It is a very nice place to be. Currently kids and I are in Bai Xep, near to the city of Quy Nhon, which you could loosely say is in the South seeing as it is only 11 hours by train from Ho Chi Minh City. The last three days here have been thoroughly lovely given that the bay is beautiful, the sea warm and the place that we are staying in is a two storey bamboo place where we can be lulled to sleep and woken up by the sounds of the sea. Children have both enjoyed their extended time on the beach and Trixie particularly enjoyed her sunset balcony view with accompanying mango smoothie a couple of nights ago.
One very nice feature of the place that we are staying in are the 6.30 dinners. It might immediately give the impression of boarding houses of the 1950s and that Michael Palin film set in Southwold but our experiences here in Bai Xep have been very different. Sitting around a length of trestle tables eating self-assembly dinners (fish steamboat / clay pot barbecue / posh springs rolls) watching the sunset and chatting to others has been very pleasant indeed.
Drinks with views have been a bit of theme of the trip so far. Trixie and I enjoyed a morning coffee (mango smoothie for herself) while staring at Hanoi Cathedral and discussing Roman numerals and Edwin experienced his first iced coffee thanks to a stop at Danang station. He had said the previous day that he had really enjoyed his sip of mine and wanted one of his own. Fortunately for me this coffee in question wasn't completely to his liking so he attempted to improve it with the addition of a sachet of milo powder. Coffee and milo purest would both be annoyed by this but Edwin said it was ok.
We also had some rather special at seat catering on our train from Hue to here. I was woken up from a doze by some clattering and bashing and saw a heavy laden trolley of food being enthusiastically dragged along the carriage. Seeing as it was midday at the time I agreed to plates for all us and so within seconds the attendants had dished up three plates (fortunately American high school style dinner plates) of soup, rice, chicken, tofu, vegetables, a fried egg and soy sauce. Seated with this array on my knee I then had to dig out the incredibly cheap 40,000 dong per portion while trying not to wear anymore of the dripping, but tasty soup. Other passengers looked on with amusement.
We had a break from the sea yesterday afternoon and caught a local bus into Quy Nhon to go to the cinema. The cinema was showing all the latest big budget releases and having seen Despicable Me 3 (terrible) in KL we opted for Transformers instead. The Kermode and Mayo film podcast has become a bit of compulsory listening in Chateau Lawrence this year and so we had listened attentively to Mark's rant about the film. Like my fellow train passengers I had hoped to look on with amusement when watching the film but instead have to report that the film was really bad. There is, sometimes, some sort of perverse pleasure to gained from watching something terrible, with that pleasure being increased when it is clear that the performers are doing their best. This, however, was total nonsense from start to finish.
Later today it is on to Ho Chi Minh City by sleeper train.