Blogs from Ho Chi Minh City, Southeast, Vietnam, Asia - page 220

today..on our last day in vietnam i left the camera in a taxi...oopps well we hav been around the world trying to sort it out...but realistically with 500 million people and 200 million yellow taxi's we knew it was gone so we set off to get a police report to claim for our insurance. well the policeman was the most unhelpful, unfriendly person we have meet in vietnam which was fantastic coz that made it all so mush easier for us! He didnt speak one word of english (probably on purpose) so we had to go and get the tourist sercurity guards to help us translate. I thought sheree was going to attack him for a moment there he was soooooo frustrating...then he decided maybe if we come back in the morning he might write us ... read more

Robert here. Nothing very adventurous to report. I've come down with what I hope is just a summer cold (at least it's summery) and have been in bed most of two days eating oranges. I think I'm past the worst of it. Yesterday I explored a modern supermarket looking for Tylenol. Today I discovered that fish Pho does the job of chicken soup. Right now, I'm sitting in the corner coffee shop watching the traffic. ONe thing I've been admiring is how "people scaled" the streets and buildings are. There's more French colonial architecture left here than I anticipated, and certain blocks look like pictures of the French quarter in New Orleans. ... read more

The bus ride from Chau Doc to Saigon was hell. We were literally stuffed into a tiny minibus that kept stopping to pick up more people. Aside from the several Vietnamese in the bus, we shared the vehicle with an english couple (sort of) and a dutch guy. Among the many things we did to keep ourselved entertained was a game that involved going around in a circle saying how many US states, beer brands, colors, flowers, etc. that you could name. If the person next to you didn't believe that you could name 10 (for example) beer brands, they would say BS and you'd have to prove them wrong (or right). It was actually a great game, but I sat next to the dutch guy, and no matter the topic he was always able to ... read more

Robert here. The internet connection is slow today, and I'm likely to get booted, so briefly and without pix . . . It's Sunday afternoon. Up early again. After breakfast, I left Ilene to work and I hit the streets and ended up walking for about 4 1/2 hours. I headed west in the direction of the backpacker's ghetto and wandered through a lot of neighborhoods where I didn't see any other tourists for a long time. While I did that, the constant salesmanship let up -- no one was expecting me to walk by I guess -- but the motorbikes never cease. It's hard to describe much else that would sound interesting here, but every block of everyday life is something vivid and unexpected to me -- buidybuilder's gyms and tenament buildings and school buildings ... read more

Welcome to the most capitlistic place on the earth. Upon arriving in vietnam, from sleepy friendly, and wonderfully easy Cambodia, Vietnam was a slap in the face that I can still feel. We calculated that out of all of our experiences with the Vietnemese people, 75% were resulting in conflict. Cambodia was full of laid-back, chill english speaking sweathearts. We had a street vendor women who accidently gave us an extra dollar back in Siem Reap. After we figured it out, we could tell that they too realized it , but were not going to say anything. We gave it back and they were so grateful.....now welcome to vietnam. Once we got across the border, we could tell everything had sped up and money, especially getting the most money from you became a top priority. We ... read more