I'm BACK!!!!! My Trip: Part 1

WOW!!! It's been a bit over a month since I've actually personally updated (instead of those scheduled updates for the new fanfic). So I'm back from my one month vacation to Vietnam...and I gotta say...I sorta had a blast. Yes, sorta.

Picture of the airplane I went on during the connecting flight from Hong Kong to Saigon

I remember someone asking me how I imagined Vietnam to be before I went there and to be honest I had no vision of Vietnam in the back of my mind even if it's the country where my family is from. I had never once thought of how it would be...except for the fact that it's a developing nation that is governed by communists. Reading about something and then personally experiencing and seeing it, is another...and my trip to Vietnam really proved that point.

I went there with the thought that I'll be meeting family that I have never seen before other than in photographs that I barely take a second glance at, and I'll be meeting 'friends' that I've never seen before either. I also thought that I would feel like a foreigner in a land that is supposed to be 'home' and what I thought was absolutely correct. Arriving at the airport in Saigon feeling the intense heat and worrying that our luggage might've been lost...the only other thought on my mind was...'how am I supposed to feel relaxed in such a place?' The first experience I had in Vietnam was seeing the power of money...money can buy time...money makes the world goes round and makes things with the customs people at the airport alot easier

View from the car driving from the airport heading to Sadec...my first destination

Stepping outside in the actual heat of Saigon I saw a crowd of people who to me were all foreign...and the majority of them were foreign to me...however they like myself were Vietnamese. The realization that I'm in the country of my forefathers had kicked in and there was a sense of amazement running through me...and I felt it...or maybe it was the sweat running down from my forehead.

I thought that arrival gate at the airport was crowded...but when I got on the van and hit the actual road...the amount of people on the streets (not beggers...I mean people in general) made me speechless...and of course I was shocked by the numourous motorcycles as well.

I'll probably write a lot more about my trip...in the meantime check out a few of these pictures.

Can you guess what tree that is?

Tell me in the cbox...or leave a comment!!!