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Published: January 26th 2006
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Buddha
18 Buddhas Boarding the plain in Saigon the reality of it all hit me. I was going to see mom and dad in little over an hour. The feeling was sureal. Has it really been 5 months since I had last seen them? It feels like just yesterday we were driving around San Francsico dealing with my lost passport (by the way thanks Dad for not getting too angry).
I saw my dad first walking into baggage claim. He looked so intent on finding me, it brought a smile to my face. As I started walking towards him, there mom was looking right at me. Her big beautiful smile and then an instant hug. I missed them so much. How cool was going to be travling in Vietnam with them. We walked out of the terminal and saw our driver and guide Holding signs that said "Mr Adam London Mr Fred London and Mrs Trudie London." This a first for me so it was really exciting.
We headed to Hoi Ahn, a little beach town on the banks of a river. This was probably my favorite town in Vietnam so far. It seemed so untouched by the outside world. The
first nigth we found a little restaurant called "Cargo Club," where we ended up eating three nights in a row. The food was amazing and the deserts were even better. We sat on the fron porch and the temperature couldn't have been better. A nice cool breeze, but warm enough to wear shorts and a tshirt. Little kids came up to us trying to sell us postcards but we kept saying no, untill I told my parents you "you just have to ignore them." This tactic worked untill this little girl came up to my mom and my mom kept talking not looking at her. The little girl yelled, "why you no look at me!" we all stopped talking and stared at this 9 or 10 y/o girl, shocked. "Why do you come up and try and sell us things we don't want." She angrily glared at my mom, and slowly walked away. Wow, what an attitude.
Our guide rented three cyclos (bikes with seats attached to the front) the next day and took us aroudn town. I outweight by cyclo driver by at least 90 pounds and everytime I got into the seat I felt like i was
going to send the whole thing flying forward, but I to my surprise this didn't happen. I even tried driving my dad around in the cyclo to see how difficult it trully was. The peddals were blocks of wood and peddaling was near to impossible. I had a new found respect for these guys after that. After Hoi An, we Headed to Hue (the old captial of Vietnam). Another pretty city set on the banks of the "perfume river." On the way my dad mentioned that he could have called the medical board of vietnam to set up a tour of a hospital, little did he know that we wouldn't need to set up a tour at all. We checked into our beautiful hotel and went down stairs to meet our guide. On the way my mom was loading film into her camera and stepped of a stair rolling her ankle...We went to the hospital got and xray and sure thing her left ankle had a amall crack in the "lower fibula." We then proceded to the casting room where we bargained for the price of the cast. The initial price was "50,000" dong, which is about 3 dollars. Then
Cyclo anyone?
The family riding in style the guy said no he meant 50 US dollars, which is funny cuz he wrote down 50,000 Dong. I wasn't about to get ripped off so I argued. He began yelling at me in Vietnamese, which I'm glad I don't speak vietnamese cuz I don't think the things he was saying were very nice. We argued for a bit and finally an interpreter helped us and we agreed on 20 US dollars. What a deal.
My mom was a trooper throughout the entire trip and didn't let the fact that she could barely walk slow her down (that much). After Hue we headed to Halong bay for a night. Halong city was pretty dirty and not as charming as I was hoping. Our hotel felt like a old Russian hotel and I'm pretty sure we were three of about 6 people staying in the entire hotel. My dad and I took a walk down to the night market, where every stall sold basically the same thing. Three women appoached us asking if we wanted "thai massages," "no thank you" "why? you so handsome." Ahhh no no no no....
We took a cruise around Halong bay, which was amazing.
I tried to hit on her...
She wasn\'t having any, but she makes a mean pot I would deffintiely come back here . The huge lime stone towers seemed go on forever. 3000 little islands in the bay.
We headed to Hanoi, where we would spend the remainder of our trip. Hanoi is a really pretty city and reminds me of a less beautiful version of Paris minus the Seine. I said goodbye to mom and Dad today. It was so great getting to be with my family especially since I didn't see them during Christmas. The only part missing was my sister Ryan (miss you ry).
I just hope the 150 Dvd's I sent with my parents make it back to the states...
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Gadi-Ray
non-member comment
Mate!
That chess picture is really cool, man. But what up with the lack of massages? Alls well that ends happily, right?