Vietnam travel journal, part I

[jenova]

All right, so as previously mentioned, I went on a trip to Vietnam in November. Looking at it now, I feel like we really didn't do much touristy stuff, overall. XD; Maybe... Just not to the same extent as when we went to China or Japan. I suppose it's more like, we didn't do a lot of sightseeing -- we certainly did a lot of walking and shopping

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[jenova]

Heh, I forgot to mention at the outset that there will be a lot of talk of food ;D Aside from this seafood nonsense, it was one of the best aspects of the trip ;D

Most of the motorbikes were just in a sort of "well-used" state, I dunno, it's not like with a car where you'd see a huge dent or a bumper hanging off or something. XD; (That, and when there are so many of them all together, it's hard to notice details about any 1 bike...) There are stands and stores selling helmets everywhere, I think people either leave them places accidentally, or they may pick up a friend but won't have a helmet for them, guess what, time to go get one ;) I wonder how many helmets the average person has XD

Man, I've looked at my pics but I haven't even considered converting them yet. XD;; Hours and hours... erk. Maybe I'll try to pick 1 good one from each place, just for flavor. ^^;

We didn't really sleep in at all anywhere ;D Too many things to do. It being so hot didn't really help with the fatigue either, but we survived ;D For it being that hot though, there really weren't a lot of flowers and stuff to see -- it's still "winter" over there, just hot. ;D Plus we were in the city most of the time, so yeah... not a lot of, hmm, botanical wonders. ;) Some of the temples are probably really pretty in the spring but not so much in the fall.

Heh, Vietnam is full of non-modernized tourist traps ;) They cater heavily to tourists because that's where the money is... I guess what I mean is, we didn't go see anything to do with the war, we didn't go see Ho Chi Minh X, Y, or Z, and so on. Especially in Saigon, we hardly did anything "touristy" at all, but that was partly due to all the family stuff I guess. ^^; But it was somewhat less of a sightsee-y vacation than one would expect for such a trip, I think.

/whoof XD

[jenova]

Ha, speaking of umbrellas, they have those too ;) That is, people riding on their motorbikes while carrying their open umbrellas. ;) (Or somewhat more safely, though funnier -- the passenger holding the umbrella for both.)

Heh, since it's the communists running things over there, the war is their awesome victory. ;) I didn't get any impression of strong anti-Americanism, though. People outside of the tourism industry (that includes hotel staff and the people who work in the big markets XD) don't seem to speak much English. The kids learn it in school, but I don't think they get a lot of practice, y'know? ;) That being said, lol, I had a few interesting moments with some of the young ladies running the market stands, who asked about certain idioms (like, "is 'never mind' like 'no problem'?").