Ellinor og de

Hei alle sammen!

Vi slenger inn et innlegg dagen før vi reiser hjem på juleferie.

Nå har vi hatt noen fantastiske dager sammen med naboene våre, Ellinor og Jenny (og Ingunn og Gunnar).

Vi har gledet oss i mange uker til å få besøk av Ellinor og de, og som dere ser på bildet over så ble vi veldig glade for å se hverandre igjen.
Jenny og Jenny har testet ut mange gode fruktdrikker de to siste ukene.
Vi har utforsket Ho Chi Minh City sammen, og foreldrene våre har drukket mye Cafe Sodau på de lokale kafeene som har "barbistoler".
I Vietnam er det fint å ta seg fram med sykkeltaxi.
Det fineste og rareste vi gjorde sammen var å reise ned til Mekongdeltaet. Der bor det 18 millioner mennesker som lever av å dyrke ris og frukt og å fiske. De fleste bor i hus langs elvene som ser ut som dette.

Vi bodde i en fin cruisebåt og fikk full oversikt over hvordan folkene i Mekong levde.

Det er mange flytende markeder i Mekong, og det var en merkelig opplevelse for oss. Båten over selger meloner, og melonen i stanga viser at det er en "melonbutikk".
Mekong er vanvittig frodig, og det finnes alle typer tropisk frukt der. Stjernefrukten i Vietnam smaker for eksempel mye bedre enn den man kjøper i Norge for å pynte kaker med.
De som bor i Mekong bor ved vannet, vasker seg i vannet og gjør fra seg i vannet.
Vi syklet litt i Mekong også. Det var ganske kult å sykle gjennom alle risåkrene.
Etter en sykkeltur i Mekong er det deilig å hvile seg i en hengekøye på vietnamesisk vis.
Her spiser vi frokost i båten vår. Temmelig spesielt. Vi må bare innrømme at det føles litt rart med sånn luksus når alle vi møtte og så hadde det litt motsatt. Men folka i Mekong var veldig glade, og barna der vinket til oss og ropte hello hele tiden.
Fotmassasje var inkludert i båtturen. I Vietnam er det vanlig å ta massasje, men det kan kile litt.
Da vi kom fra Mekong var det avslutning på skolen. Vi hadde julespill og julepynt i palmene.
I dag har vi vært på stranda og tenkt litt på at det blir 50 grader kaldere om to dager. Men vi gleder oss til å få litt mer klær på kroppen og å få oppleve snø og frisk luft i Norge.

Mest av alt gleder vi oss til å møte venner og familie.

GOD JUL!

Hilsen Ester, Ellinor, Jenny og Jenny

Jungle picnic

Dear all,

There are many dangerous animals in Vietnam and we agreed to never go in the jungle.
But today we broke that promise.
Technical department at the shipyard had a privat gathering today and they decided to make a picnic in the mountain of Ba Ria. Our family joined :-)

Happy people from technnical department STX Vung Tau.

We followed a waterfall from the bottom to the top. A dream about swimming in a waterfall could maybe come through?

Yes indeed, these ponds were perfect for small kids and big kids!

We decided to settle at the next upper scouring. Somebody had made a barbecue platform of bricks and cement in the middle of the pond. Maybe this belonged to the ancient pagoda at the upper pond.

Technical manager Thu has been in Norway and he like Aalesunds fotballklubb. (We don't.)

The streams between the ponds were perfect for playing. We were in the water all day long (as usual).

The colleagues from office brought a lot of food for barbeque. Dung, Dung, Dung, Tin, Thu, Minh, Anh, Phuong, Liem, Nga, Bjørnar, Per, Tove, Ester and Jenny had a delicious lunch in the river.

"Lunch table" in the river.

Phuong controlls the barbeque in the Vietnamese way.

We were like Tarzan in the jungle. Somebody had arranged a swing at one of the ponds. We had very fun with this swing!

Vietnamese fruits are delicious!

When we went to the jungle today, we were afraid to meet dangerous animals. We saw a lot of animals, but the birds above were not dangerous.

And the wild porks above were just afraid of us.

This salamander was probably not dangerous, too.

Right of the rock is a watersnake. It came where we played just when we had a water melon break. The snake was poisonous, but we were not afraid because our vietnamese friends are used to these creatures, and would have killed it before the snake killed us (hopefully).

The watersnake survived, but this small cobra did not.

The ponds were perfect for jumping.

These boys jumped from the threes!

And they were quite curious about some white-skinned girls like us.

We jumped and played in all the scourings we passed.

By the way, this is a toilet we saw in the bush. If we have to, we just have to....

We had a perfect day in the mountains of Ba Ria. Thanks to the vietnamese colleagues who took us there!
We will not go there very often. It was nice, but the snakes were very scary!

On the way home we had to go out of the bus when it passed this bridge. No accident happend and the bridge is still not destroyed. Neither the bus.

But now, we feel "destroyed", and tired!

Hen gap lai!

Sand

Dear all dears!

Every Sunday we go to Back Beach in Vung Tau for gymnastics. We are training "wheel" and somersault. Also, we walk on the hands which gives us strong arms.

The gymnastics also gives us sand in the pants..... :-)

Last week-end we travelled to Phan Tiet and Mui Ne which also has a lot of sand. On picture below we pose on the red sand dunes in Mui Ne.
North of Mui Ne, the color of the sand switch from red to white. Quite far away from the coast there are large white sand dunes, almost like a dessert.
Next to the white and dry dunes were luxuriant swamp with a lot of birds and animals. On the other side of the dunes, we saw the jungle. Behind the jungle, we could see the dry prairie. The dry and wet were mixed into an incredible landscape.

And the most incredible was; between the swamp and the dessert, we saw a lot of cows. This gave us a good old "Jomfruland-feeling". :-)

The cows have to pass the dessert in order to get to their pasture, so in the sand are some.......

.....sand cakes.
Because we are in the end of November, we have a certain need for aking.

The sand hills are almost as good as the snow hills in Norway, but the speed is lower.
The waves where we lived in Phan Tiet were quite fresh, so after aking in the sand we aked in the water.
If we hit a big wave in the right moment, the wave took us right up to the beach in a good speed. Funny!
We just have to show the picture above. When we came to Vietnam we were chocked when we saw three or four persons on a motorbike. In Mui Ne we saw six. It is physically impossible to get more people on a bike. We hope these girls live in the neighborhood!
Phan Tiet is famous for the dragon fruit fields. Phan Tiet has three crops during the year, all other places in Vietnam have two crops only.
All the way along the roads to Phan Tiet we saw acres with Dragon fruit cactus like this.
Phan Tiet and Mui Ne was an incredible experience for us. Only three hours from Vung Tau with a car. We rented a bungalow on the beach for a reasonable amount.

Good bye for now Phan Tiet, we will visit again for sure.

Now we are looking forward for visit from Norway and Kragerø.

Next week, Elinor and Jenny M. come to us for two weeks until Christmas holidays and we go back to Norway together.

We look so forward to meet you here!
See you very soon, girls.