1st impressions of Viet Nam

I am finally ready to tell you about my trip to Viet Nam. Got my laundry done and put away [not too difficult considering I took a carry on] Got my photos organized. Got my cold under control, that was huge

I went to Viet Nam without any pre-conceived ideas about the people, the food, the lodging and the transportation.

Just to give you a brief background of why we went to Viet Nam rather than any where else in the world. My friend and traveling companion, Angie works at a company that has an office in Viet Nam as well as other places in Asia. She has been talking about going their for 4 years so finally I said let's go. While we were planning this trip we learned that a friend of a friend is a travel agent in Saigon [Ho Chi Minh City]. This woman made our planning much easier. She helped us with our hotel reservations in the cities we wanted to go to and the flight arrangements within Viet Nam. She was really wonderful and she also wanted to spend the day with us when we arrived which gave us some insight into what we would expect once we left Saigon including navigating through the motorbikes as we crossed the street.

Keep in mind, we could have done this by ourselves but she made it much simpler and easier and a lot more fun.

We had a driver pick us up at the airport and it wasn't long before we came face to face with the traffic - holy sh.. i thought this is madness, absolute chaos but for the people who live here, it all makes sense. We would find out, as we traveled throughout the country, this is NORMAL!!!!!

Keep in mind there are 35 million motor bikes and 80 million people.

Looking at these photos you will see that people are the same there as here. Look at the girl talking on her mobile while driving her motorbike.

I am going to make a post every few days and I share with you my thoughts and photos of my experiences of this trip. I hope you will enjoy this and think about going to this wonderful almost untouched place

Enjoy

the first few days in vietnam

well, we made it just fine. actually it was no problem what so ever. what seemed like a long trip turned into a very short one with snoozing, watching t.v. on our personal computers, eating, a little and some reading. you know, the normal stuff you do on an 18 hour flight.
my very first impression of vietnam is - mexico with a different language.
what have we done so far? ho chi minh city (saigon to the people who live here) and i mean a city of motorbikes, the mekong delta area - a little touristy but fun, nha trang-beautiful beaches, pagodas, mud baths(a highlight of ours) and good food, danang - actually we spent our time at "marble mountain", china beach and hoi an and then back here for dinner at this rather unusual restaurant near the hotel.
since we have to get going to catch a bus to hue, this morning, i will write more about each of the stops when we get there.
this has been a BLAST! - do people actually use that terminology any more? traveling with angie is really fun and it makes it easier that we like the same kinds of things.
so far the best part of the trip has been hoi an and the beaches between here(danang) and there. the beaches here are amazing - white sand and really unoccupied. HUGE resorts are being built on the beach just north of here and almost all the way to hoi an. this is going to be like cancun - ugh!!!!!!!!!
i will write the details and send photos later today when we get to hue
have a wonderful day and do think about coming here.
l,j