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.