Ho Chi Minh City

We arrived late in Ho Chi Minh City and went straight to the hotel. It turned out to be very nice. It was a traditionl hotel in District 1 which is the middle of the city. It had a lift! Thank goodness because we were on the 7th and 8th floors! It cost $28 per night per room and included breakfast. It would have been 20 per night, but we needed triples.

We just barely woke up in time for breakfast and went downstairs. They were serving Pho, spaghetti, eggs, toast and fried rice. The oranges are different here - super sweet and green on the outside. They are so good! All of the fruit is really exceptional here and we are eating a lot of it. Also, when you order juice, they take the whole fruit and juice it right that minute for you. We have already established that I will be buying a juicer when I get home.

After breakfast, we arranged a private car to go to the Cu Chi tunnels which is about an hour away. We all fell asleep on the ride there so I can't tell you much about it. When we got there, we were surprised that it was so expensive to get in. It cost about 400,000 dong which is almost 20USD. That is a fortune here. Our ride there and back was 40USD. When you go to the tunnels, you start with a film that Cori and I skipped as I knew it probably wouldn't be kid friendly. She took a million pictures of things in the jungle and then we joined up with the others and our guide. Our guide took us through the jungle and showed us a lot of different things. He showed us booby traps and entrances to the tunnels that were so small only Caitlin and Chase could fit in them. He also showed us how they set up their kitchens and vented the smoke away. We ate tapioca and drank tea just as they would have at the time. There was an opportunity to fire different weapons, but it cost 1.50USD a bullet so we didn't try. We instead ate more taro ice cream. I think you get the picture that we aren't coming home much lighter ...

We located our driver and headed back to town. It seemed to take a long, long time. We rested for a few minutes when we got back and then headed out to a night market. It was a ton of fun to bargain with everyone and buy some cool things. It's a little bit funny though because we had to pay 10,000 dong (50 cents)for a bottle of water and Chuck was so sad about that. We are used to paying 5000 dong a bottle. Our perception is now from a dong point of view and anything approaching 20000 ($1) is expensive.

We woke up the next morning ready to go! We went to the war museum and the reunificaiton palace. I think we all enjoyed the war museum for different reasons. I met a very nice vietnamese lady and we talked while Cori enjoyed the children's peace education area and everyone else explored the museum. Reunification palace was closed for lunch so we just looked around a little bit outside (and were harrassed by many, many songtho drivers).

We packed up for the airport and stopped to eat at an Asian fast food chain called Lotteria. I think it originated in Korea and is a little funny. I took a picture of their poster showing a boy and his dad holding what we would think are onion rings over their eyes. They are squid rings though. It was good and had normal ketchup which is a bonus. Most of the ketchup here is very vinegary and tastes almost spoiled. The kids had Milo to drink which has quickly become their favorite beside tropicana twister which they have almost everywhere.

On to the airport - more later!!

Kristen