HCMC- a breath of fresh air!!

We had a beautiful day here in Ho Chi Min City (HCMC). Slept in till *:30 which felt like 1pm because we've been getting up so early. Headed out on a walking tour of the city. I feel like I've been on a bus or boat for the last 2 days. We were in dire need of a good exercising day.

We ate a different kind of breakfast today, Pho (Rice noodle). It's the typical breakfast here. When in Vietnam! It was fine. I just felt like I was eating pasta. We walked all day all over the city.

Two major stops were the Central Market and the War Museum. First off the market. It had a totally different feel then Cambodia and India. In India people will bug you a bunch but will never touch you. In Cambodia, people were just friendly and happy that you came into their store. At this market, within a minute of being there, we were touched at least 4 times. Come in my store!! It was crazy. I was haggling for a present and I had made my price and she said no, so I started to walk away. She came chasing after me and grabbed my arm and literally pulled me back with some serious force. Wild!

Keeping hydrated has been a challenge. I find myself getting tired of bottled water and more and more often reaching for a soda. Recently I've come across fresh lemon juice. It's amazing! So when we stopped for a cold drink I asked for a lemon juice no ice. So they brought me a very hot lemon juice. I've watched so many rude tourists over the past 6 weeks that I just smiled and said thanks. After I watched Dan drink his hot coffee, which he reassured me was amazing, I started realizing how hot I was and how I didnt want to drink anything hot. So I became that annoying tourist and asked for some ice. We got it a few times before in Vietnam and so far its been fine. So until we know its not, ice will be in my drinks! Dan and I sat and played a game of rummy while everyone sat and watched. They seemed to know the game and finally asked if we were playing for money or as a drinking game. We laughed and replied, no just for fun. They were puzzled.

We then moved on to the war museum. What an experience. Obviously it was very one sided, but I couldn't help but feel that I should crawl in a hole and go back to America and on my way out apologize immensely. It was a touching experience that once again brought tears to my eyes.

After 8 hours of walking we finally grabbed a taxi back to our hotel where we found our clean laundry folded nicely on our bed!!! When we got here yesterday we realized that we didnt have any clean clothes. I mean ANY! So we splurged and had our clothes washed. Silly me gave them both of my pants and didnt realized it until afterwords. So I started the day off in a skirt that wasnt much fun to walk around in. Needless to say I picked up a new pair of pants at the market this morning!!

HCMC has been such a breath of fresh air. The city is very clean and for the most part everyone is very nice and friendly. (Helping us get to the tourist hot spots today.) It's a very easy city to get around in. Dan and I have both decided that we could post up here for a while. But that's not the case as we're heading on tomorrow morning. We're going to Mui Ne. A beach a few hours north. We're going to do some serious relaxing with a mix of sand dune surfing. They have wild sand dunes there. So another early morning on a bus, which thankfully is a tourist coach bus that wont be crammed with a million people.