Saigon day 1

We arrived in Saigon at around 7am after an expectedly rough time on the bus. The bus actually arrived at our hotel 10 minutes early, didn't see us, and left without us. They had to turn around after frantic phone calls from me. It's good to speak Vietnamese. The driver and his posse kept making cigarette stops, and even made us transfer to another bus in the middle of the night. They stuck us Western tourists at the back of the bus, and we had to try to sleep through a lot of noise/laughing/chatting. I'd say the worst part was that they made zero bathroom stops, so we had to either use their cigarette breaks to pee in the bushes (easier for men) or hold it until the morning (all the women).

Our first day was fairly productive, but unfortunately, we had a bit of a scare at dinner. We went to a nice restaurant and felt safe to order anything we wanted. I ordered an "apple filled chicken" dish, forgetting that apples in Vietnam are very bland and mushy. I decided to take out the apple filling for my last two pieces of chicken and eat just the meat, only to find out that about half of the final two pieces were completely raw. So raw it didn't even look like it touched heat, ever. So, I sent it back, they comped us the dish and dessert. I felt very ill (hypochondria!), ordered a Mai Tai hoping it would magically kill anything in my stomach and passed out at our hotel room immediately after we got back. I'm still worried that I'll die, but I think if I had gotten salmonella poisoning, I would have thrown up by now?

I got in touch with my uncle and the plan is to get picked up tomorrow morning and spend a night at the village with my family. When we get back, we're going to check into the very historic Hotel Continental for our final night in Vietnam. If you saw "The Quiet American", it's the beautiful hotel where Michael Caine witnessed the huge explosion. Honestly, we can't wait to be in Vegas and enjoy glorious amounts of uncooked vegetables. I mostly can't wait to be able to brush my teeth with tap water again.

The weather here is not too bad, it's warm but with only 75% of Hanoi's humidity.

-Ngoc