Sunday, January 31, 2010

Vietnam - Day 1 and 2 - Ho Chi Minh

Did you miss me?? :)

Since I spent 10 days in Vietnam. I shall make 10 posts. So you can experience everything I did while I was there!! ANDDD do I dont make one HUGE post!!!! :) Here we go!!
Day 1:
Dear Diary, mood: apathetic.....haha kidding......and if you dont get that.....well forget about it cause you missed the joke :)

So I left for Vietnam early pearly on Thursday Jan 21st. Marco (Oregon USA) and I went a day earlier since the others were staying a day later and we have Thursday off school! We arrived at the Vietnam Airport in Ho Chi Minh (Siagon) and went to the ATM first. Problem was - the numbers were coming up in MILLIONS of Dong (the Vietnamese currency). WTF? A Million DOng?!>!?! What is the exchange rate! Well $1 CAN = 18,000 D. Wowza! What a rate!~ hahah This just made it REALLLLLLLLLLLLLLY hard for conversion. So I took out 2,500,000 Dong to start :) Im Rich im Rich! atleast, in Asia Im rich! haha.

At the ATM we met some friendfolk - Tim (england) and Asha (Poland) so we shared a taxi together to the backpackers district since, as backpackers, thats where we want to be~!~ Marco and I booked a hotel for 1 night, cost us 150,000 Dong each, or $8 CAN for a night. Jeeze - Vietnam is Pricey compared to Thailand! i've gotten so accustomed to cheapcheap Thai Baht that I almost continued my search for a cheaper hotel! haha. But nope - we stayed there. It even had a television! That is very rare! But the only english channel we had played 7th Heaven over and over. hahaha What a flashback to childhood.

So Marco and I are two strangers in Vietnam, so we go a wanderin'. Nice area not too much to do, we tried to get a tour somewhere but since it was 1PM by this time, we'd have to rent a local car to take us there instead of a day tour which would of cost us $30 a person. No way Ho-zay! We booked a tour for the following day for $6 for the same trip :) haha But leaving at 8AM. Then we met up with Ming, a guy Marco met while partying in Seattle the previous year! they stayed in touch, and lucky for us cause he took us out for drinks for the evening to a local spot which was cheaper and alot more fun. We drank.....I drank.....Tequila Sunrise, to Tequila, to Beer, to Saki.......Yum Yum Fun Fun.

There is this, as Marco says- 'orgasmic', local sandwich which is pronounced "Bang Me". I do not know the proper vietnamese spelling but it doesnt matter anyways. I never ate it cause its just filled with meat, but after our drinking we were wandering down the street yelling Bang Me Bang Me in search of the food, WITh the double ententre for ourselves serving us unimaginable entertainment during our search for the food. hahaha We found it eventually and there were about 10 more backpackers all around the stall yelling Bang Me. hahah. What a Good Night.

Day 2:
But what a Bad Morning....since we had booked the tour for $6 to the Mekong Delta for the day we got up after only 4 hours of sleep still feeling the alcohol.....we got on a crammed packed bus with no air conditioning and a bad smell.....we started on our way.....a bumpy bumpy way......I wasnt feeling so hot and after about 5 minutes on the bus I had to get off for fear of puking on everybody. Im such a poor sport I know. haha. So I biked back to the Hotel while Marco continued onto the day trip. I slept off my drinking and swore to myself I wouldnt drink like that again during the trip. Im weak what can I say. hahah. Then the other three showed up - Din from Singapore, Tatjana a Serbian raised in Germany studying in Italy, and Pauline from France. :) haha What an international crew we were!! so we all just went wandering somemore about Ho Chi Minh - the city itself is actually pretty boring with nothing really to see.....but Tatjana, Pauline, and I went in search of a French Bistro so Pauline could have real french food again - since Vietnam was invaded by French and still has lots of french within the country. Then later we met up with Ming again and he took us to this sky bar which was SUPER nice - ontop a Hilton Hotel. then they all drank as I laughed at their drunken antics. Good night all around. and great start to our Journey in Vietnam!! :)
Random photos of Ho Chi Minh:

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