We left early in the morning to visit Kim's aunty Van, who lives in Binh Duong province, about 1.5 hours out from HCMC. The Dai Nam theme park is also located out this way.

Aunty Van has a lovely big garden. We were fortunate to catch her as we left the property as she was returning from a culinary convention in the US.

We had a fantastic trip! We'll definitely visit Vietnam again.

Breakfast stare-off


Us and uncle Kha's family on the way to Binh Duong


Aunty Van's place






One of aunty Van's 7 dogs!




Neighbouring homes




The aunties preparing lunch


Lunch


I found this guy in my soup


Floating plants drifting down the river


Ducks


Aunty Van


Uncle Khanh and his wife, aunty Hoa


Farewell to Bronii at the airport


My pack horse

Uncle Kha took us shopping on our last full day. We visited Ben Thanh market and checked out a local supermarket. Afterwards we visited some more of Kim's relatives who live in the area.

Uncle Kha and Kim


Uncle Khanh's rooftop terrace, overlooking Huong's family's house


Kim's cousins Ha and Minh


Kim's great aunt


Hoa, the cheeky little cutie with her Doremon toys






Dinner: Whole fish with sweet and sour sauce, caramelised pork, morning glory (water spinach) - my favourite vegetable dish in Vietnam, cooked with garlic!

Kim's family took us to a local theme park, Dai Nam. It's massive and has rides, a man-made beach with wave pool, a walk-around safari park and lots more that we didn't get to. The safari park was particularly impressive with lots of healthy and interesting animals. We went on a weekday so there weren't too many people around which was good.

Man-made mountain


Kim and her auntie


Rides




Otter


Oryx, complete with lion killing horns


White peacock


White rhinos


White tigers


... Elephants, fed by Kim and her cousin


Giraffe




Man-made beach with John and Kim (Huong)


Lots of bikes, lots of power lines


Kim's cousin Bi cooking prawns in crunchy green rice!


Dinner with uncle Khai and his boys Bi and Bo

We picked up some pork rolls for lunch in HCMC then headed out to the Cu Chi tunnels which are about 90 minutes drive from the city. We did a tour of an old rebel village and went into the tunnels that the Viet Cong used during the war. The ones we went in have been widened from 50cm to 70cm for tourists, I've read. But they're still very small! It's pretty impressive, especially as there are 120km or 250km of tunnels, depending on who you ask. After lunch we visited the War Remnants Museum which details some of the more gruesome aspects of the war and contains some captured American military hardware.

Pork roll shop


Digging the tunnels


Eating tapioca with our guide


Viet Cong spike trap


Original sized entrance


John in the tunnels


American military hardware






Dinner with Kim's family


Vietnamese savoury pancake (Banh Xeo)


Coffee

We got to Hue airport for our flight to Ho Chi Minh. We were pretty early and we wanted to see if we could go through to wait in the small boarding lounge. Bronii decided to ask the staff member standing just before the security scanners if she would allow us through. The lady clearly didn't understand English and kept apologising, but Bronii persisted in reforming the question into simpler and simpler language and hand signals until finally Kim pointed out that the lady was just a passenger ;)

Kim and I stayed with one of her 3 uncles on her mum's side who each live next door to each other with their families. When a couple gets married in Vietnam they usually move in with the male's parents so families often live close together.
In the afternoon we visited Kim's dad's side of the family who conveniently live across the road (this is how her parents met)

Breakfast at Orchid Hotel


Swine flew


Lunch with Kim's family


Twins!


Kim and her cousin Kim