Dalat, Saigon, Mekong Delta - Vietnam

Well hello all.

We have had a great day, not your typical Easter. We began the day by checking out of our hotel ($4) and rushing to the bus down the road at a travel agents. We only took our small backpacks and left the others at the shop. I ran then to this place that has amazing fruit shakes for 30 cents the best yet, similar to smoothies. So that was the Happy Easter treat for the girls. I also bought some marshmallow treats for them too. There is no Easter candy here. They loved the Easter shakes. We went on a trip to the Mekong Delta a river system where we ended up taking a ferry to the other side in the middle of the country. If that makes sense. It is in land, a river system that needs a ferry. Anyway. Malaria area, so using lots of bug spray, though have not seen the bugs yet. Touch wood.

We had a boa constrictor around our necks today as it was an attraction at one stop. We tried a lot of Vietnemese candy today and fruit as it was part of our tour. Great coconut candy. We went on three different boats and two busses today touring the Mekong Delta. It was a lovely ride in the row boat again and we wore traditional cone hats on the boat to shade us from the sun. Tomorrow we will visit the floating markets. Where they sell everything out of wood boats and you buy from a wood boat.

So Easter dinner. Oh actually Natasha's other friend (Erin) who lives in Germany, but is from Ptbo (Rick Fines, niece) is with us and Kim a girl from South Africa. Terry we met Erin at the Pig's Ear around Christmas time, small world and that Ptbo connection again Nora. We ate at one of the street venders as they had fresh spring rolls for 500 dong each (16 000 = $1). We wanted to try the local street food again and these looked amazing and were and were so cheap. We had four spring rolls each a great soy sauce (thick concoction) and then other things the lady brought us. She wanted us to try different things. We had rice porage, and another similar thing. She spoke no English but was so happy we were happy, she was aiming to please. The people in the south are NOTICEABLY nicer and do not rip you off, it is great. So that being said my Easter dinner was less than anything you had. For the four of us to eat our Easter meal it cost 60 cents. Total, for all four, that is not 60 cents each. It was so good and light too. Funny. An Easter dinner to remember. Not that my home ones aren't great :)

I went to church last night for Easter. A little daunting. It was at 9:30pm all in Vietnemese. There were other Westener's there though. It was huge and I had to stand. It was a Notre Dame Cathedral, bigger then our cathedral and it was packed. I walked in and they gave me a candle and I stood at the back. It was pitch black and that was a little freaky as I had no idea what the place looked like inside. But then it started and all the candles were lit and it was beautiful, even though I could not understand a word, oh yes I did, Amen. It was long and hot. You know it is hot when the candle drips on your skin and does not instantly solidify. It is 37 in Saigon. Not overly deadly though, can still move around. I expected to not want to do anything. But it is fine sounds worse than it is. So mass was really long. But cool just the same. No stain glass in the church as it was destroyed in WW II.

Was in Dalat in the central highlands for 2 nights. We met Kim from South Africa there. She is also going to Cambodia, a day after me. I am going on Tuesday. We tried great food in Dalat. We toured the markets and the locals hang outs. We ate lots of street food and shared it between the three of us. Each item was usually 2000 dong, around 12 cents. We had shrimp pancake items, pastries with meat and coconut, ice cream with condensed milk. Lots of cool different fruit I have not heard of or seen before. It was really neat.

We then did a motorcycle tour (moped tour) around the country side. I got my motorcycle tour in as I drove Kim and I around for the day. The scenery was beautiful, the best yet. Gorgeous lakes, forests and farms. A full day on the bikes and then a cooking class in the evening. We went to the market in the morning to buy our supplies and we made spring rolls and chicken curry. It was really fun too and we did a great job. I have the recipes so hopefully it will work at home.

In Saigon we went to the Cu Chi tunnels and the war museum, wow. What distruction and crap those people went through. We went through the tunnels which were 80 cm tall (less than 3 feet, dad) and that was double the size they were so Westener's could fit in better. One of the original access holes was there and I got to "try" to fit through. There was not a centemeter to spare with my hips, trying to get through. It was unbelieveable in there and pitch black. The flash worked on the camera and the picture is cool. I will try to post them later. I hit may head three times in there, really hard. In Korea I was not able to take my camera into the tunnels and you had to wear hard hats and I could walk through theirs. Here another story, crawling through, no hard hat and I wacked my head. A neat experience. I would not want to live down there. They actually lived under ground, had a kitchen under there, schools and babies were born in there. It took them 20 years to make their underground town for protection during the wars.

Going to Cambodia on Tuesday at 8:30 am on an 8 hour bus ride through terrible roads for $6. Hopefully the bus will not have any hassles at the boarder, or me in particular. The roads are not great, so it takes over double the time it would at home to get anywhere. Oh and their driving skills and the amount of vehicles on the road. Our bus did get side swiped the other day. Not enough damage to stop though ... carry on.