Pure Vietnam Beauty & Spa Nha Trang Blog

Pure Vietnam Beauty and Spa Charity for September 2015 at Chuia Linh Quang.

Chuia Linh Quang is a Pagoda on the outskirts of Nha Trang. It is a reasonable size Pagoda with approximately 35 monks coming and going. The youngest at the moment is seven years old.

This Pagoda supports the people in this very poor district. Every weekend the Pagoda has two different programs where on Saturday the older residents can come and pray/ meditate, receive lunch and talk about life and on Sunday it is the younger peoples turn.

We were able to help on the Sunday. Unfortunately the Master was not there but we will catch up another time. His second in charge did a wonderful job.

With the help of Hien, I went to local markets on the Saturday and bought up on noodles, 10 kg of Tofu, about 30kgs of various vegetables, 20 kg of watermelon, 4kgs of dried mushrooms and 50 bags of fake meat.

We hired a 16 seater bus and 13 of us along with the food piled in. The roads were interesting after recent rain and of course the driver got lost. We turned up, unloaded and started peeling and chopping. There was lots of laughter as we all joined together to prepare the food.

We had a few chefs. We had the boys cooking much to the delight of the ladies.

Had the world’s largest mortar and pestle going, this required serious muscle action, which was being used to pulverize tofu to mix with wood ear mushrooms which were then deep fried.

There were a large variety of dishes made all very tasty. Saw a great wood fired rice steamer. The local ladies do a fantastic job cooking very tasty dishes. Whilst we were preparing and cooking there was chanting and meditation happening. We did have a bit of supervision from the younger monks who were fascinated with us.

We even had an apprentice with the cleanup. She was having so much fun with the water.

When the food was ready everyone assembled and in silence we selected what we wanted to eat and all sat in the temple together. We had a prayer then we ate in silence. When we were finished the monk in charge talked about life and problems. Then they invited us to say a little about Pure Vietnam Beauty and Spa and why we were doing charity. They thanked us by singing two songs. It was a lovely morning. We fed about 80 people but had so much fun doing it.

I know we will be back soon. Thank you to the great staff from Pure Vietnam Beauty and Spa, wonderful friends as well as some of the people who I teach English to. Teamwork was excellent, cooking was great and we got to meet some wonderful people. An all round fantastic Sunday.

One of the students Eileen teaches English to use to be a hairdresser but hasn’t done any hair cutting since she got pregnant and had her baby. Now the baby is a little boy she wants to get back into hairdressing so needs to practice. She asked if any of the orphanages that we go to would like free haircuts.

I was able to direct her to an inner city orphanage run by a couple. This orphanage has around 20 children with most of them under the age of 12.

The children were very happy. Uyen was able to cut six children’s haircuts with the promise of returning when the other children’s hair was in need of cutting.

Apparently the young boy wanted his hair shaved off. Must be a fashion thing!!

Smiles all round.

There is a group of people in Nha Trang who are trying to join a global movement called hashtaglunchbag. This group want people from their local communities to join together to produce lunches for the less fortunate and then deliver them. It is not about giving money rather your time for the people in need in your local community.

Lanterns restaurant has hosted two such events. The first had approximately 140 people in attendance. It is held the last Sunday in the month. On this last Sunday we had around 60 people come together. Some of the hotels were represented. Intercontinental Hotel, Sheraton Hotel, Ana Mandera Hotel, Novotel Hotel they supplied the buses to transport the people to the areas of donation along with Nha Trang University Smart English group (they are a group of students who learn English every Sunday but also participate in charity events) as well as myself and friends from Pure Vietnam Beauty and Spa.

We made up 600 meals of rice, omelet, pork and vegetables. These were packaged in a take away container with a note saying it was from hashtaglunchbag and a spoon. It was wonderful to work with such a happy group. Cooperation and communication obviously being the key to running something like this.

Robert and Hien from Lanterns did a magnificent job of hosting and coordinating everything. I ended up talking to the university students quite a bit and may find myself visiting them some Sundays.

After packing the lunches we jumped in mini buses to deliver to three different locations that had been organized. I was in a mini bus to go to a Pagoda in a very poor area of Nha Trang.

After travelling on dirt roads in a very undeveloped area in the outskirts of Nha Trang we arrived at the Pagoda. As a group we went around the local village and delivered the lunches. Some of the “houses” are very basic but all people had wonderful welcoming smiles and were very grateful for the food. There were lots of elderly and small children. I guess the parents were out working. It was quite humbling to visit the people instead of just putting the lunches in a box and letting someone else deliver them. It bought it home why we were doing it.

This is an awesome initiative. I would encourage everyone to see what is happening in their local community

Pure Vietnam Beauty and Spa Charity for August

What a fabulous day we had.

We decided for something a little different we would bring children to us to get them out of their orphanage and have some fun. We got twenty children from an orphanage that we visit as well as some adults in two taxis and bought them to our apartment where we have a pool. 
With the help of some friends, Hien, Hang and staff from Pure Vietnam, Dung and Phi for children supervision we went swimming. 

I had bought some balls and blow up inflatables, as well as what we already had. 
What a great time we had! The children laughed and played. They kept swimming and playing and really didn't want to get out but they started shivering after two hours.

After getting everyone dried we sat down to a great lunch followed by fruit and of course how can you have a treat without ice cream for desert. 

Everyone was very full, tired but happy when the children left in the taxis to go home. 

I'm sure they will sleep well.

Pure Vietnam Beauty and Spa Charity for July - Thanh Son Pagoda

With the start of the school year in Vietnam upon us we decided to go to Cam Lamh Pagoda, Thanh Son Orphanage for charity for the month of July.

Some of our amazing friends have given us money to spend on worthwhile causes and with some of this money I bought Books, pencils, pens, erasers and sharpeners for the children of this Pagoda. They have around fifty children attending local schools at the moment. As every parent knows sending children to school costs quite a bit of money! It is wonderful to be able to help these Children a little with their education.

We also took food for the children, 100kg of rice, 50 bags of fake meat, 2 kgs of dried mushrooms, 5 kgs of beans and cartons of milk along with cake. One of the girls I teach English to donated a carton of milk.

Thank you Ngoc.
I took some photos of some of the ladies who prepare the food here. They do an amazing job and are always gracious and smiling.

One of the children that was left at the orphanage when he was a new born weighed just 700gm. He's now 25 months old and they call him little mouse. He is so tiny but has a great smile and uses it on all the girls.

There is a 9 month old baby that I remember when he was first left at the orphanage. He has grown so much. He is nearly walking and has a few teeth and just smiles all the time.

Some of the children have mental and physical disabilities. Two of them are restricted to the floor or chairs and need restraining when not in chairs. We bought the smaller child a mobile with music so he has something to play with and have some more tactile stimulation. He loved the music that it played.

It was an excellent day. Thank you to all the people who donated money to help the children and those that helped buy everything and those that came with me. It was an amazing and humbling day as always. Makes you very glad to be alive.