Gooooooooooood morning Vietnam.

Well hello all. Mark writing this time. Liza is beside me talking with Hazel. Oh SKYPE you awesome creation you. Well we arrived in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) last Tuesday. We get off the bus and are immediately surrounded by taxi cab drivers offering us a lift. I ask a driver to show me where we are on the map. He shows me an area several blocks from the hotel that we had reserved. So we agree to get in his cab as he has a meter. Before we know it (2 mins.) we are up to 8 dollars USD. The meter is going like the dash computer in the Delorian. Liza and I start saying things like this is expensive and tell the driver that we might have to get out as we didn't have very much money on us. He drops us off at the hotel (12 USD later). we pay him and as we are checking in we mention how much it cost to the hotel clerk. She was shocked. It is at this moment that Liza notices that I have forgotten a package on the bus. I get the hotel clerk to draw me a map to get back to the bus stop. It is literally a 1 minute walk from the hotel. Good job Vietnam with those first impressions. The bus is gone and all the offices closed, so I consider the package lost. We set the alarm for 5:30 am so I can run back to the bus stop to try one more time. I speak with this very nice lady who tells me to return at 9:30am. I do, and after her frantically speaking on the phone and radio she turns to me and smiles, saying she found it. I almost wanted to kiss her. She told me to return at 11:30 at which time the driver would bring me the package. There was a lot of praying to ST. Christopher during this. He has never let us down, even though we thought he was the patron saint of lost things. He is actually the patron saint of Travellers (which makes sense as well. St Anthony is the patron saint of lost things, in case you're wondering.) So it's easy to paint a whole society because of the minority (no matter how visible that minority is), but there are some lovely people here.

We stayed the first 5 days in HCMC, in the backpacker area... and it's quite nice. There are street vendors every where. You can get a belly busting feed for less than 3 dollars. every night for a week and never have the same meal twice. It truely is a culinary heaven. I can't wait for Hoi An. We'll be doing a cooking class there. The coffee in Vietnam is some of the best I've ever had. It's strong and people like to put sweetened cream in it. So the food is delicious and I'm learning how to barter with people about the cost of it.


We spent three days in My Tho (pronounced Me-Tah). It's a small town along the Mekong Delta. The Mekong is huge, it makes the Yukon river look like a stream. There really wasn't much to do in this town. You can do river cruises but we never got around to it. I went to a snake farm for a day. It's run by the Vietnamese army. They use the snakes for their venom (making anti-venom). I saw snakes eating frogs and was offered a cobra for lunch. I had to decline (unfortunately) as I didn't have enough money on me at the time. The following day we returned to HCMC. We took the local bus to and from.

Tommorrow we have to go to the Indian Consolate to pick up our Indian Visa's. After that we are taking a train to Nha Trang. Here we will do a night dive, and have a good time. Nha Trang is the top diving and party spot in Vietnam. After a few days we will head to Hoi An. This is the cultural centre of the country.... Maybe. Lots of arts and silk for sale, cooking classes, and fine dining. After that we will head to Laos. Today we decided to not go to Hanoi and instead go to Laos a few days early. The bus ride from Hanoi is 24 hrs, and we have heard far too many horror stories. like tourist being stuck sitting on the floor, or being stranded in the middle of nowhere. This way we break the bus ride up into a couple of days and apparently the people of Laos are not as likely to rip you off. It's sad that we have to think that way but when it comes to transport, Vietnam is #1 for scams.

I hope that this finds every one well, and would love to hear tales of your adventures.

With love;

Mark and Liza