Epic Kennedy Holidays

This post is going to be all the best things we have done or best meals and accommodation. Hope you like it!!!

Best Accommodation

I have a top 3 for this category. In no particular order…

Phong Nha Farmstay – Pool, outdoor movie, pool table, free breakfast

Betel Garden – Pool, free bikes, free breakfast

Victoria Chau Doc Hotel – Pool, table tennis, pool table, free buffet breakfast

Best Meal

Chicken Fried Rice at Pepper House – Best fried rice I have ever tasted

Best Activity

In no particular order…

The Dark Cave – Zip-line into a cave, Flying Fox into a river, bikes on water and mud bath in the cave!!!

Sentosa Island – Universal Studios and Madame Toussards

Scooter Tour – Vespa’s around Saigon

Coolest Thing

Ion Sky – 56 storey building with amazing view of Singapore from the top

Most Interesting Thing

Cu Chi Tunnels. The fact that the soldiers basically lived in them

Funniest Moment

Inside the dark cave there was a slippery hill that used as a slide. Mum slid down and while she got up dad went down and knocked her over!

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Day 1

We arrived on the overnight bus from Phnom Penh at 5:00am on the 19th. Didn’t sleep very well-woke up around 1am. Took a tuk-tuk to our accommodation, Seven Candles. The gates were closed but the tuk-tuk driver yelled in Khmer (language Cambodians speak)and someone came and opened the gates. We checked into our rooms (fortunately they were ready) and by 5:45 everyone was asleep. At around 8am we woke up and had  breakfast. We went for a wander around for a little bit and then came back and swam for a little bit at Frangipani Villas because Seven Candles didn’t have a pool.

Day 2

On the second day at Siem Reap we went to Angkor. Our guide was called Bunrith. We went to the amazing Angkor Wat which is the biggest religious structure in the world. Angkor Wat is the building depicted on the Cambodian flag. It was built a Hindu structure. It is sooo cool or, as Dad would say, grandma undies waving cool. There is a mural on one wall depicting three levels. The bottom level is Hell, the middle the court of judgement and the top is Heaven. The next temple we went to was the Temple of Lunch but you all know what I mean so I don’t need to go into that. After that we went to The Bayon in  Angkor Thom. The Bayon used to have 54 towers each with 4 faces. That means there used to be 216 faces but now there are 37 towers equaling 148 faces. Some are sad, some are happy, some have parts of their face missing, one even has plants growing out of it! After the Bayon we went and saw Ta Prohm which-unlike any of the other temples- has been left to the jungle. It is the site of some of the filming from the movie Tomb Raider. We then went back to Siem Reap and stayed at our accommodation for a while before setting out for dinner and the night markets. At the night markets Cade, Luke and I got a foot massage from some sucker fish. It was very funny watching Luke laughing when a fish was nibbling his foot. After the night markets we went back to Seven Candles and went to bed.

Day 3

Yesterday we did a pottery class in the morning. I really liked making the pots and I made one all by myself. We got to carve on the pots as well. We got a sheet with some patterns that were called Kbach. I really liked carving into the pots. After the pottery class we went to Artisans of Angkor and saw some artist making pictures and carvings l. They were very impressive and good. That night we went to the circus and it was AMAZING. It was so good! At nine the show finished and we went back to our accommodation in a tuk-tuk.

 

Our second day in Ho Chi Minh was our day of tours. Our first tour was the Cu Chi Tunnels and the second was a scooter tour in Vietnam’s busiest city.

We got up early to meet the tour guide for the Cu Chi Tunnels at our hotel at 7am. We then went by van to our boat that we would be travelling in to get to the Cu Chi Tunnels.

The boat ride was fun with unlimited refreshments (nothing better than coke at 8am) and breakfast provided.

The Cu Chi Tunnels are famous because the Vietnamese soldiers used them to get around during the war. They were a few metres underground, with 3 layers and in total stretching 200km. The tunnels were very narrow so that the big, fat American soldiers couldn’t fit but the small agile Vietnamese could.

Once we got off the boat we started the tour of Cu Chi. Our first stop was where we saw how the soldiers got in the tunnels and then everyone got to try.

 

We then saw how they made the tunnels and all the traps the Vietnamese soldiers made. These were made of sharp steel or bamboo, that when someone stepped on the trap, they would fall in qnd be stabbed.

 

My favourite part was when we got to go in the tunnels. We got to crawl 40m in the tunnels which was fun, but I don’t know how they did it everyday during the Vietnam War.

 

Our 2nd tour of the day was the scooter tour, in Ho Chi Minh. The scooters picked us up at the boat landing and then we set off. Being on the scooter was thrilling, especially when the traffic is so close together.

Continue reading “Cu Chi Tunnels and Scooter Tour”

We arrived in Hoi An after a drive from the Da Nang train station and a 2 hour train trip from Hue. Our 3 days in Hoi An would be spent at Betel Garden Homestay, a few minutes drive from the city centre.

When we got to the homestay my first impressions were that I would get lost walking to our villa. There was that much greenery that I couldn’t see a single villa from the front gate! They gave us welcome drinks (passion fruit juice) and, luckily, led us to our villa.

The first thing we did was get in the pool, since it was 500 degrees and humid. This was what we spent most time doing in Hoi An. Once it cooled down to 300 degrees we decided to go for a bike ride into the town and have a look around. I think I preferred Hoi An to the other cities because it was so much quieter, with less people everywhere.

Over the next few days in Hoi An we had clothes tailor made, lots of great food, bike rides and swam a lot (because it was 500 degrees). This was one of the best stays of the trip so far and it will be a big change going to our next stop, the busiest city in Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh City.

We took the train SE1 from Ga Hue to Ga Danang. Fortunately the train left at 9:00 instead of at 6:30-ish. When we got to Danang we took a transfer to Betel Gardens, our accommodation for Hoi An. We went into the pool for a little bit and then rode into town. On the first day in town we walked around a little bit and had dinner at Miss Ly’s. I got a watermelon yoghurt shake and it was deeelicious. It was dark by the time we rode back to the accommodation it was dark. We had a night time swim which was very nice after a hot day. On the second day we rode into town and went to the tailor to get some stuff made for us. Dad got two suits and two shirts made. I got a dress made for me which is really nice. We swam when we got back from the tailors and then rode back to the tailors and had a fitting. Some of the family had to come back for another fitting the next day. On the third day at Betel Gardens we went for a ride down near the river. We rode back to Betel Gardens and had a swim. Then we went into town because Mum, Dad and Cade had another fitting. Mum bought a leather bag while we were out and I got a nice kimono. After the fitting we came back and had a swim. We then had dinner with some other families. After dinner we went back to our villa and the stuff from the tailors was delivered. Then Mum and Dad packed the suitcases while the kids went to bed.

We took a train from Hue to Danang train station on the train  to Danang.  It was beautiful. Then we took a van to get to Hoi An. When we got to Hoi An we went to the homestay and settled in.Then we went to the pool.  I like Hoi An because it is really nice – I have been going in the pool a lot and we ride everywhere on bikes.

Off the wonderful sleeper train where dad got locked out of his sleeper at 0500 so watched the world go by…….40 min by bus from Dong Hoi train station to Phong Nha Farmstay….a pretty cool oasis….

Beautiful views, with lovely, friendly staff.

A bike ride to Pepper House…lunch and a swim…

He really is having a great holiday!!!

Day trip to a temple, memorial cave, Paradise and Dark caves…wow grandma has her britches out again waving them about….

The temple has been built in rememberence of what happened in a small cave and as a symbol of what lots of Vietnamese endured through the war.

8 people took refuge in the cave during a bombing raid, when artillery caused the mouth of the cave to collapse and a huge slab of rock (that a tank could not move!) remained insitu for over 8 days after which time those inside perished of starvation.

Paradise Cave…a 25 min walk up a hill in the heat and humidity to go under ground into the cool of the cave….stalactites  and stalagmites on an epic scale…we only did 1km of the 34.2km!

Absolutely staggering.

Dark Cave…photos on the water proof…400mtr zip line to a landing..jump in the water and swim to the entrance. Luke, Abby and I missed out on the zip lining…they were a little too light and I was not!

Once in the cave it was a few hundred mtr walk/crawl/slide/ climb to the mud pool which was like a chocolate bath but cold…yet it’s consistency made you +++ buoyant….very cool experience…still getting mud out of our gear!!

We then played on a smaller zipline with water bikes and a pontoon…great lots of fun. We had another family of 5, a single German and 2 Swedes with us and our tour operator (Victor) pulled out 2btl of rum…needless to say the bus was a little louder on the way back to the Farmstay. Victors history lesson was quite touching…on the train again tomorrow morning to Hue.

 

 

Leaving Hanoi we jumped on a bus from our hotel to Ha Long…about a 4 hr drive…then onto our boat which had six separate cabins…..

Th food was beautiful…

The company was pretty good….ish

And the views….Ha Long Bay, beautiful one day…..

Rainy the next…

A lot undecided, the captain finally got news..after much lightning and thunder that we could continue to the island we were staying on for a night….cannot remember it’s name…embarrassing….fabulous cruise on a smaller boat…to a bus…to another boat…to an island….great views through Bai Tu Long Bay

Making friends on the way…

and some dinner once we arrived…

After our night and some crazy rice spirit…back to the mainland!

Back to Hanoi for a clean up and dinner on the streets….a train ride overnight to Dong Hoi and bus trip to Phong Nha Farm Stay.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hanoi, busy but great, finding food stalls, markets etc…we found a great vietnamese roll place for dinner and they also had this stuff called beer.

It is not the beer that put this in upside down!!

Crazy streets…

Crazy lightning storm that night….

Next morning off to The Temple of Literature…

And Ho Chi Minh’s resting place.

Off to Ha Long Bay.

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On the 8th of July, we got off an overnight train from Hanoi to Dong Hoi at 7:30 and were picked up by a man from Phong Nha Farmstay, where we would be staying. We got to the farmstay after a 40 minute drive and had welcome drinks and breakfast, and then they showed us our room.

The second day of our stay at the farmstay we did a tour of the Phong Nha National Park. We had to be ready to go by 8am for the full day. Once everyone had arrived we had a guide talk to us about Vietnam history and our tour. We then piled into a van and started driving.

Our first stop was the 8 ladies cave and a temple for the cave. The reason this cave is special is because it was used as a hiding place from bombs in the Vietnam war. So 8 people were hiding in the cave when a bomb dropped outside the cave blocking the entrance completely. They died 8 days later of starvation. I found this very shocking and sad for those 8 people and their families.

Th next stop was Paradise Cave, which is a 31km dry cave. We didn’t walk the whole way but the bit we did walk was very cool, with weird shaped stalagmites and stalactites.

The next stop was by far the best. The Dark Cave. When we got there we had lunch and then went to get ready for the adventure. The start of the adventure was getting to the Dark Cave. This involved a 400m zip-line, the longest in Asia, and swimming into the mouth of the cave. We then walked a few hundred metres in the cave to a mud pool which we would swim in. This was an amazing and weird experience and I doubt I will ever have the chance to do it again.

We walked back out of the cave and got into kayaks and paddled across the river. Once on the other side, we got to do zip-lining into the river, riding bikes on the water, and swimming. The Dark Cave was the highlight of the day by far.

We drove back to the farmstay and by now we were pretty tired so when we got back we just relaxed and ate tea with a Swedish family and a Finnish couple.