I really hate 'summary of what I'm doing posts.' They're not fun for me to write, not fun for me to read later, and I suspect not really fun for other people to read. So for my Vietnam Adventure I figure I'll write in themed posts on...whatever's fun to write about. On the other hand, when I know someone who's gone somewhere interesting, I do like to have at least a little bit of a general picture of how life goes, so for the first post, here is your boring introduction:
We are staying in Cuchi, a district that is pretty much the suburbs of Saigon, in the house of our youngest uncle and his family. Despite the fact the house is only three bedrooms and I've yet to be able to count exactly how many people live here, we've each got our own room with our own fan, our own room-wall-crawling lizards, (and in my cause my own slightly see-through locking door) and our own surprisingly hard pillow.
I don't think our family really trusts us to go off by ourselves, and I'm not sure I trust us to go off by ourselves, and I'm not sure what there is to see around here in walking distance, so as going Places and doing Things goes, we're pretty much at the will of our uncles. And since for reasons I'm not entirely sure of they object to us traveling very far from where they live here in Cuchi, our days so far seem to be spent (in general order of how much time is spent on the activity) being tired at home, being taken to the homes of relatives in the area to visit, eating, drinking coffee at the cafe of our other uncle next door, (in Clay's case smoking and drinking whiskey, whilst I am distracted with a bottle of soda or group of females), and going to the “market”*.
The farthest we've gone anywhere so far is Saigon, and that was just to visit a couple family houses. Our family seems reluctant to take us places very far, though I'm not sure how much of that is time constraints and how much is just that they don't see why we should want to. The house we stay at has a computer with internet, but other people are usually on it and even when they aren't I feel a little mean staying on it for long in case someone wants to use it. On the other hand, we feel bad trying to go to the internet cafe, since likely the parents will insist we use the computer in the house and yell at the kids for using it so much.
I barely have any diarrhea at all, I sleep a decent amount despite the family waking up around five in the morning, and I'm only a little worried my leg is going to get infected and fall off (due to a scooter mishap. While the scooter wasn't moving). Occasionally the people here teach me how to do cool things, like how to eat peanuts or ride a bike.
And since any post about a trip surely needs at least one, here's an obligatory picture of me in Vietnam:
_____________________
*Note: Not actually a market.