Marley & Me

Today, Saturday, was the day we headed back to Saigon from Dalat. Boy was this a LONG trip! Its only like 200km away, but the roads here are very small, crowded and only 1 lane in each direction. Which makes the bus go about 40-50kmh for most of the way. This was a good opportunity to finish Marley & Me, since I only read a few chapters on the flight over, and boy was it a GREAT book! At the end of the book I really felt like Marley was MY dog. Vicki on the other hand didnt really care for me reading the book and I was constantly waking her up from laughter at Marley histarical antics.

I think I have finally figured out the bloody nose issue, not the cause but rather an attempt to subside it, by taking 4 pills a day of vitiman C along with 1x/day of some sort of generic vietnamese allergy pill. I can tell when I have taken them or not by getting bloody noses when I blow my nose out. We'll see how long this lasts but hopefully I have it under controll for alteast the duration of my trip.

Chinese New Years is now over and things are back to normal. You can tell by the full force of police that are on almost every corner watching traffic and stopping people as they please. I havnt had any interaction with any so I not quite sure what to expect or rather what it is they stop people for. Ive read of many issues with forgienors having problems because they see us as "money" so we must be doing something wrong.

We are about halfway through the trip and just now am I begining to see things as normal and "home" like. I havnt quite yet had any urges for the McD's, pancakes or other traditional western food. Which is good. The only thing I really miss is the subtle things that I use to take for granted. Like warm or cold showers, which ever you want, clean bathrooms, cool rooms to sleep in and things of the sort. The plumbing system here is very poor and in order to flush the toilet you get a bucket of water and pour it down the toilet. Which in heinsight, is much better than an outhouse. Vietnam is very much like Mexico but even more poor, hotter, more humid and I know less Vietnamese than Spanish.

Other than that, things are great! I really like the city of Saigon. Its a huge city but unlike SF I really enjoy the fastpace atmosphere of the city. Dalat and Nha Trang was a great place to visit kind of like going to Santa Cruz for the beach or Napa for the wine country but I sure missed Saigon when I was there. There is ALWAYS something to do here!