Vietnam, bring your Dong!

Almost had a Coco hiatus there! And in the spirit of our St. Coco I decided a blog was not worthy unless under the influence of several Mario Lopez's. But out here, vodka mirinda will have to do. Have you ever had a mirinda? It's like liquid orange tic tacs, absolute shit. It's on in Vietnam! And of course, I love it. Spent the first couple days in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) which was a lovely reminder of Vancouver. Massive sky scrappers, enough neon lights to give you a seizure, and hands down the craziest streets I've ever managed to cross in my life. You are basically a deer in the headlights as moto's, cars, buses, etc fly past you. So terrifying, and exhilarating. you are the stone, they are the water is what it's really like. I scoured the city and made it to the reunification palace, where Saigon surrendered to the North as their tanks crashed through, their version of Notre Dame, and Regina cafe for a macchiato. Had to go, obvi. Plus they give back to those who farm their coffee beans. I'll fun fact you right now. Coffee is grown within 1000 miles of the equator. Neat!  The rest of the time was spent on the back of a moto, exploring the countryside, monkeys, and crocodile farm containing the biggest croc I've ever seen in my life, you could stick a clock in it's mouth and it would be a prop from Hook. When it became Saigon by night, it was a totally different story. Walking down Bui Vien, the streets were lined with backpackers slugging back ice cold 10,000 Dong beer served by stern mom like Vietnamese women. Too much fun to handle, so I slammed a few Gin and tonics and headed to the beach. Lucky me, I arrived at roughly three in the morning. Note: this is not Thailand. Everything was shut down. Luckily for me I see a man waving as I head a few blocks up, from a place called friendly guesthouse. Yes it was and yes I will take it...for one night. I have expressed my gratitude by going there for breaky every day. Hands down, the grandma there makes the best coconut cake (tart) I've ever had. Wow. So I've settled into a slightly out of budget guesthouse but I am spoiled with amenities, especially in room wifi and so happy.  First day back on the beach I burnt to a crisp. Never been better. So today I headed out to the sand dunes for a little bit of sun before retreating back to my aircon room to read too much on the Internet. Apparently I'm addicted to carbs. Crack is the second most popular choice when typing it in to a search engine... Dodged a bullet!  At the dunes you can rent a piece of plastic, or as we call it in Canada, a crazy carpet and go for a ride down the dunes. It works surprisingly well but sand is a hell of a lot harder to climb then snow, so I gave up after three go's but enjoyed watching tiny Asian men in business attire scream like girls down the hill. It was a nice little out of the town trip and tomorrow I'm off to Nha Trang to soak up more sun, and possible have a fun filled day at a water park...if I can find someone to play with. Otherwise, countdown to Rook (Christopher) coming, is on!