Okay, first post! I can't even figure out where to begin here. Let's start with arrival. We landed in HCM around 10:30 pm, our time. The total travel time was approximately 24 hours, including a 15 hour flight from Chicago to Hong Kong. Surprisingly enough, the flight was not as bad as I thought it was going to be. I slept off and on, ate multiple meals, read, and watched bits and pieces of movies. Since we were traveling to Hong Kong, one of our meals/snacks was a bowl of Chinese noodles, which were quite good. With these noodles came a Chinese almond cookie. Upon reading the label, however, I saw that the "Chinese" cookie was made in San Francisco and bore the label "Product of USA". I found that pretty amusing.
When we left the airport in HCM, the first thing that hit me was the humidity. It was probably comparable to some of the most humid days I have ever felt in my life. And Dr. Berman described it as "a cool night" in Viet Nam. This will definitely take some getting used to. We then hopped on a bus heading back to our hotel. Just looking out the windows and watching the action of HCM was awesome. The traffic is probably the most impressive thing. The sheer volume of motor bikes cannot be described. I saw pictures and videos before my trip, but that didn't quite do it justice. Also, there are few, if any, rules governing the road. There may be laws on the books, but none in practice. People drive where they please, turn when they please, use whichever lanes they please, and occasionally even use the sidewalk (if they please). Though there are some traffic lights, people tend to view these as more of suggestions than actual rules. We drove along at a pretty constant pace. The traffic prevented us from ever driving very fast (I'd say never over 20 mph), but there were very few stops. Everyone just kept moving, albeit at a fairly slow pace.
We checked into the hotel, which is actually quite nice. The beds are pretty low, but I am used to my dorm bed, which was at least 3 feet off the ground. After putting our stuff down, several of us went out exploring the city. We walked around for awhile, getting our bearings, and trying to find some of the landmarks that Dr. Berman had told us about. We did see many geckos, which are on many of the walls you see. They are small, no more than about 4-6 inches long, but are some of the fastest creatures I've ever seen. We went back to the hotel and tried to get some sleep. After all of those hours of travel, and considering that it was nearly 1am, I thought I would fall right to sleep. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. I guess adrenaline was still in effect. After little sleep, it was time for Day 1 in Ho Chi Minh City. But that's a story for a different post.
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Hey, you remembered you have one of these things. Sounds like a pretty crazy place; I can't help but wonder how some of those scooter drivers would do in something like Burnout. I'd almost welcome a little bit of that heat (though you can keep the humidity)...today was a lovely 55 degrees with pouring rain back here. I don't know when you'll read this (or even when I'm writing it, in relation to you), but have fun over there; it sounds like your first day was jam-packed.
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