Welcome to Vietnam

So arriving in Vietnam was definitely a bit of an adventure. Our agency that issued us our vietnamiese visas said that we could bring a credit card to pay for the visa on arrival. Appearantly that was not the case. Chuck also did not have a passport photo. We wound up having a guard escort us through immigration where the immigration guy proceeded to ask Chuck for his hat for letting us through without the correct documents in order. After Chuck took it off and showed it to him he saw how dirty it was and called Chuck lazy. I am assuming because he thinks he does not wash his hat enough. The guard then escorted us to an atm outside the airport so we could take out money to pay for the visa. The total cost should have been 900,000 dong (about 50 dollars) he made us give him 1,000,000 before he would give us our passports. He was basically making us give him a bribe since he let us through.

We arrive in Saigon about 1:00am and go looking for a room. We found a nice place with a fan for $8 a night. The air con rooms were $30. The funny thing is that our room had an air con so just turned it on and were not charged for it. It is taking me a little time to figure out this city. On one hand you see people at bars smoking joints, on the other hand all the locals make it seem really shady, yet nobody bothers the foreigners smoking on the street or at a bar.

We had quite an amusing time setting up our motorbike rentals here as well. First we waited from about 9:00am until 11:30 for the boss to arrive so we could rent the bikes. Then the bike Chuck was given did not start and the mirror on mine was broken. They went to get a new mirror put on the bike while another lady ran to get Chuck's bike gas. They though perhaps that is why it would not start. Well, they were wrong. We waited another 30 minutes or so for her to find another bike for Chuck to use. Quite a commotion you think they had never rented bikes before.

I am amazed at the lack of english spoken here so far. It seems that rarely anybody speaks any english at all. It is similar to Japan in that aspect. I have not been to a country in S.E. Asia where they speak this little english. To get anything done or communicate anything is a bit of an ordeal.

They had a great market right near where we were staying the other day. Most of the fish there were still alive and everything was so fresh. I tried Snakehead last night Jon and it was quite good. It reminds me more of a saltwater fish than a fresh water. Chuck and I have found ourselves in many restaurants where the whole menu is in Vietnamiese so we just have to point at a coule of things and whatever comes out we eat...hopefully.

I have to also admit I am bit disappointed in the pot here. You can get it most anywhere, but it is expensive and mostly all leaves. We rented motorbikes the other day and have been working our way up the coast. It has been a lot of fun with a few misadventures, especially since nobody has seen a map and nobody can tell us which way to go. Everywhere we go takes twice as long as it should. The nice part is that we get to stop where there are no tourists ever and eat the weird food we see on the side of the road. Our first day we tried to find our way out of Saigon and wound up traveling around in circles and after being on bikes for 4 hours it turned out we were only 15 minutes from where we started. Hey it was still cool. More hijinx to come soon.

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