End Of Term.......

The school holidays have arrived.

It has been a long tiring term, looking forward to no early morning lunch making and running to catch school buses.

Today Cassie has left for Coloundra with her cousins for a week, so it is just the two boys and me at home. They will have to spend some time at the workshop with me each day but I will work shorter days. They are old enough to do some general cleaning in the shop for some spending money.

Tomorrow I am going to Brisbane for a girls day out with 2 of my daughters Chloe and Alanah. We are of to Ikea for the day. I am hoping that they have the POD chairs there as I have wanted one for so long. I can see one hanging on my veranda in the sun for early morning cuppas.



Thursday my quilt arrived from Vietanam.OOOOOOHHHHH
it looks just as I imagined. This quilt was all hand made by local village women and the money goes straight to them.

Well I'm heading outside to enjoy the sun on this beautiful winter day.
Enjoy your week end
Mandy

Birthday & Holidays

Happy Birthday

Cassandra......

Today my youngest daughter is 15

Have a great day Cass bass.

Now back to the holiday..
We spent 2 days in Hoi An doing some serious shopping, I had shoes made, clothes made and bought about ammmm 9 handbags cough cough yes 9....

Then it was on to Sapa.

We flew to Hanoi than the overnight train to Sapa. So amazing here, the hills and Fields of rice . We stayed at Topas Eco Lodge, which over looks the hills. Getaway was there at the same time doing a show.

The first day we hiked 16kms up and down, up and down then up and down again.

Below

Not the best picture but at least I am standing cause by this time the legs were pretty well jelly.

I loved the hiking though, seeing so much and walking through all the villages, and meeting the locals.

After 3 days in Sapa it was back on the overnight train to Hanoi.

Below we are having tea all local produce from our walk about in Sapa, and even the wine was local.

From Hanoi we flew to Halong Bay.
Here we boarded our boat(junk) and cruised around these islands for 3 days.

We saw fish farms, pearl farms, did some kayaking through the caves.

More hiking, and cave walking. Some big caves were around this bay. They were beautiful, walking through them was like being in another world.

But now I am home and haven't even had time to blog I have been so busy. This long weekend though I am going to get into the vege garden, as it is comming along well...

I hope you all enjoy your weekend,

Mandy

This is my first daytime look at Ho Chi Min City.

A lady out picking her herbs and watering her garden.

Buildings as far as the eye can see.. There were roof top gardens every where, the Vietnamese people use every available space for there herbs and vegs. The building are very narrow, even the houses in the cities are narrow and 3-4 stories high.

We were soon on a bus and drove for 4 hours, sorry not a lot of good photos as I had my nose to the window and I am sure my mouth was open.....staring.....I can't begin to describe the traffic, scooters every where not many cars just scooters, and all beeping at one another.

Once we got to the Mekong Delta we went to have a look along the river and to see the floating markets. From the back we have Alison, Amanda, Bronwyn, myself and Raylene. They were the funniest girls you could go on a trip with.

Frogs any one.....yum yum. The food as I said was different, these frogs were for sale at the markets. We never had the chance to try any though, but on our first night we did eat rat, yes girls I did say rat... They assured us as it was a rice paddy rat it was clean......hmmmmm tasted like quail any way.

The size of the Mekong Delta is amazing, people living and trading on the water.

A city on the water....Below all these boats are floating markets, and peoples homes, like the scooters only on water.

This building below is a fish farm. The fish are underneath and they live and work in the house. We saw these all along the Mekong Delta....

This is just my first day in Vietnam....

Below is our home stay cook, we all got in and cooked the rat, fish, veges and made spring rolls.

I enjoyed being in the home stay and getting to know the family.

What an introduction I had on the first day, I went on a bus, boat,scooter and in the evening we went push bike ridding around the village.

I hope I don't bore you to much with my trip, but there is more to come so stay tuned.

Mandy