My little Vietnamese family

I’d just like to honour the Vietnamese family with whom we stayed for the last 4 days in An Bang beach.

They welcomed us into their home so graciously and were always willing to make us feel comfortable.

At the end of our stay, they blessed us with a feast prepared and cooked in their home. In fact the immediate community all got involved in the feast preparation as did we. We were given all the dishes we had mentioned enjoying – green mango and papaya salad, spring rolls, banana pancakes,   scallops cooked on an open fire and much more that we were told are local specialties – pork rolls, mussels also on an open fire and dried squid with chilli sauce. And of course, the local beers or bía.

When it was all ready, we sat on a mat and ate first on our own and eventually at our insistence, all the ladies joined us. Facebook invites and email address exchanges and platting of each others hair all followed post full belly.

As we left, we were showered with thoughtful gifts of things they noticed from the many ‘lost in translation’ conversations through Google translate.

I honestly think we can learn something from these lovely and kind people.