Our journey to Vietnam part 1

Just the word Vietnam conjures up so many emotions, many of them unsettling and this was one place I was very anxious about visiting.  We arrived at the airport and were met by an airport assistant to walk us through the immigration and visa process.  I would suggest this, as the only way to go as we skipped all the lines and confusion and had our visas and luggage in less than a half an hour.  As we drove to the hotel, we found out that this city is called the city of motorbikes.  There are 8 million people living in Saigon and 6 million registered motor bikes and that doesn’t count the regular bicycles.  They are like ants, they are everywhere and very few street lights or traffic direction.  We were told if you need to cross the street just be confident and start walking and the bikes and cars will go around you.  I will never complain about my husband or sons driving again.  I witnessed every type of person on these, business men and women wearing 6 inch heels, an entire family on one bike, a water delivery guy carrying 10, 5  gallon jugs, a man with boxes of copy paper and even a man and women nursing her child.  It was very frightening for me.  When we got to our hotel it was beautiful and our guide made us dinner reservations at a local Vietnamese restaurant across the street.  It was down an alley that opened up into about 3 restaurants and a very lively bar.  We walked over to the restaurant and they actually grabbed a table and stuck it behind a bush in the walkway of the patio area, I didn’t really know what to expect but it wasn’t bad.  I did have a really good drink. The next evening we went to the night market, the thing that stuck out the most here were the children selling the goods. I had little girls about 8 coming up to me to sell me items. I was also approached by young girls holding sleeping babies; this was very hard for me to understand.  We went on a little walking tour we visited a beautiful little church, a replicas of Notre Dame in Paris, it was beautiful.  Then on  to the Vietnam War Museum, I was a little young to remember this conflict but It really affected Bert and made me understand a little more about the part of history.  Then we found a little gem.  There was a new shopping mall down the block from out hotel so we decided to go through it, we entered the doors and found 6 levels, the main level was the high end level but every other level was everything you would ever need from a grocery store, to furniture stores, and one level was a food court with a wonderful French bakery.  Everything was very reasonably priced and someplace you would just pass on the street if you didn’t know about it.  I will write about our MeKong Delta experience in its own blog as it was very emotional.   I hope you enjoy some of the pictures I have posted and if you would like to see more visit my facebook page.

God Bless and Happy and safe travels.