Hi dear friends!
We arrived to Saigon after some 20 hours of traveling and was "ripped of"
by paying the double than expected for the 30 minutes ride into town from the airport, which was only $7 in total. Everything is cheap and we became millionaires at the first ATM.Some streets where all covered by a roof of cobweb made out of power lines and electric wires.
The traffic in Vietnam is like a constant flowing stream of motorbikes with occasional bigger vehicles. All vehicles never stop honking their horns like bats use their sonar to avoid hitting obstacles. The traffic is not too fast or aggressive and people show each other respect. If you would like to cross a street you just step out into the stream of traffic and move at a steady pace forward and it adjust itself around you. The motorbikes carry whole families if they not decide to bring their whole farm of pigs for a ride in town.
The climate is very hot and humid and due to the rainy season it rains every afternoon, but then it seems like the monsoon can pour down anytime of the day really. We expected this climate to host tons of insects but that hasn't been the case so far, except for some 100 mosquitoes who found Hanna's feet one night. We woke up one morning with a spider between our pillows but luckily we didn't need to find out if it was poisonous or not.
Hanna also had the opportunity to play with a snake around her neck while Emil ordered one for dinner at a restaurant.
In Saigon we visited a massage center where only blind massage therapists worked. The instruction "take of your clothes" was followed by one hour of relaxing massage, despite the constant phone calls and their screaming to each other. Maybe massage is the local way to stay fit, since they never seem to get stiff muscles. They are sitting in positions we would only dream of.
Yesterday we arrived to Phnom Penh after a three day tour through the Mekong delta. We probably spent half of the travel time by boat on the Mekong and half by buss. Everything was very well organized and where ever we showed up in a city or in the middle of nowhere there was some new transport and people waiting for us. We had 9 different guides but only one at the time. We experienced 9 different boats; big boats, smaller boats, boats with roof and without, boats with engine and rowed ones. We changed busses four times but only had one motorbike ride. The tour was interesting with stops at floating markets, small villages, a crocodile farm where the crocs where just laying around waiting to become shoes and much more.
We have been roughing it so far on our honey moon but am now splurging at a very nice hotel. We enjoy the travel together very much.
Love Hanna and Emil
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