We survived the mayhem and chaos and i'm just talking about crossing the road. Nam was great, had a whirlwind of a trip - 2 days in Singapore (extended stay thanks to my incompetent visa organisational skills...ie, showed up to the jetstar counter to fly from singapore to hcmc and got asked to show our visas and i was all like "our what now?" doh!)
anyway, twas all good in the end.. expensive but all good.
so, back to the trip...we stayed in the old quarter in hanoi, where the street food was amazing and josh got drunk on 20cent beer. did a free walking tour with the hanoikids and watched/tried not to fall asleep during the water puppet show. had a gorgeously luxurious overnight trip to halong bay where they showered us with petals as we stepped aboard...
spent 2 nights in hoi an, riding a bicycle around the gorgeous streets and spending way too much money on tailor made shoes and clothes and oohed and ahhed over the pretty lights/lanterns at night. went for a private boat ride along the river and rode our bikes to the beach but got rained on, so josh got drunk on some more 20cent beers.
then onto ho chi minh where i had a heart attack everytime we crossed the street. took a day trip to the cu chi tunnels and josh showed he was as small as the vietcong by slipping into one of their super tiny tunnels. then we fired the M16 (about 4 or 5 rounds each) which was INTENSE and not really a pleasant experience. but was cool to give it a go anyway.
also took a day trip to the mekong delta and checked out the war memorial museum, which was a very sobering and emotional experience.
All in all, was a good and eventful trip, but to be honest, I wouldn't go back. we've seen a few amazing countries now and vietnam just didn't stack up. yes, its crazy cheap and yes, the food is so good, but the people were grumpier than i'm used to (to be fair, their country has been through a lot, so they have every right to be grumpy). the place was dirty, the weather was not so great, the water was always brown and there were no monkeys! no monkeys! seriously! no bloody monkeys.
back to reality now though and it is good to be home. cuddles with my little britney xo
