I'm back!

So this always seems to happen to me. I wake up on what seems to be a normal day in Ho Chi Minh City, AKA Saigon, Vietnam, but then somehow I end up holding a bunch of bees at a small honey farm in the Mekong Delta. I've come to expect as much.

Right. Anyway. Since I last blogged, a lot of stuff has happened, most of it pretty weird. I was strung out when I arrived Vietnam, having traveled for about 40 straight hours. It was about 11:30AM. My theory was that if I powered through until after dinner I would be fine. It worked, sort of. It is now two days later and I do feel fine, but I was definitely out of it there for a while.

When I got to Vietnam, I linked up with my stepdad, Ezra:

We have been having a good time together, enjoying the randomness of the place, and accepting the fact that we have little understanding or control over much that happens here.

What can I tell you about Ho Chi Minh? First of all, it is completely insane. There are literally 2.5 million people on motorbikes at all times. Where are they going? You got me. Trust is the name of the game, as navigating across pedestrian walkways demands that you walk directly in front of oncoming cars and mopeds. The advice that tour guides give is that you should walk slowly and steadily, as erratic movements provide a greater chance that you will be hit. Laughable.

Second, the food is great. The traditional Vietnamese foods are fantastic and inexpensive; there is also great French food, due to the long history of French colonialism here. Service at the restaurants we have gone to has been fine, although a little smothering at times.

Other than eating, we've spent our time here walking around the downtown area, through markets, the War Remnants Museum, the Ho Chi Minh History Museum, and the Botanical Gardens. Mostly we've simply been watching the world go by, as it is so completely unlike anything that we are used to in the West. International travel is like being an infant, as everything is brand new and different. This is true here more than anywhere I have been. At times this can be great, at others, completely overwhelming.

Today we took an organized tourism trip down into the Mekong Delta. Typically I shy away from standardized tourism packages, but this turned out pretty well. We had the opportunity to ride the Mekong River, learn a bit about the history of the area, sample many of the fruits that are grown on farms in the mangroves of that area, and visit a honey farm. Although our route was clearly designed to accommodate tourist traffic, we could get a pretty good understanding of what life in the area is like. Here are a couple of pictures, one from the main channel of the Mekong River, the other from a small rowboat that we rode along a small waterway off the main river.

Overall, Ho Chi Minh City has been fine, although I'm glad we're heading to the beach resort in Danang tomorrow. It will be nice to sit on the beach for a couple of days. Kentucky represent!