Saturday, November 6, 2010

After a 2.5 hour train journey, 3 hour wait at Sydney airport, 5 hour flight to Darwin, another 2 hour wait there, then another 5 hour flight we finally arrived at our destination - Ho Chi Minh City, thank god!!!! I had forgotten how crazy the roads are in Asia, thus the taxi ride from the airport was very interesting. After realizing that I probably wasn't going to die I was able to point out to Ian all the beautiful hotels that we wouldn't be staying in. The taxi eventually pulled up outside some dodgy lane way and the driver pointed out the equally dodgy looking hotel that was located down it. Yep, that would be us..... Our room was clean, as the Internet had stated, however if failed to mention that water was leaking down one wall, Ian fixed that by placing bath towels down one side of the bed. Then there was the light that wouldn't turn off, Ian fixed that by unscrewing the bulb, the window we couldn't close, Ian used a pen on that one, and the trusty ear plugs blocked the noise from the night markets located outside..... Oh! How funny it is this morning.... .

Hello Asia....Oh how I had forgotten how crazy you are......

Anyway moving onto our first full day.... We were both awake and bored by 5am (because of the time difference) eventually the sun rose and we meet our chef outside the Ben Than Markets as we had a cooking class booked for today. The markets were amazing, so much wonderful fresh food. Didn't like the meat section though - they tend to eat everything over here. The seafood section was fantastic. Live eels, crabs, tiger prawns, snails, frogs anything that lives in fresh or salt water. After shopping for all our ingredients we went back to the restaurant and cooked a 3 course meal. Yum Yum Yum the food was unreal and there was so much that I couldn't finish it all, I know, totally unlike me! I can finally make rice paper spring rolls, of course Ian's were better than mine. After lunch we headed out to explore the streets, we struggled crossing the road (you would think we would know how to by now) and sometimes just gave up trying and went another way, ha ha ha.... We saw some interesting temples and locals then checked out the Reunification Palace - very interesting. 

After leaving the Palace (about 4pm) we got caught in a tropical downpour and guess who forgot to put the rain jackets (that mum kindly lent me) into the back pack. So after walking 2kms in the rain my beautiful shoes (again that mum lent me) are soooo wet that I probably wont be able to wear them for days. I currently have on lovely blue thongs that the hotel provides it guests. I'm a stunner!! And to go with my blue shoes I have blond frizzy afro hair....

  

We join our tour in an hour, meet and greet dinner, so here's hoping the other people travelling with us are normal, relatively speaking. Ian just informed me that the air conditioner in our room is now broken - at least we still have a bed....... 


The man himself, Ho Chi Minh!