Day One

It didn't take long for the anxious travel bug to wake us up this morning.  Arriving late last night, we were a bit disoriented, which made our first journey out today a pleasant surprise.  First off, right out of our room, we were greeted by the Vietnamese humidity.  We walked down to the included breakfast compliments the King Star Hotel.  Six to choose from, 4 of them Vietnamese.  Of course I was excited to eat pho for breakfast and possibly every meal going forward.  I ordered coffee (a small espresso-like shot of pre-sweetened coffee flavoured stuff) and Jade an orange juice (Tang with ice).  Our first run in with the local pho...  Not so great.  Turns out to be a ramen noodle like bowl of soup with maybe a cheap cut of thinly sliced beef. Ah well, we'll stick to eggs for our free hotel breakfast for the next few days.

Our first several blocks of walking were an overload.  Thousands of people cruising by on motorbikes - bicycles - cars - walking, perhaps to work?  We weren't sure.  We ended up wandering around the endless street scene which consists of pretty much what you'd expect.  Lots of street cafes - shops - markets - construction - people sitting on motorbikes up on the sidewalks - bike-taxi drivers holding up a hand with 2 fingers up and a friendly smile - locals sitting around on plastic children's outdoor furniture eating hot soup and iced coffees.  We went briefly thru the larger market which was fairly close to our hotel.  It reminded us of the Global Market to the tenth power.  Clothes - trinkets - rice - lentils - coffee - pigs feet - liver - tripe - small fish - big fish - and tons of unidentifiable seafoods, most of it still alive or very recently killed (as in a young woman crouching over a squirming foot-long fish, clubbing it gently to its death).  Jade saw a rat race thru a puddle which seemed about right.  Being a bit touristy - the kind of place that a kid my sneak a few bucks from our pockets - we moved on.

We stumbled upon what seemed to us, an authentic street - filled with much of the same from the market, but comfortably spread out and filled with locals. We purchased the biggest water that we saw at a little street vendor (about a liter).  Our first transaction was bumpy.  Lots of smiles, nodding, me looking at Jade, Jade looking at the woman...  She held up ten fingers, which didn't mean much to us.  10 US dollars was a bit steep for water, but 10 Vietnamese Dong would have been like two tenths of a cent. I ended up handing her a 100,000 Dong bill (about 5 US dollars), and probably gave her a look that said, go ahead, do your damage, rip me off, or give me the correct change, because I won't know the difference.  She handed me my change and we walked away drinking the ice-cold water.  We took out my money cheat sheet finding out that we had just spent about 50 cents on the water.  This gave us a little confidence and we felt good.  We walked up to a little old lady making Vietnamese sandwiches of which I was eager to try.  At another 50 cents, we felt like this was going to be the start of a fantastic vacation!  We continued walking and taking in the street scene.

We stopped at a cute little spot for coffee.  We sat inside, but it didn't really have doors. We each had an iced coffee, which in combination with shade and fans, cooled us down nicely. The iced-coffee was very strong, with lots of sugar in it.  It also comes with some more sugar water, or something to that effect.  Pretty good actually.

As we walked down the bustling street, a near-toothless 80 year old or so Vietnamese woman that was sitting next to a building pointed at me and smiled. I smiled back politely until she started laughing, and puffing out her cheeks at me. Confused, I dropped the smile and kept my eyes on her with curiosity. I mentioned it to Jade, and after a quick discussion, we decided she was calling us fat, and making fun of us. We've been joking about it ever since.

By then it was about 10:45am, so we decided to head back to the hotel for a quick cool-down, wash-up, and hopefully a poop (I think I noticed a boday in our bathroom, I've always wanted to use one).  We headed back, and did all of the things described, Jade took a nap, and I flipped thru funny music tv shows and cooking show - all in Vietnamese of course.

Jade was annoyed by the tv shows that I was taking interest to - and sent me to get water while she took a snooze.  I forgot to mention we were welcomed back into our room by very loud construction in the room above us or next to us.  They broke for lunch at 11:30 thankfully.  So on my way to fetch water, I thought I'd start blogging about the specifics of our adventure to help us remember the details.

More to come.
Adam