The Coffee: The French originally introduced coffee to Vietnam. Historically, there was no access to fresh milk, so the coffee is brewed with a filter on top or your cup that contains a small amount of condensed sweetened milk (in the case that you order the traditional "milk coffee," that is. You can also have it brewed black). We downed quite a few cups of this delectable milk coffee with breakfast and again later between beers. It was vacation, after all!
All the food: We ate everything. I don't know what half of it was called, but it was all so good. We ate noodles, dried mystery fruits that someone with broken English tried to tell me was sweet potatoes, but I don't think this was correct, we ate fish on a stick, traditional noodle breakfasts and sandwiches that had interesting meat (I think it was meat) with amazing fresh spices and greens. And, of course, there were drinks that came in a dragon fruit which sat in a little drinking basket. I didn't know before that little drinking baskets were even a thing, but now I feel must buy them for my Hong Kong kitchen that has virtually no storage and only one drawer.
The beach and town were great, but we'll definitely be heading back specifically for the food and drinks one day soon! There were some less than desirable moments as well, especially given that we are mid-toilet training with Isla. During the trip out, Isla informed us she had to pee about five times but then refused to go on any toilet in the airport or on the plane. After four hours of this, she waited until the plane was landing and everyone had to be in seats with seatbelts to let us know that the pee was now "coming out." Lovely. So, like any practiced mom would do, I loosened her seatbelt, yanked her skirt off, and shoved a diaper under her, and then felt the warmth of the massive amount of urine soaking the diaper. I looked up at her face to find her grinning from ear to ear. “Yeah kid, that felt way better for you than it did for me.” This trend continued for the next few days while she demanded to go back to "her toilet in Hong Kong" every time she had to go. So, our little gal ended up hilariously constipated and then eventually panicked and pooped on the side of the toilet seat in the hotel as she didn't make it all the way onto the seat, then smeared her hand in it while still trying to position herself on the toilet. We're very thankful she went poo at all though. Also, she finally found peeing in the shower stall amusing at least - we'll take these little successes where we can get them! Needless to say, this week we are focused on a goal of taking her to as many public toilets as possible to practice.
Our next travel adventure will be over Easter week where we’ll drive from Perth up the coast of Western Australia. I’m not sure what is scarier - that we’ll be camping with a 3 year old who won't pee or poo anywhere but home yet and a 3 month old, or the fact that I haven’t driven a car in over eight months. However it goes down, it will, at the very least, be memorable. Stay tuned!
