Good morning Vietnam....

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After 27 very long hours of travelling we have arrived in Hanoi. The airport had us nicely fooled into thinking that all of the signs here in Asia would be catering to our english-speaking ways. The workers at the airport don't always know as much english as we would have liked, so loosing our only checked bag was a small problem. Fortunately we found a nice young english speaking lady who was very concerned on our behalf and promised that she would do everything she could to find our allusive bag (filled with all of the goodies for the Cambodian kids). Dad then proceded to take mom's passport and exit the secured area. The burly security guard absolutely refused to let me back in to bring it to her, saying that the picture simply wasn't me. After showing her my passport to prove that I did in fact have my own, she still refused. Luckly mom walked around the corner, otherwise it might have become "The Terminal" Fort st. John style.

The minute we stepped out on the curb, the humidity hit us northerners like a ton of bricks and we all have swollen ankles to vouche for our tale. The swollen ankles don't hold a candle to our Cab driver whose sly grin should have sent all of the warning bells off right away. Culture shock set in on the drive to the hotel as there are tons of little shanty buildings all over the place. Most of the buildings here are concrete, but on the out-skirts of town it was rare to see a building that had been painted on all four sides. The skooters are quite the sight here as it isn't uncommon to see whole families along for the ride of four or more people. There doesn't seem to be universal rules of the road and everyone pretty much drives as they see fit. None of the skooter riders wear helmets.


We are staying at the Golden Sun Hotel, although our cab driver took us somewhere completely different. They tried to tell us that we were at the right hotel, even though the name on the door said otherwise. We did finally arrive at our hotel and we are glad that we didn't cave, as we are really enjoying this little place. Curtis is already on his second shower of the afternoon.

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