Good Morning Vietnam!

Good morning Vietnam! So you probably saw my slideshow already, videos are to come. I am a little behind on blogging. We spent 5 days in Saigon or HCMC, Vietnam.

Interesting things I did not know before I went to Vietnam:
(1) Vietnam is a communist and poor country
(2) English is not widely spoken (compared to Philippines)
(3) You can get a motorbike for $200
(4) 10 million people live in HCMC. 4 million have motorbikes!

So we showed up in HCMC without any plans. I know you are all shocked that I could operate this way. J So once we arrived we checked into our hotel. Which by the way – did not have any windows. It was kinda freaky because you never knew what time it was. The other part of Vietnam that is very different is the number of motorbikes. They are EVERYWHERE! And they carry anything and everything on their bikes. Some of the things we saw: 5 people, ladders, dead pigs, cases and cases of beer, live chickens, live goats…just to name a few. Anyway, here is a recap of our trip.

Day 1 – City Tour. We saw some pagodas (temples where Buddhist monks live and pray). We went to the Reunification Palace, City Post Office, Notre Dame Cathedral and the War Remnants Museum. The most interesting part was the War Remnants. It was basically Vietnam’s version of what happened during the war. Very interesting. They showed a lot of pictures showing the devastation the US brought to the Vietnamese people.
Day 2 – Mekong Delta – Ben Tre. So this tour was about a 2 hour bus ride to the Mekong Delta – also called the “rice bowl” of Vietnam. 22 million people live in this area and many along the river. The river itself runs through 5 countries in Asia and Vietnam is the last one – so you can image what the water was like – YUCK! We toured a bee farm, tasted honey tea (so GOOD), and went on a horse carriage ride to a coconut candy making factory. It was interesting to see that everything was made and wrapped by hand. We also took a traditional row boat through the many canals.
Day 3 – Chu Chi Tunnels. We took a boat to the tunnels and a bus back from the tunnels. They showed us the booby traps and all of the interesting things the Vietnamese did to fight the Americans. They are smart people! The tunnels themselves were CRAZY small. We went through about 20 feet and were begging to get out. They were so small and HOT! That night we went to a water puppet show. It was amazing! We still don’t know how they do it.
Day 4 - Mekong Delta – Cai Be Floating Market. This was a tour of the Cai Be floating market. Basically people from all over Vietnam come to sell their goods at this floating market. They sell from their boats and hang whatever they are selling on a bamboo stick. Some of these people travel for 2-3 days to get to the market. Then we rode bicycles to lunch and held a huge python. It wasn’t as gross as I thought it would be!
Day 5 – Shopping. We hit up the local export overrun market where there were tons of North Face, Nike, Merrell, Solomon, Adidas and many other brands stuff for sale. Bob bought a North Face fleece jacket for $15!!

Overall a great trip! I highly recommend you put it on your “places to visit” list.