Day 3 - Hanoi

Yesterday wasn't a great day, the humidity was 300% and I felt nauseous all day.

We wandered the streets for a few hours, Garrett got hustled by a shoe repair guy and paid 250,000 VND to have his unbroken cons repaired.

Keen to escape the heat in my nauseated state, Garrett found us a shopping mall to hang in... Well shopping mall is an understatement, the Royal City Mega Mall, was indeed mega. Featuring an indoor underground version of "wet and wild" ! 

We returned to our digs for a nap, not well earned but required. 

In the evening we ventured out to find dinner, hidden in the Old Quarter we found "Green Mango" and though the food was delicious "Sweet Chicken and Cashews" my poor stomach wouldn't cope. I felt like I had offended the restaurant owner, a sweet French man who kept asking if I liked my meal. Eventually the language barrier was overcome and he understood that I was unwell and offered us a 10% discount for our next visit. 

We walked back via Hoan Kiem lake, and enjoyed watching the locals gathered by the lake, drinking "bia" and chatting. 

Day 1 - Hanoi to Sapa

Anticipating a 6:30am pick up for our bus trip to Sapa, we were up early and went for a walk at Hoan Kiem Lake. It was bustling at 5:50am, people going about their daily exercise regimes, stretching and moving to the music being broadcast on the public address system. We returned to our hostel where we enjoyed a breakfast of hot French bread, jam and fruit.

Our bus arrived at 7:10am and after several other pick ups in the old quarter we were on our way. 

5 and bit hours later we arrived in Sa Pa. After a quick bite to eat we settled into our digs. 

At 2:30pm we headed to off on our trek. There a just no words to explain the beauty of the Sa Pa valley, so I'll show you some pictures instead. 

       

                                      

                                      

 This beautiful Black Hmong woman, carried her little bubba who is just 1 month and 20 days old with her for the duration of the trek, AND she helped me down the muddy slippery hills, making sure I did not fall, total Grrrl Power right there. I thanked her by purchasing items from her that she had handmade. 

                                      

Transit

We arrived safely in Hanoi after 18 waking hours, we were ready to fall into bed. 

But not before I flooded the bathroom by accident and the AC unit dripped condensation all over the bed. 

Thankfully the time difference meant that we got a full nights sleep.

Saying See Ya Later

It was tough saying see us later to my little munchkins at Coffs Harbour airport as I flew to Sydney to meet Garrett. I have to admit this mumma had a few tears on the plane, but I know they will have a blast with Nanna Robbie and Poppop. 

As we flew in over Sydney my excitement started to build, more about seeing Garrett for the first time in 4 days than for the holiday :) 

Leaving on a jet plane

Here we go..... 

Thanks to Gem and Ally for loaning us their living room floor last night and delivering us safely to the airport. 

On being organised or the anal retentive mother

My organisational skills have gone next level this week. With under a week til fly out I have been busy making sure that everything is in place for the kids to have a hassle free time while they sleep over at Nanna Robbie and Poppop's house. 

Naturally we planned our holiday to have the least impact on the kids, 2 of our three weeks away they will be with their dad. Nanna Robbie recently underwent an Orthoroscopy. She is still recovering and using a walking frame to get around, so Poppop will be stepping up the the plate to care for the kids. To make his job a bit easier I have packed lunches (minus the sandwiches and fruit) into snap lock bags all labelled with names and dates. 

Today I packed their clothes in the exact same ways to help minimise the amount of washing that Poppop might have to do. 

Of course Garrett has been shaking his head at me all day, but I am happy to report he to is now packed, for both his Performing Arts Tour and our honeymoon. It's a good thing because he departs tomorrow !

Over Excitement or I need to pack now Syndrome

Yes, I am that person, I had a preliminary pack 2 weeks ago. The blessing of it still being winter here and travelling to hot and humid Southeast Asia is that my summer clothes are currently not in rotation!

I spent this morning re-assessing my outfits and other bits and pieces. I am happy to say, I am a pretty casual dresser and 90% of my wardrobe consists of black so packing mix and match outfits is really a breeze. Here is a picture of my creased up clothing.

Navy shorts, black shorts, black 3/4 fisherman pants, black long fisherman pants, jungle print shorts. 

Black T, rust tank, black tank, black T, green tank. 

Print cover-up, black cover-up, black maxi dress.

8 x underwear,2 bras 1 x bikini (not pictured)

I'm not the fussy beauty type either, I like to keep it pretty simple every day so deciding what to take was easy. I did get a few travel beauty recommendations from friends, like the solid shampoo and conditioner, I've given it a test run and i think it will do the job.

Toothbrush and Lush Toothy Tabs, Lush Jason and the Argan Oil Solid Shampoo, Lush Jungle Conditioner , nak 60 second treatment for my super dry bleached ends on the recommendation of my good friends at Twisted Scissors Hair, Milk and Honey body wash, Nivea Deodorant Cream, Bushman Insect repellent and Thank You hand sanitiser. 

For me down-sizing from my oversized Status Anxiety Passing Moments handbag to something more travel friendly has been the biggest challenge. I decided that as it will only be in used for a few weeks quality and colour were not really that important, it was layout that was most important; it has to fit all the essentials but still be compact. I think i won, with this little number that i picked up on 40% off at Strandbags. 

Loving my knock-off Chanel purse that i picked up on a previous trip to Thailand, it has lots of different sections, good for sorting different currencies. My Ciao Bella orange leather travel wallet was a gift to myself, because I was sick of the ever growing pile for booking paperwork in my handbag. Passport obviously an essential, Phone and earphones for comms and tunes, more hand sanitiser and some earplugs. ( not pictured - lip balm) 

So i think i am ready to go..... but i have to wait 18 more days 

Edited to Add : Garrett has not even thought about packing, I am simultaneously distressed and humoured.

Exercise Your Mood

Mental Illness; it's something I am passionate about, because I live with one, because many of my friends do and because i believe that with hope and good management we can all live healthy happy lives and contribute to our communities in a positive way.

I have been involved with the Black Dog Institute for just over 12 months, when I undertook training to prepare myself to be a INSIGHT Youth Community Presenter. In essence I get to share well researched information about mental illness provided by BDI creatively woven with my story and my experience in the hope that I will inspire young people and increase help seeking behaviours.

As is well documented in may research papers, physical activity is proven to increase your mood and in my experience one of the most difficult things to actually do when you are in a depressive state.

September is Exercise Your Mood Month - G and I thought that this would be a great opportunity to link our honeymoon in with some fundraising, so we are going to endeavour to walk 10,000 steps for every day of our honeymoon ( excluding transit days). We would love your support; click on the link in our side bar to the right to make a donation.

We will keep you updated on progress via facebook and our blog.

It's all in the planning

Planning to travel is a complex process. Our upcoming adventure is no different. These are our simple steps to planning a Adventure.

Set a budget
This is always the first step for us, because how much we want to spend determines a lot of the other planning components. Thankfully this adventure struck a little bit of financial support from G's parents. Instead of contributing to our low cost wedding celebrations they contributed to our honeymoon instead. This allowed us to think a little bit further outside the box when choosing a destination.

Decide on a Destination
The decision to travel to Southeast Asia was a no brainer for me, After spending a month there in 2012, I was very keen to head back that way, G had previously not travelled to this part of the world and was excited about the opportunity.

What time of year should we visit and how long should we stay?
Timing was everything for us when planning, we needed to take into consideration not only the best time weather wise to travel but also when would have the least impact on our employment (being a teacher, having leave outside school holidays takes some coordination for G) and also the impact on our children. September seemed like a good time, the weather shouldn't be to hot and it falls partly in the school holidays.

What are the must sees and do's
Blessed by my previous experience I told G there are 2 places that are imperative that he visits;
Halong Bay and Angkor, so we planned about this. We added in some extras like the DMZ and the War Remnants Museum because we are both passionate about history and G has a particular interest in war history. On my previous visit to Cambodia i had not made it to Choeung Ek, and we hope to do so this time.

What about those staying at home
Because this is our honeymoon, we decided that Miss L and JD should stay and home and carry on as close as possible to their regular routine. They will spend the time they usually spend with us staying with Nanna Robbie and Pop-pop. Praise the lord for wonderful grandparents. Thi is of course requires it only special plan, setting up skype for Pop-pop so we can chat, making a calendar with all the children's after school commitments, drop offs, pick ups and all those things that as "the mum" you just know need to happen.

Brisbane - Mini Break

Mini-Break - a short holiday of 2 -3 days.

Goals; cheap accomodation, less that 1/2 a days travel, something new, something fun, something educational, something for the tastebuds.

Unlocking the levels.

Cheap Accommodation: Brisbane in the school holidays can be expensive. So we decided to save some pennies and stay at the Gold Coast, it's less than an hours drive to the heart of the city and much more reasonably priced. As with many of our other Gold Coast getaways we chose to stay somewhere familiar and well located, we try to chose self contained apartments when we travel so was are able to prepare our own breakfasts and sometimes lunches. Sadly on this visit we drew a short straw and ended up in an apartment that was fairly ill equipt. No tea cups, a fridge that wouldn't seal, 3 beds but only 2 blankets (G and I ended up using our coats as blankets the first night), and a broken dining chair. Our experience with these apartments in the past has been very good, so I will put this one down to just a bad day.

Less that 1/2 a days travel: the Gold Coast from our home in rural Northern NSW is just 2.5 hour by car. We love this journey as there are plenty of places to stop and have breaks. This time we stopped at the Macadamia Castle, after a quick stretch we were back on the road.

Something new: Living in the country, our children have not yet developed a full appreciation for the beauty of public transport, of course they catch a bus to school, but that is about the extent of it. We thought it might be fun to jump on the light rail at the Gold Coast and check out the sites. We decided it was most cost effective to purchase a go explore card each for this excursion. We rode the tram to the Australia Fair stop where we alighted and spent some time at the Broadwater Parklands. We then returned to Cavil Avenue where at Miss L's request we dined at her favourite restaurant The Groove Train. Yes we really did have a public transport themed afternoon.

Something fun: Dinosaurs; really who isn't fascinated with these creatures of time passed. After improvising breakfast in our apartment and packing us a picnic lunch, we grabbed our coats and headed to up the motorway to Brisbane. Thankfully we had G to navigate us through the bustling traffic and secure us a car park for the outrageous price of $30 ( yeah i know country folk just don't understand paid parking). When JD spied the first dinosaur precariously balanced on a shipping container at the entrance to the museum he was so excited. The Dinosaur Discovery: Lost Creatures of the Cretaceous exhibition was incredible. We also used the time to look at the other exhibitions at the Queensland Museum and Miss L and I really enjoyed opening and shutting all of the specimen drawer and discovering what was inside, like bird eggs, beetles, feathers, butterflies and other amazing things.

Something Educational: the Queensland Museum Sciencentre was added to our itinerary at the last minute at G's request. Boy am I glad i agreed !  Science is so awesome; and this exhibit was entirely hands on, we go to do experiments with sound and water and wind, we learnt about mass and force and perception. G and I even enjoyed a silent giggle at the kids played a video game that's objective was to get the swimmers to the eggs... if you catch my drift.

Something for the tastebuds: Usually when we travel, I find making our own breakfasts and lunches really helps with cost saving, luckily our family is happy with a couple of sandwiches and some fruit. But dinner is always the meal that we chose to dine out. After seeing many posts on social media about the wonders of the the Eat Street Markets, i knew this is where we would head for dinner. Total sensory overload; smells, tastes, sounds. We all chose to eat from different continents and happily shared and tried each others meals. This was a great experience for the kids, although they were starting to tire and it was clear we should head back down the coast to bed. G had a brilliant idea to save us from freezing in bed, a quick stop at IKEA and a new blanket was secured !

Our mini-break ticked all the boxes and we returned home exhausted !

Where are you going?

Counting down to our next little adventure.

Halong Bay, Vietnam