Sorry for the late post as I've been having some connection problems with the internet cafe over here. It's 10:30pm in Nha Trang right now so it's probably 11am back home. So here are the hightlights from the last few days. Warning: This is going to be a doozer!
Day 1 - March 16/17/18:
- We checked into the airport at 11pm Wednesday, March 16th.
- Our flight was at 1am Thursday, March 17th.
- We had our first meal on the Eva airplane at 2:30am (our time).
- After that the airline fed us every 2 hours.
- The plane ride to Taipei was 13 hours long and Kim Anh and I were bored out of our minds as the movies on the flight were so horrible. They were so bad that I don't even remember half the names of them. Except for one....Zanthura....not even worth renting!
- We landed in Taipei at 5am Friday, March 18th. Now I'm going to start talking in Vietnam time.
- There was a 2 hour lay over in Taipei then we were back on a smaller plane. The pilot on this flight wasn't as good so it was a bumpy ride.
- We reached Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) at 11am and stepped off the plane to 30 degrees celcius. I was literally melting as I had worn my Lululemon outfit for the plane ride.
- We went through customs in Vietnam - paid them $5 - which was enough to make our paperwork more "speedy".
- On the way to the luggage pickup, I suffered a "wardrobe" malfunction and had to put on my hoodie to cover up. Unfortunately this only caused more distress as I was barely surviving in the heat as it.
- At the luggage carasoles I discovered that there were these people dressed in blue who were taking luggage off the ramps and hording them. I found this very odd behavior and just ignored it. I went on my merry way to hunt down some carts (as we had a lot of luggage). I found a couple and were guarding them with my life (as people were trying to take them from me). As I walked back to the carasole, I hear someone calling "Kim Le...Kim Le....I have your luggage..." (in Vietnamese). This was weird but I didn't pay much attention as Kim is a SUPER common name in Vietnam and I was told not to pay attention to people calling your name as it might be a ploy to rob you. I stood around the carasole and waited (I left Kim Anh to guard our carry on luggage and our prized carts). I didn't see any of our luggage come down the ramp. Till finally I saw one piece (we had tied bright green fabric to our stuff). I grabbed it and waited some more...still nothing. Then this man comes over and points at my luggage and the piece of cloth. He asks me if I'm Kim Le. I say yes....and he says he has my luggage. I'm pretty startled as I'm thinking "what does he want?!?". So I smile politely and follow him (as it'd be stupid not to and let him do what he wants with our stuff). So off in the corner he had picked up all 7 pieces of our luggage. I guess the reason why he left the one that I found was that it was labeled with my uncles name while the others were all labeled with my name and my uncle's address. I thanked him for getting my stuff (though deep down I wanted to yell at him). He proceeded to find carts and load my luggage onto them for me. I knew where this was going. My parents finally came along and my dad stepped in - handed him some money and told him to go away. I learned really fast that everyone here wants to make a quick buck or two.
- I was able to change into another top so I felt better as I didn't have to wear my hoodie into the city. I could see from the windows that it was super hot.
- When we walked out of the airport it was quite the fanfare. Nothing I've experienced before. Tons of people waiting for loved ones and waving signs. I felt as if I was walking onto a stage for all to look at. Being the picture-crazy girl, I took some pictures of them looking at me! Lol...that make me more of a spectacle.
- We didn't find our family right away and had to search for them. We had many people offer us "help" in finding our family but we declined (as they were more annoying than anything else).
- Finally the family came in a Mercedez Benz van. We packed everyone in and headed to a restaurant for some lunch. Our van played the Happy Birthday song when it was in reverse gear. It was funny.
- At the restaurant my cousin orders french fries as he thought Kim Anh and I didn't know how to eat Vietnamese food. The strange thing is that they don't have ketchup there so you eat fries with butter and sugar. Kim Anh and I didn't know what to do as we didn't want to seem rude. So we ate it and smiled.
- Everyone has been very gracious to us and at first it made us very uncomfortable as they would go out of their way to do things for us. Such as that restaurant we went to - we went to the "international" room (which was this airconditioned room in the back). I was nice but no one was there and all the locals were in the front eating. We felt segregated.
- We discovered very quickly that the traffic patterns are chaotic in Saigon (actually in Nha Trang as well). Lines in the roads mean nothing. I had thought about learning to ride a moped over here but after staying here a couple of days I have changed my mind. I was happy our driver is skillful and gutsy.
- We went shopping at the big international market (which reminded me of the one in Hawaii). After shopping we got back into the van and had dinner.
- The one strange thing is that Saigon has "valet" parking. At first I thought someone was stealing a car but then my cousin said that the valet attendants walk up to your car. Find a spot for you on the street by "pushing" another car out of the way. I tried to get a picture of this attendant pushing a car out of the way so that we could park. It's hilarious.
- After the international market we were all hot so our cousins took us to a "white" shopping mall with air conditioning. The mall was nice and had many high end stores - not really my kind of place to buy stuff though. But it did have a KFC!
- For dinner we went to this restaurant that had many food vendors that situated on the perimeter. So you would walk around - look at the vendors, figure out what you want to eat then go back into the main facility and tell them and they would go get it. Our driver gave us "front door" service (which meant he drove on the sidewalk and parked there and waited for us). Apparently this is "normal" for foreigners.
- The drive from Saigon to Nha Trang was 6 hours long. It was deja vu of our Vegas road trip. I adopted Kim Anh's philosophy of keeping my eyes shut as the driver was scary and everytime I looked up were we whipping around a semi or motorbikes in the opposite lane. Yes...super scary. And honking means nothing as everyone honks for any possible reason.
- We arrived at my uncles house at 2:30am and had to bang on the door as they thought we were coming there much later. We all took a much needed shower. The shower facilities are much different here - I've taken pictures. Took me a bit to figure out a system in which I could clense myself.
I have to stop here as it's late and my cousin wants to close up shop for the night. I'll write more later.
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