2014 and an exciting year ahead.  Hope your year is full of excitement too!