Ha Tien and Ho Chi Minh (VIETNAM!!!!!)

Well we finally made it to Vietnam!  This is a country that I have been SO EXCITED about!  The food, the culture, the people, and the prices!  Love Love Love!  And so far it has been totally living up to my expectations!  Mostly :)

We left Otres at around 11 am and hoped in a mini-bus which quickly filled with people.  Luckily many of them hopped off before we got to the border so a packed bus ended up being just us two for the last hour or so!  Not too bad :)

Some of the Nice Views

 We got about 1KM from the border and we got told to get out of our minivan and hop on some scooters.  Ummm....ok?  Well we really had no option so we did!  Luckily it was an easy border crossing, although very bizarre!  We had to stop about 4 times to show our passport and leave our luggage on the scooters!  Sometimes they even went further off with our stuff, we were a little worried, but it all worked well!  We were the only people that got stopped, everyone else paid some money and kept going... So ridiculous!  But we made it through safe and sound with all our stuff still with us.  The gentlemen on the scooters dropped us off at our hotel in Ha Tien about 10KM from the border.  Not too shabby! We had a nice dinner on a boat on the water and went to bed because the next day we were headed to Ho Chi Minh city, another long travel day!

We woke up early to catch our bus.  Went downstairs and figured out that once again our hotel had not booked our bus.  Oh great, but luckily they booked us immediately on the next bus.  Well that's ok then!  So we got picked up and headed to a bus station.  From there we hopped on our first "sleeper bus" although we were traveling during the day.

Joel Sitting Comfy in Our Sleeper Bus!

We spent the next couple hours (8 I think) heading to the city!  Not too shabby!

A Nice Boat our Bus Took

More Cool Views from the Bus!

We arrived in Ho Chi Minh late and night and headed to our hotel, after getting a little lost with some help from the locals we got to our bed and got ready for a nice night of sleep.  But first dinner!

We Had Delicious Pho (Traditional Vietnamese Meal!)

Yummy Yum!

After our delicious dinner we walked around the town for a little, getting some fresh air and a slurpee! We also scooped out a nice place for me to get a manicure and pedicure.  Definitely planning on doing that some time during this stay!  But then back to bed for the night! Lovely Air conditioning and showers!  

Our first day we spent walking around the city.  Our first stop was the Reunification Palace.  

The Palace

After the Palace we headed to the War Remnants, unfortunatly it was closed at lunch time so we had some time to kill.  Guess what we did?  Food!

Our Amazing Drinks!

After a delicious lunch and then another stop for some Mojito's (We had to kill an hour and a half!)  we headed back to the Museum.  Both Joel and I had mixed emotions about this museum, although it was interesting to see, most of the information was very skewed to the Northern Vietnamese viewpoint. It was definitely interesting, but we only spent about an hour or less there.  It was very gruesome, in my opinion unnecessarily so in some cases, and then not very informative on the actual war itself.  The focus was too much on how terrible America was and how the whole world was against them being there.  Interesting to go to, but take things with a grain of sand, like most museums these days!   

We spent a lot of time in Ho Chi Minh walking around.  We also went to the famous markets in town and bought more than we should have (I had to buy a new bag because my day bag broke, I carry too much stuff!)  Joel bough new Sunglasses and he lost another pair! Lots of fun to walk around a bargain (I got about 50% off my bag!)  We also spent lots of time eating, our favourite place was the ABC Bakery! Amazing baguettes for only a dollar, with veggies, cheese, meat, and mayo!

Amazing Cake at ABC

Joel Enjoying a Baguette!

Yummy Shrimp Soup!

We also went to the movies for a night which was very interesting.  Cheaper for sure, but WAY louder and the people were talking during the movie.  An interesting view into daily life!  Something I feel most tourists don't do, but pretty fun!  Also the seats were all assigned, something to do with the Communist life maybe?

I of course also got a mani/ pedi which was very nice, I feel as if I am starting to get addicted to these.  It is going to be hard when I am back home and have to pay more than 3.50 for a French Manicure! Finally it was our last night in Ho Chi Minh as we are heading up to Mui Ne next.  Wish we could have stayed longer in this awesome city!  But don't worry I am sure I will be back!  And maybe next time I will be brave enough to do the Chu Chi Tunnels!