Hot and Heavy

Ok, so its a little hard to navigate blogspot because its all in Vietnamese so I don't know what happened with those last two posts!

The cow suitcase and I have arrived! I must confess that the cow suitcase feels like I am dragging around a whole cow -- I think I might have over packed! Hopefully, once the gifts and orphanage donations are out of it it will be more manageable.

I arrived late Friday night after a smooth, but long, trip and came in on the same flight as a couple from St. Louis, Ellen and Brian, who are picking up their son in Can Tho. I haven't hooked up with any of the other families yet.

Has anyone mentioned that its hot here? I think its 3000 degrees with 5000% hunmidity, but that's just an estimate.

The Kim Do is just lovely! Really beautifully decorated and very comfortable. And the air conditioner in my room works! (That was pretty much my main criteria for a room!) None of the hallways are airconditioned, so once you leave the room its sauna time.

I spent the day wandering around. WHen I left the hotel this morning I was immediately approached by one of those bicycle guys who wanted to drive me around. I said no, I wanted to walk. He said that was ok, he would walk with me. LOL! He followed me for blocks, chatting away until I finally caved and climbed in. He drove me to the war museum, which is very interesting and sobering. Worth seeing! My friend happily waited outside for me to finish and then drove me around the city pointing out sites. I think he might have ripped me off a teeny bit. Oh well, lesson learned!

The traffic here is absolutely hilarious! Being from the NYC area, I was prepared for the volume of it, but the seeming lack of any actual road rules and the fact that everyone just lets everyone one else cut in, or cross in front of them so nicely is VERY different. It all seems to work, somehow -- organized chaos. Found the Saigon Tax Center, and then found a nice supermarket and stocked up on snacks.

Met a man in the mall who's sister just graduated nursing school here and is taking a vacation to NY to job hunt. He wanted to know everything about NYC. He asked me to come to his house and tell his mother that she will be safe in NYC. I begged off, and decided he can bring them to the hotel to talk to me if he wants, but I'm not comfortable going to his house.

We are meeting in the lobby at 9 a.m. Sunday for the trip to Vinh Long! I can't believe the day is FINALLY almost here! More when we get back from Vinh Long.