VIETNAM!

We arrived in Vietnam with overcast skies and 85% humidity! My roommate and I had nothing planned and decided to pack our bags and head out. Our ship is 20 minutes from the city so we took a cab into town and as soon as we stepped out our lives flashed before our eyes because of the oncoming traffic of vespas/mopeds/scooters. Motorbikes overpopulate Vietnam like rickshaws overpopulate India. Dads would drive while one child stood in front of him and mom sat on the back holding the baby-crazy! When you cross the street (we cross with locals as our shields) you just walk like there are not hundreds of motorized bikes about to run you over, and they simply swerve around you. They don't even have stoplights on most streets, driving is like an art here.
So, we spent our day walking around gawking at the thousands of people and shops. Each street is like a different section of a department or grocery store. Baby products all together down one "Nyguen" (just a popular name of a street I observed), food on another street, women's clothing on another, shoes, etc. on and on. SO MUCH STUFF!! We found a silk store and decided to have a few dresses made for super cheap. We brought in designs and they took our measurements and told us to be back in 3 days-after much stress they turned out pretty nice!
After a while we decided that we wanted to get out of Ho Chi Minh City so we walked into a "Vietnam Airways" office and booked flights to Hanoi up north. Around 9:30 pm we flew there and stayed in a cheap hotel where we were picked up the next morning by a tour guide we booked. Her name was "Ha" and she was the sweetest little Vietnamese woman who laughed at us all the time.
Lindsay (my roommate) and I got on a 3 hour bus ride early in the morning with Ha and a bunch of other tourists, we were going to Halang Bay. We were definitely a lot younger than everyone, but became friends with them quite fast. People from all over: Brazilians, Belgians, Australians-they were all a blast!
When we arrived in Halang Bay we moved into our hotel which is called a "Junk Boat." Basically a very small, floating hotel. For the next day and a half we were served meals and taken around the beautiful bay (which was very foggy most of the time but still great). We got to kayak and go to a huge cave somewhere out in the area.
Halang Bay is now being voted upon for the new Wonders of the World, and it was definitely beautiful and serene enough-just a little too polluted. There are villages of people who live in floating houses out in the middle of the bay. The kids are picked up in a boat everyday for school and a grocer comes out daily to sell his goods. I cannot even imagine living like this. It is very interesting and cool, but all of the trash that gets thrown into the water is damaging the scene.
Our time out there was absolutely amazing; between the beauty of the world to the amazing people we met, every second was great. At the end of our bus ride back to Hanoi everyone was being dropped off at their hotels, which Lindsay and I didn't have. So, we just yelled stop when we saw a tourist information place, waved goodbye to everyone while they laughed and gawked at us for being so crazy and jumped off. We bought tickets back to Ho Chi Minh City and hung around Hanoi until our flight, which we made with 10 minutes until takeoff (long story, ask if you want to know later).
The last few days in Vietnam I spent around Ho Chi Minh City. One day Lindsay and I spent as a pampering day getting hot stone massages, facials, manicures and pedicures (all for around $75 US). I visited a local elementary school with over 1600 Vietnamese children. They were the cutest, most excited-to-see-us kids ever! "Hello-what-is-your-name?" Is what they repeated over and over again. Things I was shocked about at the school: how many kids there were, the penmanship of all the children was exactly the same and perfect (something they are trained for years on), and how well some of them could speak in English. The classes were very large with about 40 kids to one classroom, but they all had uniforms and school materials. Oh and one other interesting thing was they had toothbrushes for everyone to use after EVERY meal.
I am sure you are all wondering how I could go to Vietnam and not visit any historical sites, tunnels or anything. Well I did; I went to a Vietnam War Memorial/Museum on my last day and quite honestly I don't know what to say about it. There are two sides to every story, and their side is unbelievable, heartbreaking, stomach-wrenching. This country has had the friendliest people I have met so far around the world and I don't understand why. I really am speechless.
Overall Vietnam was my favorite. I learned so much about the people and the history of my country and their country. The food was amazing (now that I am ten pounds heavier from only this port), people were the most amicable I have ever encountered and the sites were beautiful. What else can you ask for? I can't wait to come back!

FUN FACTS:
-7 Million people live in Ho Chi Minh alone (3.5 ride motorbikes)
-the US dollar is accepted everywhere
-1600 Dong = $1 US
-Viet means people
-Nam means south
-although rice fields cover much of the land their largest export is crude oil