I've been so busy lately, with the packing, rushing to meet datelines, handover and all.. luckily last Thursday hubby's company organized a 3 day Family Day to Anoasis Resort, Long Hai Beach, Baria, Vung Tau.. finally.. I can breathe and smell the roses.. and to my relief.. there are no internet services inside the rooms.. so I can find an excuse for not answering emails for three days..

I've been wanting to go to the Anoasis Resort since 2006, ever since one of my colleague keep mentioning it.. but I can say I'm really dissappointed with the resort.. I won't recommend it to anybody.. the price is high, USD100++.. the area is pretty big, so you need to walk for a very long distance.. There is a buggy service but not as frequent as it should be.. We were lucky to get a room near the beach and pool but it was very far from the bus and reception.. the service is bad and the resort seems to be understaff and not really well kept.. The food is really expensive compared to the standard hotel price..


This is the stairs leading to our room.. It has a sea view but it is situated slightly uphill so you can't really sea or hear the beach..


This is another type, the cottage bungalow..


The girls were walking towards what they thought is the kids play area..

It turned out to have only a few toys and they need to share the area with the gym which has only three exercise machines..

This the pool and ping-pong hut..

Nilam really enjoys the swing.. we can only find these two swings.. perhaps there were more but we didn't walk far enough..


These are the rest area.. However, it is always too dirty to sit on..

The pool is quite big but it didn't have a sea view like other seaside resort..
With another Malaysian family at the resort grounds..
The beach is okay.. it is marked with white flags for safe area to swim and black flags for dangerous area.. However, the weather is too hot to take a dip..
Nilam has turned into one "budak hitam" after just two hours in the swimming pool..
These seaside beach hut is more inviting..
Especially for "puteri lilin" Melati that always seems to be "allergic" to the sun..
When the wheather is too hot to do anything else.. We just sat lazily at the beach restaurant sipping fruit punch and gazed at the ocean..
Perfect thing to do to let the time goes by if you asked me but not for Nilam and hubby who really loves to swim..
On the second day we went to Binh Chau Hot Spring 35 Km away from the resort. We initially planned to take a mud bath or take a dip in the big hot spring pool but we end up arriving there rather late that afternoon.. We then decided to just boil and eat some eggs and do the foot bath..
Nilam eagerly wait for her eggs.. we put the eggs in the basket and lowered it in a special place made to boiled them.. It should take 15 minutes for the eggs to cook through but we prefer half boiled so we just cook them for 10 minutes..
The children can't wait to taste their eggs.. of course it taste the same.. nothing different actually.. but the girls keep saying that the eggs taste better compared to the one at home..
We then took a foot bath in pool specially designed for it.. The water is quite hot, maybe because only three of us were using it at that time..

This is Nilam and Melati having lunch at Thuy Duong Restaurant on the way back to Ho Chi Minh City.. They refused to eat at the table and requested to eat at a window facing the beach.. I know Melati genuinely wanted to enjoy the sea breeze but Nilam probably just wanted to get her nose away from the smell of food at the table..

Overall, it was a nice getaway trip.. probably the last one for us to take in Vietnam for a very long time..