Greetings from Vietnam!!

When I last updated, we were in Koh Tao celebrating "Songkram". Songkran was a blast! The whole day was essentailly a giant waterfight on the whole island! Nowhere was safe, and EVERYONE was soaked by the end of the day! It was a blast and we bought supersoakers to fight back! You would even get doused sitting in a restaurant eating lunch! We walked to a big beach and water-fought all day!

After songkran, we left koh tao and started traveling for 2 days straight. Unfortunately I got a horrid sinus infection...which didn't make it much better. We took a 3 hour boat, then a bus, then an overnight train to Bangkok. From there we took another bus, then waited at the airport, then flew in to Vietnam. I was a bit sad to leave Thailand...after being there for about 7 months. I will be back for a couple days before I fly home.

We arrived in Hanoi yesterday. I can't say this is my favorite place in the world. It is a HUGE city. There are way too many people, and crossing the street takes about 30 minutes...nobody stops for you and there are millions of cars and motorcycles at all times. It is really scary, dirty, and smoggy. The people are not friendly like the Thais. It's pretty much a concrete jungle packed with people to the point where you feel like you can't breathe. I don't know if I was just experiencing culture shock, or if I really dislike this place, but I semi-freaked out walking down the street.

Despite this, we have done a lot. We went to Ho Chi Minh's masoleum and saw his preserved body (creepy but cool). We went to the army museum. We walked around the lake, and we saw a vietnamese water puppet show (which was way cooler than it sounds). We also ate pho (noodle soup) and bun (noodles with salad and grilled meat all mixed together with a yummy sauce)...both of which were quite yummy! Everything is really cheap here (the money is called "Dong" (hehe) and 2 million is about $115. The boys went to the "Hanoi Hilton", but I refrained. Overall it's been ok, even though I am not a big city girl.

Today we are heading to Halong Bay and Cat Ba island. Then on to Hue, and Danag (to see the DMZ), then onto Nha Trang, and finally HCM city (Saigon). I am happy to be getting out of the city and hopefully will like vietnam a lot more than I do.

If you can believe it (I can't) I will be home in about a month! Seems like this time just flew by! I am very excited for the rest of my travels, but will be happy to return to civilization and experience the inevitable "reverse culture shock". I will update again soon when I do more in Vietnam!