November Adventure Day 2 (Vietnam) 2-11-2015 Food, Rain and More Planes.

Everything I was I carry with me. Everything I will be lies on the road ahead - Majain


Hello my wonderful blog readers. I have been blessed with another day and another beautiful country. Today we made our way for Singapore to Vietnam. Now in Vietnam I am once again immersing into a new culture that is rich and unique. For all travelers sometimes this "uniqueness" can be a little overwhelming to say the least. So when you mix in an anxiety disorder things can get a little bit more difficult. Today was the start of what I am sure is going to be a very difficult, but also rewarding, educating and enriching experience of Vietnam.

So here we go with day 2 of my November Adventures.

So today began with another sleepy start and a goodbye to the streets of the beautiful Singapore. You may be wondering why we only spent one day in Singapore and it is because we had all been here not too long ago but it was nice to go back and see the country again before moving onto the next part of our month long adventure.
The morning was again spent in the airport which is starting to feel like my second home right about now. But there will thankfully be no more plane trips until towards the end of our journey. However airport food isn't bad so I had my second breakfast at the airport which consisted of an egg sandwich  and an iced chocolate. In case you were curious my first breakfast was tea and biscuits and I am a hobbit at heart and I like to have many meals.

Then after some more waiting and some baggage adventures. We have all decided that each baggage checker asks for different items to be taken out of your bag. So there is no way to prepare. This means a lot of fumbling around to get things in and out of cases.
We eventually made it to the plane a Valium and a lifesaver later I had fallen asleep before the plane had even left the tarmac. I didn't wake up until we only had a short time left before descend. For someone who is anxious on planes I feel like I am a veteran flyer now. I think I have got the technique of sleeping on the plane down, which made today a uneventful (in a good way) flight for me.






Arriving in Vietnam we were greeted when we got off the plane by these beautiful orchids. I just had to add them into this blog because you all have probably gathered how much I love flowers.







We made our way out of the airport and started our journey to the hotel. The first challenge was finding a taxi. The currency here, which is dong is very difficult to understand 1 Australian Dollar equals 16032.11 Vietnamese Dong; for all who were wondering. We got approached by a taxi man, who wanted to charge 750,000 dong ( about $46 AUD) for the ride to our hotel. But we found a metered taxi and ended up only being charged 120,000 Dong (about $7.50 AUD) So this was our first lesson, in Vietnam. Always use metered taxis. 
And a taxi ride later we arrived at our hotel. 











We were greeted by tea in this beautiful little mug. Now if there is anyway to win my heart and my approval it is through tea and/or food. We also got a complimentary fruit basket too. So I was sold, this was the start to a beautiful stay in a beautiful hotel.

Lunch time came soon after and we ate lunch by the lovely hotel pool. The staff were super friendly and one women spoke with us and helped us to decide on some good places to visit, which I am sure you will see if you stay tuned on this journey.

It was an afternoon of well needed rest and a lovely refreshing swim. I also ate some of a lovely complimentary dragon fruit.

When the evening rolled  around it began to rain, it is rainy season here so I suspect there will be a bit of this going around on our trip. So we were inside bound of the evening.
We played cards and we didn't have full pack we had accidentally put in an extra 4 of diamonds instead of a 4 of hearts. But a little card engineering later and by that I mean drawing on it with a pen. The card game went on.

We ventured out eventually as the rain died down a little. As we were all hungry enough to brave the rain. Especially me, my stomach has a bad habit of eating itself when it is not being fed.

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 There was a strange man in the restaurant who wanted to give us all massages and wouldn't take no for an answer. This was obviously a little confronting to say the least. But luckily my family is marvelous and got him to stop massaging me before a fully fledged panic attack occurred. After this little bit of excitement, dinner arrived.
We had yet another vegetarian dinner success! I am also a huge fan of noodles so dinner was a win.

After dinner we decided to go for a wander on the streets of Vietnam, which were busy, bustling and very frightening. With my anxiety level spiked I braved the streets. I don't think I payed any attention to anything that was going on but I made it around the block. This to me was a mammoth effort and a big achievement. So I gave myself a mental pat on the back (when I was back in the safety of my room) and had a  nice chat with Elliott, who you may remember from a previous post. (Click here for that post)


Then I fell into a deep and well deserved nights sleep in preparation for another big day, in this very blessed journey.
Tune in again soon to see the next day of my trip. Thank you as always for reading my content. It makes me super happy to see that people are seeing what I post. I love sharing my journey through life (and at the moment Asia) with you guys. Until next time xx.