THE START OF VIETNAM

We started off our Vietnam adventure in Saigon, aka Ho Chi Minh City. Our first night we were very surprised/excited at how nice our hotel was and for so cheap-our own bathroom, tv, two beds, air conditioner....it was amazing, it definitely wasn't a 5-star hotel, but for us, we were stoked! Hitting town, first thing we noticed was how out of control the motorbikes were! They were literally everywhere! First time we tried to cross the street we just stood there thinking 'well how is this gonna happen!?' Finally we saw a local guy starting to cross so we just copied/ followed him, weaving in and out of motorbikes flying past! We would have been on the side of the street for hours otherwise because we quickly learned you don't wait for a clearing in traffic, you just cross and pray the motorbikes will go around you! haha (don't worry moms, we've mastered this now-and Sydney was nothing compared to this hah!) So, somehow, we don't know how this always happens, but we ended up shopping at a market again. We were supposed to be going to the War Museum but got a little distracted on the way and ended up with some great buys!

Next day we went on a day tour to the Mekong Delta where we cruised the Mekong River on a rickety old boat. We felt like we were on the Jungle Cruise boat ride at Disneyland! We did a few stops at some different islands. The first one we watched locals making coconut candy and ended up buying three bags of them, they were amazing! We also got to hold their pet python! Then we hopped on a small 4-person row boat where we paddled our way through the Mekong jungle, stopping and eating fresh local foods along the way. It was a great way to experience the lifestyle of the Vietnamese people.

We also did a day at the Chu Chi Tunnels, which was one of the craziest cultural experiences we have ever had. It was where the Vietcong based their operations to fight off Americans...basically we saw why it ended with an American withdrawl. There was a complicated network of connecting underground tunnels in which the Vietcong faught from. We got to see different traps they used-all of them were pretty gruesome. We were able to crawl (literally) through a portion of the tunnels to see what it was like for the Vietcong; basically it was awful. Later, we had the opportunity to fire a gun of our choice if we wanted. So we chose an M-16, bought 10 rounds and headed out to the shooting range. It was actually very intimidating and we were both shaking trying to make a straight shot! It was so loud we thought we were going to burst an eardrum and when you get down there they hand you headphones to help...but they were literally headphones you would listen to your i-pod with and they did nothing! We were still shaking after but a really cool thing to say we've done. Throughout the entire day our tour guide, knowing we were the two Americans in the group, made it a point to assure us there were "no hard feelings...the Veitnamese are very forgiving people and think of US only as friends."

In Saigon we decided to book a "sleeper" bus that stops at all the main cities all the way up the coast to Hanoi. This meant that we were supposed to actually have a bed on the bus for the all-nighter bus rides. Really, you pray when you get on board that you will have one of the seats that somewhat resembles a bed and not be crammed into the back two rows like sardines, sleeping next to stangers drooling on you (yes, it happend!) First stop was Mui Ne. We hired a jeep to go visit the sand dunes nearby. When we got there we were instantly surrounded by little kids trying to rent us mats to sled down the steep hills of the dunes. The little girls were adorable and about a fourth of our size, trying to position us on the mats while using all their body weight to hold us up! It was great fun, followed by a lot of work climbing back up the dunes!

That night we ended up walking 40 mintues to go to a bar right on the beach that we had read about. All of the sudden there were performers clearing off the dance stage and minutes later there were acrobats standing on top of each other and people dressed as dragons in our face! We also had our first bucket of booze (literally a bucket), which we now know is the cheapest way to drink around here!

We spent the next few days in Nha Trang, a really fun beach town. Most of our days pretty much went like this: wake up and eat at the most delicious breakfast place we have ever eaten at, head to the beach and spend $1 to rent a nice, cushioned lounge chair and umbrella, eat 1, sometimes 2 massive $4 lobsters cooked right on the beach (as an appetizer), shower, have an occcasional $5, 60 minute massage, head back to our favorite breakfast place (also our favorite dinner place), and finish the night out at one of the many fun bars in the town!!! We loved this town and we love our lives-not to rub it in or anything haha!!

We did, however, stray from our usual routine one day and went on a boat tour around the surrounding islands. Being 2 of about 8 westerners with a group of about 30 on a Chinese tour, we realized we were outnumbered and really wouldn't be able to understand anything, seeing as it was mosting in Chinese. The guide would speak on and on and on in Chinese and everyone would be laughing away...and then he would say about 10 words in English and we would all just sit there confused haha. We managed to have a great day though! At one point everyone was shouting and a little Vietnamese man jumped in the water and climbed into his tube, aka the floating bar. Everyone else jumped in after him and floated around the bar drinking his nasty shots! Shortly after three of the guides got on the front of the boat and started singing rediculous songs. They called people up, country by country to sing a song from back home. We got dragged up to represent America and had to sing " Everybody Let's Twist" in front of everyone...it was pretty embarassing! An interesting, but altogether fun day!