OUR LAST DAY AT THE BEACH

Although it was very hot yesterday, once again, there was quite a strong cooling breeze from about 3 p.m. so we went down the outdoor restaurant to have our afternoon drink - a latte for me and a pot of tea for Mr. HCB.  What amazes me is how the waiters and waitresses remember our room number - guess that's all part of their training and it certainly makes us feel important!  

Our neighbours in the next bungalow are from Finland, so we have been chatting to Matti since we arrived.  Sadly his wife has had a high fever and a cough all the time we have been here, so we haven't been able to chat to her.  When we went down for our coffee and tea, Matti was there and said he fancied something sweet.  He recommended the creme brûlée so that got me thinking of eating something sweet - you know I love my cakes!  I decided to have the carrot cake - to share with Mr. HCB - and of course, that would then be "one of my five a day"!  We enjoyed chatting with Matti and mentioned the very cold weather and the snow in the UK - they tend to live elsewhere in a warm climate for about nine months each year, but are quite used to the very low temperatures in Finland.

There was the beginnings of a reasonable sunset and one of the waitresses took a photograph of us with the sea and sunset in the background - see the extra.

This morning is our last one at Mia Muine - we will be leaving in about two hours to catch the train back to Saigon - so are taking advantage of our air conditioned bungalow because even now, at 10 am it is very hot outside, with virtually no breeze.

I decided that I would make a collage of the various fruit we have been eating this week - and enlisted the help of Thuy, the restaurant supervisor, to make sure I had the right names.  I decided to put the photograph of her in the middle - she has been a delight all the time we have been here and so helpful and always has a lovely smile, which of course, is typical of most of the Vietnamese people we have met.

The top left isn't a fruit but is actually rice growing in little bowls and used for decoration on the tables - it is such a lovely bright green and is very effective.

Going round the collage clockwise - next is a dragon fruit that was left in the fruit bowl in our room - neither of us was very keen on this - but it was interesting to see most mornings at breakfast that there is one with white inside and another with bright pink, but unfortunately, there were none out this morning.  It is obviously an acquired taste but we have never seen them in the UK, so doubt we will be tasting them again once we are back home.

The milk apple was a firm fruit but not as crispy as the apples that we are used to.

The small round fruits at the top right are longan, also known as "dragon's eye" because of a white eye shaped mark on the pit that appears as a pupil in the large eye.  It contains a lot of vitamin C and is apparently good as an anti-inflammatory and memory enhancer - perhaps we should have eaten more of those!  

Of course, in the UK we are familiar with the water melon and pineapple but because they are so fresh here, they tasted quite different, especially the pineapple, which you will notice was beautifully cut.

It's good to have so many fresh fruits to choose from each morning;  I think my favourite is the passion fruit but you will see from my breakfast plate at the bottom right that I have a good selection of other fruit too, including grapes, mandarin and a rambutan, which is similar to a lychee with a soft taste but it has a large stone in the middle - which is not edible!  There is a close up of this on the bottom left.  

I am still not that good at taking selfies but thought as it was our last day that I would include one - we are feeling very relaxed and looking forward to going back to Saigon to meet up with Julian again for a few days and celebrating our actual Golden Wedding day on 6th March, before we head off to Hong Kong.

The next fruit is a plum - and is quite crisp in texture, but it doesn't taste like the plums we grow in the UK.  When I mentioned to Thuy that ours were much softer she said that if a fruit is soft in Vietnam it is no good!

Above the rambutan is a dish with guava, sapodilla and papaya - a lot of these tropical fruits taste quite "scented" or aromatic, if you understand what I mean - and they are certainly juicy, and although not to my taste at the moment, I might get used to them if I were eating them for any length of time.  

Although I have said that a lot of the fruits are not to our taste, we have been willing to try them.  We have enjoyed the very small bananas and they taste very different to the ones we buy in the UK.  The ones here are sweeter and even though they are small, seem to be much more filling.  We are surrounded by banana and palm trees and the lush greenery all around has been a joy to behold, and of course, we shall miss hearing the birds and seeing the lizards (if you really know me, you will know I won't really miss the lizards!)

Thank you once again for your lovely comments, stars and hearts, which are much appreciated.