The Beach Resort

Friends

Friends, Food, and Fun

A group of nine friends arrived in Vietnam last Friday to visit. Mark and I ventured to the airport around 10:00, we are 20 minutes from the airport and they were due in around 10:20. We knew they would have to go through customs and get their luggage so we figured we would be fine. Well Friday was an exceptionally busy day at the airport and it took us almost an hour to arrive. We have never seen so many people at that airport at one time. They had six international flights all arriving within minutes of each other and you have to wait in front of the building for the passengers to come out. It was a beautiful, sunny, hot day so we were melting while waiting. Even though we were late they were longer so after another hour of waiting they emerged from the terminal. It took three taxi vans to get us to their hotel with all of their luggage. That evening we all went to dinner at one of Mark's favorite places, Pepperoni's. They have a buffet with lasagna, pizza, all kinds of salads and even some taco looking items. The lime juice drinks are a favorite with everyone. Limes are called lemons here.

The weekend was spent seeing some sights and shopping and getting foot massages and nails done. It is dirt cheap over here. They even treated me to a manicure and pedicure. I am loved. Thank you ladies. We ended the evening at our apt where I served them all spaghetti. They had to sit Asian style on the floor as we did not have enough chairs. They were real champs about it all. Our friend brought over several different types of fruit for dessert, mangosteen, watermelon, hairy strawberries, not sure their real name,and something that looks like an apple but has to be dipped in salt and chili. It was fun to experiment.

On Monday we headed out in a 16 passenger van, of course, since the Asian people are much smaller than Americans we were all doing our best not to fall onto the person next to us. There were three to a seat. We arrived at an orphanage after several hours and spent some time there doing a puppet show and playing with the kids. They sang to us and we were blessed. One of our friends is a professional photographer. He brought several camera's and was able to take pictures of all the kids and print them out while we were there. The kids loved it. We left them with some goodie bags and much love and hugs. We then traveled another two hours in the pouring rain to a beach resort. We arrived after dark so we could not see the ocean but the next AM it was sunny and we were able to walk down the beach to where these small round basket looking boats were bringing in fish and all kinds of seafood to sell, from larger boats. They had carts pulled by oxen to transport the fish to market. One of our ladies got to close to the oxen and it tried to gore her, gently of course. Her uncle is the photographer and he was trying to take her picture at the time. The beach was full of beautiful shells, so I collected as many as I could carry. We left the hotel around noon and stopped for lunch at one of the only places that they feel the food is safe enough for us foreigners to eat. It was yummy. Mark and I shared fried rice and a hot pot with pork. Then as we headed back to the van Mark spotted a lady selling ice cream so everyone finished there Vietnamese meals with an American favorite. We hit rush hour traffic on our way back into HCMC and even saw a hugh truck that had flipped over in the rain. What a mess.
Today was a rest day and tomorrow we head to the south and eventually end up on an island. I will continue our travelogue after we return from the south.

Are we CRAZY ????

Are we crazy ? The Vietnamese people in our apt building seem to think so. Whenever we go out anywhere we always get stares mainly because we live in an area that is just about all Vietnamese. I think the people at the market next door have gotten use to me by now so I am not pointed at as much. Well back to my story, the last two nights for some reason or actually they really do not need a reason here they just do it, they have closed our fitness center. Now you have to realize that this is a very important time that we have committed each day to sweating our bodies to death. I expect my skin and body to look at least 30 maybe 40 years younger due to this commitment. Anyway since they locked the doors tight on us we decided to do laps around the outside of our apt building. Since the center of the building is where the people gather to socialize and feed their children each day it is usually quit crowded. Well here we are doing our laps and the people keep staring at us. I know we are whiter than they are and taller but are we really that different looking to them, oh did I forget to mention that it was raining while we were doing these laps, both nights?? We might be crazy to walk in the rain but not as crazy as they are to ride those motor bikes like they do or chase their kids around to feed them lunch or sit on these hard tile floors for hours at a time. Maybe tonight I will use an umbrella and give them even more to talk about !!! Those odd Americans....

The gas man cometh

Here in Vietnam we have two burners on our counter to cook on. They are fueled by a propane tank of gas, like our barbecues in the US. Well I decided to try making potato salad, side note the potatoes here are about the size of golf balls, so I bought ten tiny potatoes and was cooking them on one burner and I had the eggs to hard boil on the other. All of a sudden both burners went out, now you have to see my kitchen and know that there is a door to the laundry room that is always open and the wind blows through there so I just thought the wind had blown the fire out. This happens a lot since many of our storms happen in the late afternoon. I relit them and several minutes later I realized they were out again. I tried to check the gas tank but there was no indicator to tell me how much gas was left in it. Mark tried lifting it and said it felt empty. Great, half cooked potatoes and raw eggs. The owners had left us a number to call the gas man, thank goodness they come to you, can you see us riding a motor bike and trying to hold a propane tank of gas, not in your dreams. We were sure that no one at the gas company spoke English so we had to wait. This happened Friday afternoon. Dinner that night was from a crock pot, which by the way cooks very rapidly here so the name slow cooker is not appropriate. At least the meal is all in one pot. Any way back to my story, on Sat our friend was suppose to come visit, so around three he came and I told him about the gas. He said no problem they will be here five minutes after you call. Well we got to talking and I am looking at the clock thinking this is a long five minutes, it was after four and no gas man, hope he gave them the right address. Well at four thirty there was a knock on the door and the gas man was here with a new tank and a gift, he handed me a bag of sugar. He also attached the tank and gave me a bill. It cost me $15.00 for a tank that will probably last us almost a year. You can't beat the service and a bag of sugar !! What a country !! Some old ways of doing things are just more convenient for the customers. Customer service is still important over here, sometimes !!