Viet Nam

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Hello!

Awesome!  Awesome! Awesome!  This country has to be one of the most scenic in the world.  Absolutely amazing.  I arrived in Saigon by bus which was pretty easy.  Very different than Cambodia, more developed.  I was at the busy market in town and I ran into some Canadian sailors!  I stopped dead in my tracks stunned at seeing the white uniform.  I had to think for a minute of where I was.  It so happens, that one of the guys I use to sail with on HMCS Vancouver in 2000!  How weird is that?  Later that night I turn on the TV and on the news was the HMCS Regina in the background.  It was great to see a bit of Canada!  Found out that in Cambodia you can rent a bazooka and blow up a cow or a chicken, whatever you prefer!  How over the top is that?  Glad it is very expensive, hopefully that stops the tourists!  Only here that kind of crap happens.  I was also told the spiders taste like candy!  I will take their word for it as I was not that brave to taste them.  Took a little tour of the Mekong Delta, massive river.  This is the route locals took to escape from the war.  It is beautiful there but the day was a boring.  Herded around like cattle is not my bag.  I did meet a girl who is Vietnamese and left for the States the day before the falling of Saigon.  This is her first time back.  She had some great stories to tell me.  I headed to the Cu Chi tunnels, absolutely amazing!  The tunnels are 3 levels underground and the "tunnel rats" lived there to escape from the daily bombings of the "American war".  There defense system is unbelievable.  Some areas are so small that only the tiny locals can fit through so the large foreign soldiers got stuck and were killed.  The escape hatch was so small my hip bones were scraping along the concrete wall.  I could have gotten in but getting out would have been a challenge!  The only thing to give would have been my bones!  We crawled through 90m of the tunnel, no ideas how they lived like that.  That place was so interesting, learned a lot about the war and what the locals went through.  I went to the War museum, I was really worked up when I came out of there.  It is very graphic and does not hold back on information.  Today you see many victims of Agent Orange as the offspring of the people involved in the war are severely deformed.  I was trying to understand the relationship between the U.S. and Viet Nam, they insist that they forgive them and it is in the past. The older generation has a hate on for the States, but the younger ones have moved on.  Not sure how they can do that.  I came out of the museum with disgust and hatred towards the Americans.  Uncle Sam dumps a tonne of money into the country to make up for past mistakes.  By doing so Viet Nam is a bustling place.  Saigon is becoming a major hub and quite costly to live in.  The cool thing about Saigon is that you can cross the street and do not have to worry about getting hit.  At the light there are a thousand motorbikes waiting for the light to change.  When they got there green light I crossed.  I even crossed ready my map and didn't even get bumped!  The key is to go slow so they can go around you.  The things I do for entertainment!  The women her hate the sun, they cover up every inch of skin so they can stay white.  They think white skin is beautiful.  Then all the white people are wearing next to nothing to get darker!  The locals even have shirts with hand covers and face masks sewn into them.  The sun is evil!!!!  I flew around the country which was reasonable, but should have taken the night bus.  They have full size beds in the bus and an overnight trip is only $7!  To maximize your visit here you need to travel at night or fly as each hub is about 12 hours apart.  I went to Nha Trang, a beach town.  Nice beaches, empty and the water is HOT!  Like bath water, awesome and with the cool breeze I could have stayed there all day sunning myself.  I did a day trip on the water, it was ok.  The girl beside me was sea sick and constantly puking while I was trying to eat.  The guy across from me was eating with his mouth open and food stuck to his face, good fun!  What can you expect for $7?  I then moved to Hoi An, which is the best city every.  You can get hand made clothes done, fast and cheap.  They can whip up anything for you, from fancy suits, gowns, shoes, bras, swimsuits you name it they can make it.  I got a bunch of stuff made out of silk and spent very little for the clothes I got.  Next time I will have pictures of the clothes I want to make the process faster.  There was a few misses in the bunch though as the clothes in the book look better on the model than me!!  I found one shop that was good at picking the right clothes for my body shape.  Others just want to make a sale.  It was a lot of fun getting clothes made to fit, so much fun that I will come back and do it again!  After that headed up to Hanoi, cool city.  The highlight here is Ha Long Bay, a natural wonder of the world.  Which has to be one of the most spectacular sites I have ever seen.  I took an overnight cruise and slept on a "Junk", it was good fun.  The other guests and I got along great.  We went to this giant cave, kayaking and swimming.  On our way back there was a huge crowd of locals going crazy, we thought there was a celebrity or something.  They were going nuts.  Turns out that there was a very overweight woman and the locals had to shake her hand and touch her.  They were not cruel but very intrigued by her, it was very sad to say the least.  I get called "big", "strong girl" as they give the Incredible Hulk stance.  Some places even charge me extra for more material when they made me a shirt.  The Asians aren't all that petite so I do not know why they are so shocked.  Even my feet are too big for the shoes here, can't win.  The real stores around here are one size fits all, at least I save money then.  I can't do any more shopping as my extra bag is overloaded.  I had to pay extra to get it back to Bangkok, 15kg is not enough.  Everyone was pulling stuff out and shoving it in their carry on.  The Hanoi airport is really nice but no place to eat and most stores don't take the local currency.  What is up with that?  They want U.S. money.  I took a trip to the "Ha Long Bay of the Rice Paddies", which was great for the most part.  Took a raft down the canal through the Grottos, but when we got to the end you are bombarded with floating markets.  The locals do not give up, they can be quite persistent.  Besides some of the over bearing locals I really love this place, definitely in my top 3.  I am getting use to the way of life here as the scooters with dead animals tied to it does not phase me anymore.  The "weird" sights are very normal.  There are so many more places I want to see here, I will have to save them for a return trip!!!