Blogs from Ho Chi Minh City, Southeast, Vietnam, Asia - page 15

nothing much so far. between ryans sleeping habits and jetlag, we have finally gotten settled in. for now, we are waking up at five and going to bed around 8. haven't gotten around to taking too many pics, but i promise to post plenty of them. today is our 3rd full day in vietnam, nothing intresting so far, except, 1. at the tokyo airport, i thought i was getting a 1.50 glass of beer, it turmed out to be 15.00. dam all this currency conversion. 2. we had to tip/bribe the customs people at the vietnam airport, bucause we brought too much perfume. nothing a 20 couldn't fix. for our first 2 nights, we stayed at a hotel that doubled as a massage palor. happy me. seriously. the massage palor was their primary business, but they ... read more

Well today was our last day volunteering. We took 20 aged 7 to 12 out bowling. Now picture the scene the bowling alley is in a very posh department store (like Selfridges) on the 5th floor. So we get the kids there by two large people carriers and get them all lined up outside the store. We had planned it that the entrance we would use would be the one where the escalators were right inside the door which would take us to the 5th floor. So in the store we trot and start to take the kids on the escalators not thinking that they would never have seen one of these let alone been on one, took us all by surprise when they were scared of getting on it. So we had to show them ... read more

Well yes, we went back to the disabled orphanage on Monday. It was real strange being back and not at all like the experience I had when I first went there, gosh seems ages ago. Anyway, we have another 2 volunteers with us now, William and Tom. William is a teacher and Tom is at Uni. William has worked with special needs children before but I think Tom had the same experience as I had when I first went there. As it was their first night with us we all decided to go for a beer - well for William and Tom I think one beer turned into quite a number of beers and even cocktails. The girls also had a few to many cocktails and the sight this morning was not pretty, ha ha. So ... read more

To be honest, I did not have a great expectation towards the city. Many travel books said that Ho Chi Minh was a 'Little Paris'. Well, first, when we are talking about French protectorate, it was over 60 plus years ago. As a rapid growing city just like other in Asia region, I assumed Saigon won't have much Paris-ness left for recognition. The title is a soundbite only. Secondly, the communist party must have decolonized the city as a manifest to uphold its sovereignty. There shouldn't a lot to be left. But I was wrong. One thing that startled me was the trees. The trees just lavished their every drop of vigour towards the sky and sometimes the twigs and branches just entered into the inside of the house and become part of the decoration. The ... read more

Well day 3 now complete. Decided that we would miss the noodle soup today as Mike has the trots and I don't want to follow him. So found a great coffee place - no, not Starbucks but does italian coffee so latte it was for me this morning. On the way to the orphanage we stopped off to buy a couple of mattresses for the kids. Michelle and Bob had already bought a few pillows from the supermarket yesterday evening so let the fun times begin for the little ones. And in this country the taxis wait while we shop for no extra charge. We get to the orphanage and the kids go mad for the mattresses as jumping boards. We also note that the Irish ladies have left messages for us on what to do, ... read more

Well up and off for my Pho Bo (which is beef noodle soup) decided that I was in need of some vietnamese breakfast. We are trying to sort out where to go this week end we think it is going be delat. I need to book the overnight sleeper bus and there are so many of them just need to make sure it is a comfortable one as there are so many different companies with so many different standards of buses. Got a couple of guest houses in mind and waiting for a reply from one of them. Well back at the new orphanage today and alot better as we took some playdo which went down really well with the kids. The only issue was the older kids came in and started taking the playdo of ... read more

Saigon is a big and bustling city, on our first day we visited the Reunification Palace. Although the Communist pamphlet was rather intent on ensuring everyone knew how beautiful and symbolic the building was, it was rather difficult to appreciate since it was designed and built in the 60's. In the afternoon we visitited the War Remnants museum which again is used as a form of propeganda against the Americans and contained perhaps too many gruesome photo's of victims of the bombings (Both Napalm and other chemicals). We decided our knowledge of the war was painfully lacking and after some research realised how hypocritical the museum was since the North Vietnamese regularly forced peasants to fight for them and handcuffed them to guns to ensure they faught to the death. The next day we went to ... read more