Arrival in Vietnam

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Hi,

I know it’s a bit late right now to start with this travelling blog, but better late then never i always say, so I just start right now. At the moment I’m sitting in a bus from Ho Chi Minh City to the beach of Vung Tau and I just decided to write this blog, but my journey to Vietnam started a few days ago, so I’ll just start at the beginning.

On the 30th December 2010 I left with my mom from my little village in Holland to the airport near Amsterdam. Around 11:40 the plane left and our journey had begun. The flight was quite comfortable, but still awfully long, it’s still 12 hours of flight. But I met a really nice Irish girl, who lives in Australia, in the plane and we talked for quite a while about everything, but mostly travelling the world. Finally we landed in Singapore and we had some time to stretch our legs between the beautiful orchid gardens (with real orchids and palms and everything!). After 3 hours we got on the plane to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) and after 2 short hours of flight we were very tired but finally at our destination. At the airport my mom’s friend Duong was waiting for us und she was very, very happy to see us, especially my mom, for my mom has worked for 6 months in Vietnam and became friends with some Vietnamese. Actually I wanted to travel to Vietnam in last April, when she was still working there, but then a stupid volcano in Iceland made it impossible for me to get there… So that’s why I’m travelling with my mom through Vietnam right now.

After several hugs had been exchanged Duong took us to her restaurant where the other members of the Duong’s family welcomed us just as enthusiastically as Duong herself. I met her little sister also called Duong (but you pronounce it differently, but everybody calls her sugar because she is so sweet), her brother Thang, her mom Tien, but everybody calls her mum and her godparents and their son and all these people were friends of my mom. As soon as we got into the restaurant people started to prepare a ton of delicious food for us and my first real Vietnamese experience was starting. We got shrimps, beef, a catfish, eggrolls, many, many different vegetables and fruits and everything was so god damn tasty, so I almost exploded when we were finished. After this very good lunch it was time to get some sleep in our hotel, so we took a taxi, drove there, checked in and took a nap for 2 hours.

When we got up we made a short walk through the city, enjoying the liveliness and the energy that emerges from HCMC, but also trying not to get hit by one of the 10 million motorcycles that roam the city. Of course we got lost, but still I had a good first impression of this energetic city. It was time to have diner (yes, we were able to eat something again after that amazing lunch) so we took a cab to district 1, which is close to the Saigon river and my mom knows very well. We called Duong and we decided to meet in a small restaurant. Two beers later, they (Duong with her sister and brother) arrived on their motorcycles and it was time to eat. Again we had loads of lovely food and I loved everything. (the service in the toilet was so good, that you don’t have to open the water… and you don’t have to put soap on your hands by yourself, because they hire people to do that for you!) After diner it was time to go to a new year party, so we got on the motorcycles (5 people on 2 cyclo’s is no problem at all) and I got a chance to experience the traffic of HCMC at first hand. I had a great time on the cyclo even though there were thousands and thousands of other cyclo’s and everybody got stuck in the traffic jam.

When we arrived at the party in the middle of the city center, already a lot of people had gathered around the big DJ-set, which was just in the middle of two crossroads. The whole party was free and sponsored by Heineken, so everything was full of white and green lights and stars. The music was really good and the DJ-set was sick, but the strange thing was that all the Vietnamese were sitting on the ground. Actually, nobody was dancing at all. Apparently there is not much dancing in Vietnam on parties like this, so I was the only one with itchy feet. After the DJ was finished the most famous female singer of Vietnam came to give a performance! So we saw a real celebrity! At least now everybody got up, but there was still no dancing, but who cares, I had a great time! In the end I missed the actual change of the year because we both were very tired because of the jetlag so we went to sleep after a long cyclo drive through the town around eleven o’clock.

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