Treasures of the Mekong

Our flight left LAX at 11:45 pm, or 2:25 am EST.  Singapore airlines was fantastic. The flight attendants, service, food, and “pod” were exceptional. Every female flight attendant has the exact same hair style, same uniform and all were around the same teeny tiny size. Close to 17 hours later, (5 movies for Tim), we landed in Singapore at 7:30 am April 15, or 8:30pm April 14th EST.  The day that was lost crossing the international date line happened to be Tim’s birthday.  I did have a card for him, so he wasn't completely ignored.  We made our connection and landed in Ho Chi Mihn city, formally known as Saigon.  We were fast tracked through immigration, got our luggage in less than 15 minutes and met our representative Near, after exiting customs.  He proceeded to give us some language lessons on the ride to our hotel.  There are more vespas than cars, all swerving, crossing and weaving across 4 to 5 lanes of traffic.  It is insane.

Near described rainy season on a vespa as nightmare.  Hot and stinky under a raincoat, legs and shoes soaking wet while dealing with even more crazy traffic. 

Our hotel, The Caravelle is lovely.  A shower never felt so good after so many hours of traveling.  Most other guests are arriving either late tonight or tomorrow.  He taught me "cheers" in Vietnamese  "Moe, Hi, Bah" (one two three) then "YO!". Near didn’t have a good translation for “red wine” so he instructed me to just ask for “red wine”.  I’m on it.

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