Chrissy Renae

Andddd for the final installment of the trip— VIETNAM!!!! What a magical place. We flew into Ho Chi Minh Sunday night, found a hotel on Bui Vien (the Ho Chi Minh version of Khaosan) and then spent the next 5 days cruising around southern Vietnam. On Monday we met 2 tour guides named Day and Cuong. They took us all over the city on the back of their motorbikes and we were able to see all the main attractions within a couple of hours. Since they were such good guides, we decided to take them up on their offer to take us on a 2-day tour of the Mekong Delta outside the city.

Sooo the following day we jumped back on the motorbikes and they took us on a couple hour journey out of the city to the Mekong Delta. This is the area where the Mekong River makes its way down from its tour all over SE Asia and dumps out into the ocean. So there is lots of swamp land and cool marshes and a lot of neat little villages. It was a nice break from the rest of the trip because we didn’t see any tourists for a whole 2 days!!! They took us to all these interesting secluded places that nobody would ever get to see on just an average tour. We went to a coconut candy factory, down the river on a private little boat, ate fresh shrimp on a boat in the middle of the river as we watched the sunset, ate street food with the locals, saw some cool Pagoda temples, and just cruised around on the back of their motorbikes and soaked in the sun and sights for a whole 2 days.

By the end of it we were exhausted, and happy to be back to Bui Vien street, where we met up with John and Rachel for the last few days of the trip. It was nice to see familiar faces (they’re teachers in Korea too!) and we got a big hotel room for all 4 of us. Thursday we wandered the city together, did some shopping, and played at the park and stalked the locals. A friend we met in Bangkok told us about the “amazing water park in Ho Chi Minh” so we decided to beat the sun on the last day and just go play in the water. We thought since it’s technically winter there, and since it was a random week day it would be empty, but instead we were greeted by about 5 million little Vietnamese kids running and swimming and screaming all over the place. Not quite the serene day in the sun we were anticipating, but it was definitely entertaining.