Good Morning, Vietnam!
DAY ONE, VIETNAM
Best Moment: Waking up in a foreign country, knowing we'll be doing this for the next 4 months, and having dim sum, egg rolls, and dragon fruit for breakfast.
Worst Moment: Trying to stay alive while crossing EVERY street and (Kathy insisted we give a voice to the animals) seeing the sweet homeless dogs that roamed the street. And the look of poverty in many vacant stares.
Lesson Learned: Do not drive in Ho Chi Minh City. Ever. They have no road rules, literally. And, Kathy is awful at communicating.
Cultural Insight: Effort lies within everything here. Most work hard for their families, and you see families together regularly.
This is our road
Dim Sum in Shanghai
Town House 50 Saigon
After 22hr of traveling, we made it to Town House 50 Saigon hotel at 3:30am. Everything went very smoothly, besides our awkward sleeping arrangements in Shanghai during a 5hr layover, and paying WAY too much for our Visa. We were able to chow down on Dim Sum in Shanghai during our layover, and to our happy surprise, the complimentary hotel breakfast at our current stay in Ho Chi Minh had Dim Sum too. Dim Sum'in it! The hotel staff is super nice and helpful! We love it here!
Jet Lag has not reared its ugly head, and we were able to get up and walk around a portion of Ho Chi Minh City. We went to the backpacking district, where there are hostels stacked on bars and clubs. It has been a whirl-wind that we both are not used to--the traffic, for one, is a visual past-time. One could sit at an intersection and watch, amused, for hours. Motorbikes rule the pavement, and when it comes to laws of the road, there are no laws. All you do is make a left turn in front of oncoming traffic, and honk your horn. There is little acknowledgment of pedestrians, though none have been hit which is an absolute astonishment. It is perilous! Street light or not (and mainly there is no form of street light), the insanity of the road proves to make sense to people here.
The architecture is to be admired. Uncle Tim said that there was no urban design when he visited this region, and he is correct--modern buildings have been built around and on top of run down shacks, but it all seems to work out perfectly. It is truly beautiful in its messy facade.
The people are very nice and courteous. There is an overwhelming sense of need in this region, with an even greater need to ignore it. It is hard being in a region like this without the ability or purpose to reshape it--maybe one day these vacation spots will achieve the worth it deserves. Most corners and streets are lined with families, most playing cards, gambling, or huddled around steaming bowls of Pho. There are cards scattered across the streets, and I have learned that the five of hearts is the street to turn left on.
