It hardly seems real, but I’ve landed in the last country on the K10 travels – Vietnam. I’m leaving a bit earlier, for a number of reasons, so I won’t be going from Saigon to Hanoi as previously planned; instead, my dad and I started south of Saigon, in the Mekong Delta, and hit up HCMC right before heading back. (AAAAH!!!). It’s going to tie with Laos for the country I’m spending the least time in – just about 3.5-4 days, depending on how you count it. (Laos was about 3.5 days, Cambodia was about 11.5 days, China was 8 days, and Thailand got a month and a couple of random days, that saucy minx.)
They are also very, very family-focused. Every time we talked with a Vietnamese person, they would ask almost immediately if I have siblings, why Dad’s wife wasn’t there, etc. We did an awesome street food tour and the lovely owner of one of the carts was very interested in setting me up with her son. Apparently she thought I was very beautiful and that I have the ideal look: very white skin (CHECK!), tall, and a narrow nose. Oh, go on then.
(Side note re: touts: we would also get stopped in the park by people asking if we wanted a shoe shine. We would just look down at our sneakers and go “…what are you going to shine?!” Total mystery.)
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My future mother-in-law |
Motorbikes are the way to travel
As mentioned, we did a street food tour where we zoomed around on the back of motorbikes through the crazy streets of Saigon. Words can’t describe how crazy traffic is in Saigon. Waiting for a break in the scooters is a losing game; instead, you just walked slowly and steadily across and trust the motorbikes will go around you. (This does NOT work for buses. They will NOT go around you.) Riding around on the back of one was the perfect way to see the city.
Life is lived on the river
Vietnam is a-okay with me!
You guys, I’ve really enjoyed Vietnam. It might be the fact that it is at the very end of my trip and so I’m excited to be going back and looking at travel nostalgically; it might be that the food is great and I spent half my time in this country staying in a luxury hotel; it might be that one time when Dad and I went to cross the street, a police officer immediately hurried over to escort us across and at the end said, “Welcome to Vietnam!” It’s fair to say I am going to try to make my way back here, friends.