Find out about my time in Vietnam and how I said thank you to my hosts
Last year, I went travelling to S.E Asia for three months. To make travel cheap, I offered to paint and decorate hostels/hotels for free stay and sometimes even for my grub. It worked out a treat, I ended up painting in each country I visited, putting my own personal stamp in Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam!
I was particularly lucky to spend just over 2-weeks on the amazing Phu Quoc island in southern Vietnam, at a lovely family run resort called Coco Valley Garden Beach Resort.
Run by Tien and his niece Phoung, they treated me like family. I spent this time in total heaven, painting a massive wall – on my own – and being taken around to see the best of the island by these lovely long-time locals.
They looked after me so well; took me to hidden beaches, on boat trips around the islands, made delicious home-cooked Vietnamese food with plenty of fresh fish, and they had Coco – the super cute and friendly hotel dog to keep you entertained.
Painting the wall was hard work – no joke. I bit off a bit more than I could chew. But I managed to finish the wall just in time. In hindsight, I hope it was my hard work that Tien noticed, hence the amazing excursions we went on. It was really the best way to see Phu Quoc and the neighbouring islands. It’s something I’ll never forget.
Here are a few photos of my mural and the hosts …
The resort was filled with the most beautiful flowers, with many thanks going to Phoung! She had worked hard to make the place so very homely. To say thank you, I wanted to crochet my own beautiful flower, that I could send to them and they could keep forever!
I am always on the hunt for some realistic looking crochet flower patterns. My next find was with this gorgeous orchid which I thought would be perfect.
I followed MaryJ Handmade’s Orchid Pattern via Youtube for the main petal. Then I used Suvi’s Crochet Pattern for the two different Buds.
MaryJ Handmade’s Youtube video was very easy to follow and I really enjoyed making the petals of the flower and watching them come together.
The Buds from Suvi’s Crochet were a bit more complicated, so I ended up freestyling but was very happy with the result.
Using wire, I used a simple DC (UK Terms) to go around and then attached each Bud and the Flower Petal by wrapping more wire around.
What I love about creating flowers is they do not have to be perfect. Slight alterations whether intentional or not, make the pieces totally unique.
