Vietnam

So, it has been FAR too long since a post has been made to this our blog from China. As it stands, I am writing this from an internet cafe in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) Vietnam. We are here for the lunar New Year. 2011 is the year of the Rabbit (兔子) and we have been lucky to see the New Years festivities here in Vietnam. Here, they call it "Tet", but for all intents and purposes, it's the same. It's a time for lion dances, praying to the god of luck, spending time with family, and setting off fireworks. Vietnam is a beautiful country, which we have seen on both a long-range bus trip (from Saigon to Nah Trang) and on the train (from Nah Trang back to Saigon). We spent most of our leisure time on the beach, enjoying the....infrequent sun, and reading. All in all, your basic beach vacation, except all in Vietnamese. Our Chinese language skills are ZERO help here, as Vietnamese resembles Chinese in no way shape or form.

Saigon is an interesting city; lots of mopeds, scooters, and motorcycles. We saw a museum that commemorates the Vietnamese struggle first against the French and later against the Americans. This museum has replicas of the tunnel system used by the VietCong, as well as photos of the buddhist monk who burned himself to death to protest the war (Thích Quảng Đức). The photo is disturbing, so only go to the wikipedia page at your peril.

We ate Pho many many times, and I tried the all-in-one Pho, tonight which has all the good stuff in it (tripe, tendon, well-braised brisket, top round, and meat balls)

DELICIOUS!!! Something about fish sauce and lime juice that makes my mouth water.....

Aside from the mopeds, scooters, and motorcycles, the other vehicle we see a lot is the cyclo, which is a kind of rickshaw. It looks like this.

We saw foreigners and Vietnamese alike riding in these, but never took one ourselves. They're really only built for one person to sit in.

We did a basic walking tour around Saigon which included the museum I mentioned, a Catholic church (it's nice to see religion being practiced. The Vietnamese are also Buddhist and Muslim), an old colonial French Post Office, and a flower market. Kristy and I have been debating if the flower market is a weekly thing, or something set up just for Tet. We ended up at the rooftop bar of a hotel to watch the sun set over the city. Saigon is polluted, but nowhere near as polluted as Shanghai, so we were able to watch the sun set in the nearly blue sky. SO nice!

As I write this it is roughly 26 degrees Celsius here in Saigon, while back at our apartment in Shanghai, the temperature is 3 degrees. We are not excited to be returning. Kristy still has two weeks left of her break from school before her spring term begins again. We are already thinking about where to go for Easter.... Japan, Cambodia, Thailand...?