Loving Vietnam

Here we are, alive and well, hangin with the commies in Viet Nam. We sucessfully crossed the boarder into our last planned country on our original agenda.

We came from Cambodia to the border via the Mekong river by slow boat, which was really great. Life on the mekong is slow and muddy. Some of the people live in floating houses right on the river. Very interesting.

We spent our first night in a city called Chau Doc which really didn't have much to it, but was nice to see the daily goings on in the river city. We took off the next day via bus (which was broken down for an hour or so) and boat to the island of Phu Quoc which was absolutely amazing. It was quiet and although there were enough bungalows and resteraunts to eat at, there wasn't hoards of tourists outnumbering the locals. Most of the tourists that were there we from Vietnam anyway. There also was a nice lack of anyone trying to sell you trinkets and junk on the beach. Our bungalow right on the white sand beach looking out over the amazing waters was really, really cheap. It seemed to be what Thailand was (so we hear), 20 years ago before the influx of foreigners. Very nice. We stayed for 4 nights and if Jared would have let me, I think I would have stayed for much, much longer. We lazed the days away in our hammocks and watched the local fishermen working their nets from our porch. It seemed like this place was changing fast with major construction sites throwing up resorts all over. It may just be another gigantic upscale resort island in a couple of years, so we were glad to see it before it changes too much.

Against my pleadings, we left the island and headed for the city of Can Tho which was located right in the heart of the Mekong Delta. We really liked this place and spent a wonderful morning on the river with our wonderful tiny boat guide.

He took us to the biggest floating market in the Delta and we watched the local people go about their grocery shopping, fruit haggling, and meat cooking rituals. We also visited a rice paper factory, snake farm and land market while on our boat tour. The land market was absolutely insane, seriously there were snakes, fish, crabs, frogs and all other random things jumping out of buckets and flopping around our feet. We got some great fruits there including my new favorite fruit-the incredibly sweet and juicy mangosteen.

We also got to participate in the April 30th celebrations- which is for the victory of N. Vietnam over S. Vietnam-pretty much the end of the American (Vietnam) war. So fun, full of random street snacks, motorcycle chaos, and yes a stage with what I assume is Vietnams finest performers. White suite wearing, dance move throwing, high voiced singing stage hounds. Awesome!

We are now in Saigon, which has been full of strange emotions. The city is full of wartime sites and museums. We have been to a few which were heart renching and hard to see. This country seems to have been in war for decades on end and it is amazing that the people have thrived through it all. The museum for the American war (aka Vietnam war) was so sad (the agent orange section was near unbearable) and a bit anti-american but very interesting to see it through the Vietnamese eyes.

Vietnam has been really great so far and has intrigued us in many ways. First of all is the food-I am begining to understand that these people happily eat anything that walks, crawls, swims, hops, slithers, flies or anyother creature that well...lives. We haven't loved the food, but its interesting none the less. Secondly-yes, the locals all wear those conical straw hats... everywhere, and the women all wear some sort of matching brightly patterned pajama suit. Not quite sure what thats about, but they look comfortable. One more thing, they all drive motorcycles, hardly any cars. In a city of 6.5 million people and no traffic laws this makes for interesting walks (yes, they even drive on the sidewalks) and wonderful afternoon moto watching breaks. Priceless. I am sure this country will continue to intrigue us as the weeks roll on.