Vietnam

Ok, we have put Hong Kong behind us. It was a terrible feeling to see the blog disappear but hopefully they still have a record for it. We are waiting to hear back from them to see if they can retrieve it for us.

you can view our Tibet and Hong Kong photos here: http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?Uc=p9195pl.au0a0wet&Uy=v63je5&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0&UV=669885696433_823571949205

I must warn you there are a lot of scenery pictures from Tibet.

You can view the rest of our photos here:http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?Uc=p9195pl.5387qnvh&Uy=-qpq2gy&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0

11-2
We didn't do much today except take a flight from Hong Kong to Saigon. When we arrived the sun had just set and it was 86 degrees and feels like 100 percent humidity. We breezed through customs and haggled our taxi to an agreeable rate. He drove us right to a hotel we had picked out. The hotel is a really big room, ac, tv, western toilett, big windo with a view and $11 a night.
Everyone seems amazed that Linh can speak the language here and, with the few people we have met so far, she gets into good conversations. The begging isn't too persistant here. Still, we used our travelling experience when we ate dinner. Our first impulse is to sit near the street where you can see everything going on. We have learned to embed ourselves into the furthest reaches of the eating establishment so as no to attract too much attention from all the hawkers and beggars that are roaming the streets.
The internet here is cheap, the food is cheap, the drink is cheap, and the accomadatios are cheap. I think we are going to like it here! Hopefully, the hawking, begging, and theiving doesn't become too much for us.

11-3
We stayed up late last night watching television and woke up respectively late today. We went out and had some lunch. After that we had to search out an ATM. While I was looking for that Linh was pricing eyeglasses. She had lost hers a few weeks ago and mine are about 9 years old. We both ended up buying new glasses for a fraction of what it would cost us at home. We walked around a bit more, enjoyed some fresh fruit juice. It is in the 90's here. We had a pretty temperate summer on our travels, but are making up for it now. Hot and humid, just like home.
We went back to our hotel and Linh called Thuan's (our brother in law who lives in Apex, NC) sister to see if she could show us around. Well, she invited us to come and stay at her house later in the week. We will probably take her up on that offer. We are going to eat lunch with her tommorow. We went out to dinner later and picked up a photocopied guide bood of India for cheap. Later we went to a bar for a drink. The bar was called Guns 'n Roses and they have free pool and play a disproportionate amoutn of G 'n R music. That was interesting.
We love the Air conditioning in our hotel!

11-4
We woke up and ate dinner with Thuan's sister, Chi Ty. We went to a really nice lunch near the cathedral in town. After lunch we went to the cathedral. In front of the cathedral is a statue of Mary, where apparently last Saturday it cried and you can now see tear streaks under her eye. They tried to wipe it off, but it appears to have changed the color of the stone. That was really cool. Thuy invited us to stay at her house, so tommorow we are going to move over there. We went to the market and got some really good fruit, and said goodbye to Chi Ty. We cooled off in our hotel room for a bit and then went and bought our bus tickets. We can hop on and off all the way to Hanoi for only 35 us a peice. Good deal.
We had dinner at a rooftop restaurant.
Chi Ty has promised us some homecooked food, so we are looking forward to that, and Linh is looking forward to doing some shopping with another female.

11-5
We checked out of our hotel and got a taxi to Chi Ty's house. Linh went to the market with her and I caught a nap. She and her husband have 3 boys ages 5-9. We had a home cooked and tasty lunch and dinner. Later that night, they took us out to a really nice coffee shop. We chilled out there for a while and had some drinks. After that they drove us around on their motorbikes and we took a little tour of Saigon.
Saigon is full of scooters. Most of them are 100 cc's and besides taxis, buses and the occasional car, that is all that is on the road. The roads are a sea of scooters. But they dont call them scooters here, they call them motorbikes or hondas (like the way we call tissue, Kleenex). They physics of the scooter traffic amazes me. At rush hours there are millions of them on the road and they are all crammed togehter, yet they rarely ever touch, almost like they are magnetically opposed to each other. In fact, if you walk across the street, somehow, if you keep moving, they just kind of go around you. Crossing the street is stressful, but somehow it works.
We enjoyed our ride on the back of the scooters. Traffic isn't so bad at night. And it's not so steamy hot at night.

11-6
We woke up and went to have breakfast with Thuans other sister's (Chi Quyen) family. They have one daughter and a son. After breakfast we went to another really cool coffee shop and and had some drinks. One thing we have to come to find out is that Vietnam takes the whole cafe experience to another level. The cafes are huge and plush and the decor at the nicer ones are really unique and interesting. We like hanging out in these places. After that we went back to Chi Ty's house and caught a nap. It is so hot in the afternoons here, that a nap seems like the best thing to do. After the nap we went to church. The church was packed full. The priest said the statue crying is a great thing, but to make sure not to lose sight of where your faith lies.
After church we went to the gym. I never really thought in my wildest dreams that I would be working out in a gym in Saigon, Vietnam, but thats what we did and I know I am going to pay dearly for it in the next couple of days. After the workout session we went to Chi Quyens house for dinner. Dinner consisted of sushi, shrimp, snails, dried squid and these skinny little fish that are about 6 inches long that cooked to a crisp and then you just eat the whole fish head and all. During dinner we all shared a bottle of rice wine and later we switched over to this other wine. Chi Qyuens husband has these big jars of wine that he makes. One jar is full of sea horses. One jar has a huge king Cobra snake coiled up in it. Another jar has sea horses and starfish. Mix all of these together and throw in some deer antler and that is what was in the wine i was drinking. I couldn't taste this stuff though, it just tasted like really potent alcohol. We drank from tiny little shot glasses. So, this evening we had quite an eclectic mix of food and drink. I slept well that night.

11-7
We woke up and caught a taxi at 6:30 am back to the bus station and got on the bus to Dalat. This is the town where Linh was born and her family used to live. It is up in the mountains and much cooler than Saigon. I thought it interesting that I saw palm trees, even the mountains, on the bus ride here. The bus took about 8 hours and we slept through most of it. We were lazy when we arrived and stayed at the hotel that the bus dropped us off at. It is really nice and clean and new looking. We went out for dinner and met a fellow American. He fights forest fires for 6 months and then travels the other six. After dinner we were walking back to our hotel and we came across this really cool looking cafe. The place is decorated like a jungle and a local artist created it. Dalat is the center of artists and such in Vietnam. It is much more relaxed than Saigon. It is very hilly and has a big lake at the foot of the town. The cafe is really uniqu and beautiful, full of nooks and crannies and just really artistic. It is called the 100 roofs cafe.
We went back to our room and watched a few movies on tv and went to bed.

11-8
We slept in a bit and went out to eat lunch. We decided to eat at the 100 roofs place again, so that we could see it in the daylight. Lunch was tasty. Then we came to the internet cafe and later we are going to walk around the lake.
An interesting thing happened while we were wrapping up athe internet place. The internet place is in this huge concrete building. Well, the whole building started swaying a bit. Apparently we were in an earthquake. It was a bit weird to have everything moving. We left not quite sure if that is what it was, but it was something moved the earth that is for sure. We went and walked around the lake and had some coffee in another cool cafe and then got lost walking and then had dinner and then found our way back.

11-14
After spending the week in Dalat we hopping the bus to Mui Ne today. We really enjoyed our stay and we ran into a few people who knew Linhs dad from 30 years ago. He used to be a teacher in this city. The city is beautiful, full of artists, the weather is great, nice and cool, but it never gets cold from what people tell me. The ride to Mui Ne took about six hours and we arrived about 1 pm. The bus dropped us off at a nice resort and we decided to splurge and pay (gasp!) $20 for a room. This is pricey for this country. But this place was really nice. We got a room in a bungalow with AC and tv and nice bathroom. The grounds are really beautiful, full of palm trees and flowers and they have a really nice swimming pool. All of this looks out over the ocean. Very nice. This our belated anniversary/my birthday present. We swam around, took a nap overlooking the beach, read our books and really relaxed.

11-15
We woke up and move to a place that is only $12 a night. This place lacks a swimming pool, but has better food and is still on the beach. We rented a motor scooter so we didn't have to walk our bags and so we could go sight seeing later. After we settled in, we went cruising around on the bike. We saw a temple but didn't want to pay to get in. We then found our own stretch of beach where there were almost no other people around. We went swimming for a bit. Then we took off the other direction and went to go see the red sand dunes. After seeing the sahara this didn't compare much. Later we ran out of gas. I shouldn't be such a cheapskate. I pushed the bike to the nearest gas station a put a couple of litres in. We got to see a cool fishing village on the way back. There were, like, a hundred colorful boats in the bay. We ate a midday snack at this really cool reastaurant near the fairy spring. The restaurant didn't look cool, so much as it was dirt cheap and really tasty. And the people were super friendly. We parked our bike at that restaurant and then began hiking up the fairy stream. This is a really shallow stream that has, over time, cut through the surrounding terrain exposing a range of colors of sand and rock underneath. It is really beautiful. We hiked up the stream for a while where we came across a couple of water falls. On the way back we hiked up the side of the canyon to have a wonderful view of the streams path to the ocean. Hiking back down the stream it was approaching dusk and we saw two snakes slither away from us. We went back to our bike and decided to go get a shower (Linh had taken a spill when her foot got trapped by some quicksand type sand). We came back to eat and were even more impressed with the food. They gave us a free plate of fresh watermelon for dessert. We told them we may walk back tommorow for lunch and they said if we did that they would give us a free ride back to our hotel (our hotel was a good bit away.) We chilled out back at our resort.

We have received official word from blogger that they have no record of the blogs we deleted. This is sad, because I was kind of thinking about going back and correcting all of my terrible grammar and spelling and making a logbook with pictures in it. This is, after all, the trip of a lifetime. But, alas, the blogs are gone, nothing to do but keep on keeping on!

11-16
We woke up and decided to take a long stroll along the beach back to that restaurant we ate at last night. The nice thing about Mui Ne is that the only people that tout to you are the motorbike drivers offering you a ride and they can't go on the beach, so a walk on the beach is hassle free. We got to walk behind some pretty fancy resorts and past some local fisherman. One thing we see a lot of on the water is these round boats. They are basically a big basket about 6 foot in diameter. They are woven out of bamboo or palm fronds or something and then coated with some kind of water proofer. There is only one oar that the people move in a stirring motion to move the boat along. Pretty unique boat.
So we go to see alot of these boats on the shore and the water. We also saw a dead dog rolling around in the surf and that was a bit of a scenery spoiler. Eventually we made our way to the restaurant. It was good food again. Free watermelon, again. And a free hide home. Once home we went for a swim (we were far away from the dead dog) and hung out by the water and read our books.

11-17
We woke up late and had a leisurely breakfast/lunch. The fresh fruit in this town is great. We love the laid back atmosphere in Mui Ne but our time has come to leave and our bus to Nha Trang leaves at 1 pm. We kill time for a bit and finally we get on the bus. The ride is uneventful(thank goodness!) and we arrive in Nha Trang about 5:30 pm or so. We check into a room at the place where the bus dropped us off (after a bit of bargaining). It is nice, but this place, although it is a beach town too, doesn't have the resort feel of Mui Ne. I beleive the entire beach is municipal. There is a road parallel to the beach and then the hotels and such start. There isn't really any 'beach front' property here. We ate a delicious meal and then went back to our room. It wasn't until later we noticed ants in the room. Little tiny ants that seemed to crawl on you now and then.
Short lived powerful rain storms seemed to be cropping up during the night. A few times the wind was driving the rain completely sideways against the glass of our windows. The wind sounded really strong! Like a hurricane or something. This continued throughout the night.

11-18
We woke and the rain had pretty much gone away. We were getting tired of the ants and I went out on mission to find another place to stay. I did. We checked out and then ate breakfast at a place we had scoped out the night before. This place had bacon and eggs and is the first place we have found that cooks bacon like we do at home. We hired some scooters to take us and our packs to the new hotel. Linhs driver ran out of gas on the way. I am glad to see that even the locals do it! We settled in to our place and thats where I caught mention of Typhoon Bolaven on CNN, brewing out near the Phillipines. This must be the source of our weather. The wind is blowing strong today and the sea is a whipped up choppy soup. We have a great view of the sea from our balcony and are 4 floors up. We were planning on taking a boat tour tommorow but now we are not sure becauseof Linhs propensity towards sea sickness. We will see what happens. One thing is for sure, the normally docile sea has waves now. We just need to find a place to surf!
We went swimming in the sea and man was it powerful! Not really good for surfing because the only break in the waves is when it rears up and pounds itself onto the shore. I tried body surfing but it just picked me up and threw me into the sand. I was worn out in 10 minutes. We had some coffee on the beach. Not many people are venturing into the water.
Later we had dinner and then went back to our hotel and chilled out on our balcony for a while.
The wind was howling again tonight.

11-19
We woke up late and I went out to look at the beach and the water had changed colors overnight. For a few hundred yards the water looks the same color as the sand and then there is a clear line where it changes to blue water. I checked on the net and it looks like Typhoon Bolaven is going to make a u-turn and not run into Vietnam.
We had bacon and eggs for breakfast and then came to the internet place.
We didn't do too much today, just walked around and stuff.

11-20
We had a late breakfast at our regular place and then Linh went with our hotel people to mass. We booked our next bus to Hoi An for tommorow. It is going to be a night bus that takes 11 hours. It leaves at 7pm tommorow. We didn't get to do a lot of the things we wanted to do here because of the weather. So we are kicking around the idea of coming back later so we can do our boat tour and hang out on the beach. It has been raining off and on, and really windy since we got here. The water is all churned up, so the snorkeling isn't very good.
We didn't really do a whole lot today.

11-21
We checked out of our hotel (this place was only $8 a night with a/c, tv, two big beds and a balcony with a great view of the ocean). We left our packs there and got a late breakfast. We exchanged some of our books at a book store and then came here to the internet. We are going to walk to a grocery store later and just bide our time until we leave.
We caught a cyclo ride to the store. This was our first cyclo ride in Vietnam. We bought some stuff from the store and then decided to walk back. We found a pastry shop with some excellent cream puffs on the way back. We ate a snack and then got on the bus to Hoi An at 7 pm. Around midnight we stopped and ate dinner and after that Linh and I both slept until we stopped for a bathroom break about 4:30am. We arrrived at our destination at 6:30am.

11-22
Apparently some guy left his camera unguarded during one of our breaks and it was stolen. Just another reminder that you can never be too careful with your stuff. I sleep on top of my messenger bag.
We checked into the hotel where we got dropped off and slept unitl about 2 pm. We both got some sleep on the bus, but not much. We woke up and went into town. The big draw of Hoi An is the hundreds of tailor shops here. Linh went price shopping while I was on the internet. Once she had ferreted out the lowest prices we went to get fit for some clothes. I am getting a suit and a couple of shirts and a jacket. Linh is getting a jacket, an ao dai (pronounced ow-zai, the tradtional outfit she wore at our wedding reception) and some shoes custom made to her feet, which is a blessing because she can never find footwear that works with her feet. We pick this stuff up tommorow!

11-23
We went for a fitting for our clothes, they are going to tweak them a bit, and we were supposed to pick them up later tonight but we went to a cooking class for dinner. That was fun and had good food, albeit not enough food. A couple of British chaps shared the table with us and after dinner we hung out and talked for a few hours and then it was too late to pick up our clothes. Guess we will get them in the moring.

11-24
Happy Thanksgiving!! I think this is the first Thanksgiving either one of us has had without being surrounded like family. Honestly it is just like any other day around here, since Thanksgiving is an American holiday. Well, I hope everyone is enjoying their turkey and cranberries and stuffing. I am jealous, I hate missing out on all the fun, but if there is a reason to miss it, I think this is a valid one. Happy Holidays!

11-25
They put the wrong sole on Linhs boots so we have to stay one more day for them to fix it.

11-26
Linhs boots weren't going to be ready until later and our bus didn't leave until 2pm, so we booked a tour to nearby My Son for the morning. We woke up early and went and toured the ancienct village of the Champa people. These people were here around 3 A.D. The ruins were cool and there were also some bomb craters.
When we got back we picked up the boots and then boarded the bus to Hue. On the way to Hue we passed Danang where China beach is and saw some of the best surfing waves yet. We may have to come back here and try to surf.
The bus ride was supposed to take 4 hours and only took 2 1/2 hours. This was first. It may have helped that there were only two other people besides me and Linh on the full-size bus.
We checked into a hotel near the bust stop and went to eat dinner. We booked a tour for tommorow morning of some of the surrounding sights. This tour is just going to be me, Linh, and a German girl. They are going to take us around on the back of motorbikes and we will have a private tour guide. This sounds a lot better than the 50 or so people we had to tag along with in My Son.

11-27
We woke up early and got on a dragon boat and rode up the Huong river to a big pagoda on top of a hill. Our tour guide met us there and showed us around. Then we hopped on our hondas and went to a really big monastery. Our tour guide timed it so that we arrived when they were doing their prayers. It was pretty cool to watch. Then we went to bunker hill. This is a hill high above the river with some concrete bunkers on it. It offered great views of the surrounding area. Next we went to the tomb of Tu Duc. This was a huge place that probably used to be quite grand. Tu Duc was the emporer that allowed the French into Vietnam. After that the tour guide to us to a great local eatery for lunch. The food was great and dirt cheap. It was about $3 for all 3 of us to eat and drink.
We came back to our hotel and took a nap and then had dinner. We stayed up late watching movies on HBO. Tommorow our bus leaves at 5pm for Hoi An.

11-28
We woke up late and had lunch and then went to go see the imperial city. This is the old palace grounds back when Vietnam still had emporers. Parts of it are restored but most of it is in ruins. It was worth seeing though. We walked back and used the the internet. Our camer has started to act funny. The shutter only works when it is partially zoomed in. I was worried that this might happen. To date we taken 5,159 pictures with this camera. It definately has seen a lot of use and abuse. Freezing weather, high temperatures, sand, high altitude, if only it can hold out for a little longer. Pleeeasssee!!!!!!!

11-29
We rode all night and didn't sleep well on the bus at all. We arrived in Ha Noi about 5:30 am. We checked into a hotel and went to straight to sleep. We didn't leave the room unil 3 pm. We walked a really long way to a cafe we had read about and got a coconut full of ice cream. We then hopped a motorbike to the Water Puppet theater and somehow ended up with front row seats even though we were late. That was really interesting. Then we ate dinner and tried to figure out the best way to Ha Long bay.

11-30
We woke up and had lunch. We enquired at the post office and DHL how much it would cost to ship some stuff home because we have way to much stuff now. It is really expensive, so we are going to hold on to it for a while. I checked my email and just found out that our dog is dead. McKenzie, rest in peace.


Here are some pictures from Vietnam:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingReg.jsp?Uc=p9195pl.4shy8h5h&Uy=-ynhucx&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0&UV=125754385584_783864860305

12-1
We booked a tour yesterday to go see Ha Long bay. We were on the bus by 8 am. We arrived in Ha Long about 11:30 and got on a big boat to tour the bay. We had a great seafood lunch and cruised around for a few hours looking at the amazing rock formations. We went inside a huge cave that was inside one of the islands. Then we got to kayak around until dark. One kayak got lost and we had to drive around in our huge boat and find them. Luckily it didn't take long. Then we boated to Cat ba island where we stayed at a hotel. We elected not to sleep on the boat because Linh has a tendency towards sea sickness. We had another great seafood dinner. One of the ladies at our table was seasick so that meant more food for us!

12-2
Breakfast was French bread and jam and coffee. We hopped on motorbikes back to the boat. We slowly cruised back to Ha Long harbour only stopping for a 20 minute swim. The dock was absolutely jam packed with boats when we got back and we had to cross 4 or 5 boats on foot before we made it to dry land. Our boat also had to tow another boat that ran out of gas. We had another great lunch and then it was back on the road to Ha Noi. We got dropped off at a dumpy hotel (the first one we have encountered here), but since it was only $6 we decided to stay. We hope to catch a train out tommorow.

12-3
We bought tickets for a sleeper car on an overnight train to Danang. It leaves about 4pm and arrives at Danang at 10 am the next day. We just wasted time most of the day. When it was time to go to the train station, we wanted to get a taxi. A cyclo driver came up and said he could take us, but I had my doubts with both of us and our packs on one cyclo. He wouldn't take no for an offer so we loaded our packs on and then we got on and then the whole cyclo tilted forward and the driver was sitting in the air. We got a taxi.
We boarded the train and the trip was uneventful.

12-4
Hey, wow!
I have been trying to blog for the last few days and couldn't access the site. Couldn't access hotmail either. Maybe the commies don't like me! Maybe that feeling goes both ways!

Anyway, the train trip marked the beginning of our second tour of duty in 'Nam.
We shared a compartment with an old Vietnamese guy that had blue eyes. How strange. Which brings up the topic of Linh and the reactions we get to her everyday. Whenever we are out and about people usually just assume she is not Vietnamese. They think she is French or western or mixed. And on more than one occasion somebody will ask us something in English and she will reply in VN (Vietnamese is too long to type) and they will literally have this look of shock on their face and sometimes even take a step or two backwards. Then this, a typical conversation usually follows: Stranger: Where are you from? Linh: America S: Are your parents VN? L: yes S: is your mother VN? L: yes S: is your father VN? L: yes S: you look mixed....Where in VN are you from? L: Dalat S: How did you learn VN? Did you go to school? L: I learned it from my parents S: your VN is perfect
Then if its a guy they usually ask if I am a boyfriend, and she says husband, they say how long have you been married? she says 3 years. they say Any kids? she says No.
They usually think its weird to be married that long and not have kids but we usually explain that that is on the agenda after we are finished being irresponsible travellers.

Anyway back to our trip:
We arrived in Danang and immediately got a ride to China beach, which is now called American beach because we Americans landed there during the war. The waves were lookin spectacular and we couldn't wait to find a board and go surfing. We checked into a hotel and then went in search of a surf board. The great thing about this beach is that is a lot like Wrightsville beach back home. It is all sand and the sand disappears into the ocean slowly and there is a sand bar out there which makes a break great for surfing. The other thing is that the place is practically deserted (especially this time of year). It probably wont be this way for long because they have just finished a nice beachfront road and they are building a boarwalk and hotels are popping up left and right.
The problem with it being deserted is that it was really hard to find a board. We walked and asked and asked and asked and finally we found a guy that said he would rent us one for a few bucks an hour. We said okay. He had to go get it on his scooter. Well he brought back the most pathetic excuse for a surfboard I have ever seen.
The nose had been snapped off. The tail was broken off. The two fins that remained were held on by metal L brackets. The fiberglass had was missing in spots revealing bare foam. The foam inside the board was compacted and waterlogged.
The board was made in Australia and the best that I can figure is that some Autralian broke his board and let it float away and it washed up in Vietnam. It was horrific! Here are some pictures of the board: http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?Uc=p9195pl.7rwvhum9&Uy=uldkkx&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0&UV=84652016551_220319101305
Anyway we took the board! We tried and tried to surf on it. Linh caugt a couple of waves, and I kind of caught one. It was fun trying and we can say we have surfed Vietnam and surfed it on probably one of the worlds worst boards!
An hour of that was enough. We went to mass later in the day and checked the internet for places to get a real board. Come to find out that there is a real rental place at a beach a little bit south of here. Maybe tommorow.

12-5
We woke up and it was pouring down rain and its supposed to rain all day. We decided to give up on the surfing and took a car to Hoi An. There we wasted time until the bust to Nha Trang left at 6:00pm. We got on the bus and steeled ourselves for the overnight trip.

12-6
We slept crappy on the bus and arrived in Nha Trang about 6:30 am. We checked into a hotel and it was pouring down rain. We wanted to take a boat trip here, but the weather isn't cooperating. It's supposed to rain for the next few days. Having been here before we went to a little restaurant we loved (because it has real bacon) and had breakfast. They remembered us from 3 weeks ago. It rained off and on all day so we just wasted time. I got a haircut and had my ears cleaned out. They do that at the barbershop. They have these tiny little scoops and brushes and things and stick it in your and clean it. It was kind of weird, but I have super clean ears now. Linh decided to get some highlights in her hair and the hairdresser lady did a horrible job. I think I could have done a better job. Oh well. We bought some really good cream puffs from a bakery and bought our bus tickets to Dalat. We decided not to hang around forever waiting for good weather.

12-7
We got on the bus for Dalat at 7:30 am and rode until we arrived at 2:30pm. We checked into a hotel. It is actually chilly here. I may have to wear pants instead of shorts. They are having a flower festival here and there are flowers all over the place. It looks really pretty. We had some coffee and then Linh went to get her hair fixed. The salon girls looked horrified at what the last place had done to her. She is getting worked on while I am catching up on the blog.

Side notes: This is the first place I have been able to view the blog and comments in a long time. Thanks for the definitions and such. I love reading the comments and I have one thing to say to Google who doesn't have any sort of backup system for the blogs:
BOOT TO THE HEAD! nya nya!

Linhs hair looked great after they got through fixing it.

12-8
We enjoyed the scenery around Dalat. Went to mass. Basically just chilled out.

12-9
We got on the bus for Saigon and arrived in Saigon around 3 pm. WE checked into the "Linh Linh" hotel where we stayed before. Now we are trying to arrange a Mekong delta tour that ends up in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Oh yeah, I had a great conversation on the bus with a poet from Dalat. I was reading some novel called "Wisdom of the Fox" and I guess he thought it was a really deep book. So he wrote a little poem in the front of the book and signed it. It says "The end of sorrow is the beginning of wisdom". Anyway, he pretty famous locally and is even in our guide book.
We met up with Chi Ty and her husband and had coffee tonight.

12-10
We picked up our tickets for Cambodia. Linh went to mass and then we ate dinner and then we met up with Chi Ty for some drinks and they drove us around on their scooters and we did some sightseeing around Saigon. Some places have Christmas lights up and we kind of miss all the hoopla of the states. It's pretty low key here, I guess the positive side of that is that we are constantly being bombarded by Christmas ads and crass commercialism. We miss the music and the overall expectency that builds up when we are at home, though.

12-11
We stayed up late watching movies on TV last night and slept in really late today. We hope to leave for the Mekong Delta and Cambodia tommorow.
We had dinner with some of Linhs family on her dads side. It was a great meal and they said to say hi to everyone.

I have put more pictures on Vietnam picture link above. There weregetting to be to many pictures to manage, so I started a Vietnam2 picture link. Here it is:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?Uc=p9195pl.bzoxrls1&Uy=-60qbtx&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0

enjoy!

12-12
We woke up early and got on the bus to the Mekong Delta. Once there we got on the boat and did some touristy things. We went to a coconut candy factory and bought some because it tasted really good. We went to a bee farm and had some honey tea. We also got to hold a python snake there. Then we went to a fruit farm and had some wonderful fresh fruit that was included in the price of the tour. We went to all these places by boat and got to travel in come cool canals that were surrounded by palm fronds. We even saw some of those walking mud fish under one of the docks. Eventually we got on a bus and rode forever on a bumpy road to our crappy hotel that was covered in the price of the tour.

12-13
We woke up early and ate our crappy bread and jam breakfast that was included in the price of the tour. Then we got on a boat and visited a fish farm. After that it was a 4 hour slow boat ride to the Cambodian border.

Finally time for the next blog!
We loved Vietnam and I have become addicted to the coffee here, but I think we are both ready to move on!