Hello Vietnam

We've arrived!!!!!
We got in last night around midnight local time. When we went through customs, there were masses of people outside waiting for people to get through. At first i thought they were all waiting for us and welcoming us to Vietnam. OK so that thought lasted about 2.3 seconds. It was definitely a scene to see. I will post a picture tonight when i can find my camera cord which who knows what pocket of what bag i have put it in.

We were greeted by a Vietnam YMCA representative and they took us to our hotel, we got checked in and decided to venture out. Yes it was midnight but we had already been up for over 30 hours so what was another hour. Jeff showed us around a late night market and then we went into a saloon for a night cap. Well we were certainly surprised, the bar tenders were wearing Texas flag shits and cowboys hats but wow was the band completely opposite, lets just say a heavy metal band was rocking it out. Great experience!!!

The hotel we are at for the next couple of days is in Ho Chi Minh City. Slept through part of the night and was wide awake at 5:30am, this morning was quite the experience trying to shower!! Lets just say I'm glad the bathroom floors have drains. I pretty much flooded the place.

We took a walk throughout the city visiting local places such as the Cathedral of Notre Dame, This Cathedral was built in 1880 and all of the materials were brought over from France. Very impressive. Visited the main post office which is also a historic building. We went to this market that had EVERYTHING you could think of. It was jam packed with food, clothes, trinkets, fresh flowers and fresh food. When i say fresh food i mean fresh. I walked past this women taking live frogs and cutting the heads and legs off of them in front of you and selling it. Fish that was live and in buckets of water to be cleaned and gutted when you purchase it. WOW, I was in overload; the sites, the smells, the taste. My senses were maxed out.

We kept walking through the city seeing the sites and hundreds of motor bikes. They are everywhere, going all different directions beeping at you as you hesitantly step off the walk to cross the street. So far i have seen 4 people on one small motor bike. an adult in front driving, 2 children smunched in the middle and another adult in the back. My goal is to find 5. I will try to get a picture of an intersection of this craziness so you can actually have an image of what i am telling you.

Things are a bit different here in regards to code enforcement and clearly they don't have OSHA. We saw a man being raised up while he was clinging to a rope to cut tress that were at least 70 feet in the air to cut some limbs. He had no harness, nothing strapped to him just him holding on to the rope and being raised up. The electrical wires...wow what a mess, at the street corners it looks like someone knotted up and threw them up on a power poll.

The weather is sunny and hot, absolutely loving it. We are getting ready to have lunch and meet up with the Vietnamese students that will be joining us to help with the school project.

I will be back on tonight and post some pictures and post more about my experiences. This place so far is just so amazing, I keep trying to look at things and relate them to other sites i have seen and i am having trouble coming up with anything. I have only been here a half a day and already have seen so much, i cant wait to keep exploring.

Talk to you soon...