Hey loyal followers!
I know it has been a while since I last wrote, I have been lazy!! I never thought being retired and living as an Expat we keep us so busy. Well, what keeps us busy is really the children, raising four children and home schooling them is a full-time job for both of us.
Let’s pick up where we left off back at the end of December. We have finally been in Thailand long enough to need to renew our tourist visa. We considered many different places, however, decided on Vietnam. There is a lot of cost involved in getting a tourist visa, there is the cost of visa in the country you are getting the visa from and the cost of visa for Thailand too. We got a brake because we learned the kids do not need a visa till, they are 15 years old in Thailand, since Ayden is only 11 years old, we have 4 more years till we have to get him one. Vietnam was cheaper than the other places we researched, plus we loved Vietnam the first time we visited there in June 2018. We chose to visit Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam for 8 days. Ho Chi Minh City formerly named Saigon is one of our favorite cities in South East Asia. Saigon, as most of the locals still call it is quickly becoming a modern city full of led lights, great shopping, world class restaurants and the best part is its cheap, cheap, cheap. The Vietnamese Dong is extremely devalued against the US Dollar.
To travel to the airport, we again called upon our favorite taxi service ‘Joe Taxi’ on Facebook and arranged a VIP van to take us to Don Muang Airport. The ride to the airport and flight to Saigon were uneventful, which was great!! We needed visas to enter Vietnam which I obtained online. On the form was a block for children traveling with you in which I filled out on Christina’s and my forms. I was thinking, great we don’t have to pay for visas for the kids, win. BOY WAS I WRONG. When we arrived at the Saigon airport we waited in a long line at immigration, about 30 minutes. Then we were informed that the children needed visas and we would have to return to Thailand. I kept calm and very politely explained about the form and how it is misleading. The officer was very nice and went and talked to a supervisor. They decided to grant us an emergency visa for the kids, but they would be $50 each. The online visas are only $25. I of course made my best ‘I can’t afford that, it too much money face’ and sadly said; “Ok, thank you”. The officer took the kids pictures and I filled out their visa applications. This took us about 2 hours of waiting, oh and did I mention there is no air conditioning. Finally, they called us to pay and I guess they took pity on us because they only wanted $25 now!! Lesson learned, apparently some countries, and maybe the USA (I don’t know) allow your children’s information to be placed inside the parents passport instead of each child having their own passport. This is why the original form had an area for children traveling with you.
After the visa debacle we found our driver which I had prearranged and off to the apartment we went. We stayed at a serviced apartment in district 3 near the Thai Embassy as our main reason for the visit was a new visa. Three bedrooms, two baths, full kitchen, and a washing machine, we paid only $40 a night.
The next day was New Years, we didn’t do much, but we did find our way to the closest mall with an indoor playground called TiNiWORLD. https://tiniworld.com/vi/tiniworld-vincom-thu-duc/. TiniWORLD has over 50 different locations around Vietnam. Inside they have a playground, and different play areas such as, sand, cars, dress up, blocks, arts & crafts, and an arcade. It cost us $18 USD for the six of us for the DAY, that’s right, $18 for the entire day. Told you Vietnam was cheap. The kids had a blast, we spent most of the day there except for me. I had to go and get us sim cards and a pocket Wi-Fi so the kids could do their schoolwork. The Wi-Fi in the apartment was not fast enough and it was taking forever for the kid’s school sites to load. Sim cards, pocket WIFI and enough Gigs to last us 8 days set us back about $60 US. That evening after we washed all the sand out of the kid’s hair, Ayden and I ventured out in search of some food. We found some excellent brick oven pizza which was a hit with all of us. It wasn’t as good as Naples Pizza, but it was really, really close.
The next day I went to the embassy to apply for the visas. Everyone was great and very helpful, but there were a few things I was missing. I needed to make some copies of some forms and the Visas needed to be paid for in US Dollars which I didn’t have. The embassy staff showed me where I could exchange money and where to make copies. I ordered a Grab car (Uber/lift in SE Asia). 30 minutes I was back and told I could pick up my visas the next afternoon. Process was easy and no waiting in lines. One of the reasons we went to Saigon was the Thai Embassy there does not require an appointment unlike the one in Laos.
The rest of our trip basically consisted of us schooling the children in the morning and then going out in the afternoon for exploring. We visited another mall with a similar indoor playground as before except this one had a TiNiWORLD and a TiNiPARK. I took the two little ones to TiNiWORLD and Christina took the older ones to TiNiPARK. TiNiPARK was really cool, there was rock-climbing, football, pedal cars, trampolines, basketball, soccer, an obstacle course, and a small zipline. And of course, the kids had a blast and were mad when it was time to leave.
One thing all my friends know is I LOVE PHO, a friend of mine Nik Renz tuned me on to it years ago in Virginia. We would go weekly and get carry out; I even kept a ‘Pho Bowl’ (big Tupperware bowl) at work. Eating Pho is a must when visiting Vietnam so we went to Pho Hoa Pasteur http://phohoapasteur.restaurantsnapshot.com/ the Pho there is amazing. The place is no frills, wooden benches, packed with people and smells oh so wonderful. They also had bananas, and fried bread on the table. Jeremiah and Sofia quickly devoured the bananas. I want to go back right now and eat there again.
One of our other favorite restaurants we ate at in Ho Chi Minh City was Sushi Hokkaido Sachi. The kids absolutely loved the show, the chef, and the food. Even our pickiest child Zachary was eating most of the food, even ate the fish and he never eats fish. The chef and wait staff were in love with our kids. The best part for the kids was when the chef let the kids and us catch an egg on the spatula.
As you can tell we had a great time in Saigon, and we will probably go back again. If you were wondering why we didn’t see any of the main attraction like the War Remnants Museum, Cu Chi Tunnels or Reunification Palace is because we visited those when we were in Ho Chi Minh City summer of 2018. What is the saying, “Been there, Done That”!
