THE WORLD AS MY WITNESS

Note: I'm mad at past Alexia for not taking the time to finish my Vietnam experience. Especially since my time in HCM has been filled with family. Alas, I will try my best to relive what happened and express my thoughts. My 3 and a half days in Saigon was a whirlwind of family and reliving the past weeks in a new city where modern meets history. My bus ride was a a looooong ride and I'm thankful for my aunties (I'm referring to every awesome woman I met as auntie because otherwise I'll have to say my mom's dad's brother's daughter. Well I guess it's not that complicated..but you get the idea). They waited a long time for me to arrive since there was traffic. This was my aunt's family friend. They picked me up and took me to my hotel they generously got me.  After some coordination with my other auntie, they decided I would stay with her (my mom's dad's brother's daughter). Before they dropped me off at her place, they took me out to get...

I thought waking up at 5 in the morning in Nha Trang feeling slightly nauseous was bad, but it only got worse from there. After waiting for over an hour (which meant I definitely had time to go the to beach since I uh overslept), the bus to Dalat was a sleeper bus even though it was only a 5 hour ride. It was crowded too, a family had to sleep on top of each other next to me in the aisle. It was so freaking hot too like there wasn't enough AC. I laid there with my eyes closed tight to fight the headache and nausea and my knees bent over my bag. To make matters worse, the roads from Nha Trang to Dalat were abysmal for buses. They were country mountainous roads and the bus kept getting stuck in potholes and spend 5 minutes each time trying to go forward. Finally finally we arrived around 1. I didn't feel like walking around the city to find my hotel so luckily I found a motorbike guy to take me and my luggage for 50 cents! I was a little apprehensive at first since I had a prett...

Getting off the bus at 5:30am and checking into the hotel by 6 and rest before getting picked up by tour guide at 8:30 for a full day at different islands. I honestly have no idea where my energy is coming from..must be the Vietnamese coffee. Soooo good and addicting. I hate drinking coffee back in America, but this...this is life changing. My day started off at Monh 'Black' Island where I went snorkeling! It's incredible under water with the different coral, reef, and fish, but I wish I had a waterproof camera to capture what I saw. After was lunch on the boat and I went up on the deck since it was crowded on the main floor, but there was already a family eating upstairs which turned out to be cool because they adopted me for the day. The kids were practicing their English with me and the parents were trying to get their youngest kid to talk to me. It was a family of 3 plus 3 cousins, and their family dynamic and hospitality reminded me of my own family and cousins and a...

Early start at 7 again yesterday (I don't even wake up this early for school). I had a nice breakfast at the hotel.. down the road. The receptionist of my hotel have me a buffet voucher for breakfast next door. Strange but as long as I get food I'm not complaining. Then I went back to my hotel to get picked up for my tour which was a morning cooking class and the tour guide showed me the country side market which was more for the locals unlike the town market filled with tourists. We went on his motorbike as he showed me the actual non-tourist part of hoi an and it was beautiful and looked like a beach town. There are a lot of vegetable gardens. When we got to the 'restuarant' which was like a small bed and breakfast type thing. I was the only one so that was kind of awkward especially since I thought the tour guide who is a few years older then me was starting to get a little too friendly (foreshadow!). So when I got there, they brewed me some local lotus ...

I must say the bus ride from Hue to Hoi An was the worst thing ever. It was a coach bus and it was hot and 2 of the kids got sick on it so it smelled awful. After when we finally arrived, I walked to the hotel from the bus stop cause I'm an independent idiot. I seriously made the rookie mistake of bringing a suitcase with wheels and not actually a huge backpack like the other backpackers...who only brought backpacks. This lady offered me directions since I had no idea where I was..then when I went on my way she told me to visit her store. And I said yes with no intention of actually doing that. After I laid down on my hotel bed for like 1 hour (I'm so embarrassed of lugging that wheelie for like 10 minutes in the hot heat) I left the hotel and guess who I ran into?! That same lady who gave me directions! Her store was like basically around the corner from my hotel -_- so I walked in her store then made some excuse of bung hungry and getting lunch first. Then she was like oh I w...

**since wifi is like a luxury now, I've been blogging on my phone or iPad so I can't format pictures along with my writing so all the pictures are at the end and mostly in the order of what I'm writing about..yay for technology! Started the day early at 730am with Hue city tour. The group consisted of mainly locals, an elderly Thai couple, couple from Germany though the wide is Vietnamese (there's actually quite a number of mixed foreign couples where the wives are Vietnamese) and this small elderly family from alaska. The tour guide is kinda awkward when he makes really lame jokes where no one laughs but him and even his own laughter sounds forced. and his English sounds like there is an exclamation point after every! Sentence! It! Gets! Annoying! Especially with his awkward fake laugh! Anyway, we went to the tombs id the 2nd king who has the biggest tomb and then the 12th king who has the smallest but the must elaborate since he was the first king to go to France an...