Hello from Vietnam!

Hey everyone!

We are INCREDIBLY busy in Vietnam, but here is an email the group sent to our family this morning that sums up some good parts of our trip!  Promise to write more later!  If any of this post doesn't make sense, I blame it on heat, sleep deprivation, and inside jokes that have taken over our minds :)  Love to all!

We've had another couple of wonderful days in Ho Chi Minh City! Tuesday morning we walked around the city and visited the biggest market.  We saw lots and lots of great knock offs, silk robes, and pajama sets for Rachel.  The market also had lots of really cool Vietnamese handicrafts.  HCMC is really interesting and busy--there are literally motorbikes everywhere you look.  Tuesday afternoon we visited the orphanage again and fell even more in love with the children.  We have such a fun time playing with them.  Tuesday night we went to a really great restaurant--aka a miniature table (Ryan really loved the matching miniature stools) on the side of the road next to a sketchy, urine scented wall.  It was definitely an experience to say the least. We ate "hotpot," which is a traditional meal where the food is cooked in a pot on a hot plate in front of you (which really adds to the already stifling heat). We poured the vegetables and broth (and Anne added some sketchy looking seafood which resembled cuttlefish) over rice noodles.  We even threw caution to the wind and drank the ice.  What daredevils. (No sickness yet though!!) And of course, being the group we are, we found the frozen yogurt across the street from our hostel.  Don't worry, we'll be going there often.

Wednesday was even more filled with beautiful people, and more importantly, us throwing each other under the bus (sometimes the only way to get through the day and awkward language barrier).  After our English lesson at the monastery turned into a karaoke contest featuring Brittany Spears, the Backstreet Boys, Ricky Martin, and ABBA, we had a great lunch featuring MANGO, Rachel's absolute favorite food.  We even ate the mango with rice and soy sauce, just like the monks. Wednesday afternoon we played with the kids again, and we learned a lot about how the orphanage was started and is run on a day to day basis.  When we were leaving, literally all of the kids followed us to the street corner, waving goodbye.  We had such a hard time leaving them for just an afternoon, we have no idea how we'll survive without them when we leave.

Wednesday night, we found a great restaurant with a couple of Western dishes and of course, free happy hour with a drink that tasted like cough syrup.  And Rachel got her french fries.  We had a nighttime visit at our hostel from the monks and a surprise lesson in Vietnamese. We're pretty much pros, of course.  Fluent.  They were also kind enough to bring a traditional, very special fruit.  We have no idea what it was called, but it was like durian, but worse.  Even Gheales did not like it.  At all.  The smell alone was enough to vacate a room.  We were overjoyed this morning when we found that the extra mystery fruit Anne and Ryan place outside our room had disappeared never to return.  Ryan's exact words: "My dream came true!" (Don't worry, we were all very polite to the monks and told them we loooooved their fruit)

This morning, we were able to sleep in a bit and are headed to finalize our weekend plans after sending this email.  We're hoping to go to Cambodia this weekend and then the Mekong Delta (not Tri-Delta, like Rachel likes to refer to it...) next week with the monks and Tina.  Hope y'all are all doing well and we miss you tons!