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I'm getting a little behind on the blogging...

After Nha Trang we took the night train to Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon). We just spent one day there and checked out the war museum and the Independence Palace. Pretty heavy stuff at the museum and having been in Vietnam definitely puts the various movies I've seen about it into a better perspective.

The next day we took off for the Mekong Delta and have been touring around there. Tonight we are in Chau Chok (I think that is what it's called, can't remember right now). It's right at the Cambodian border and tomorrow after a little more sightseeing in the morning we are catching a boat up the Mekong to Phnom Phen in Cambodia.

There are a lot of bugs in the Mekong Delta. We spent one night staying in huts at the river and luckily there were no holes in my mosquito net. Overall, an interesting night, but I don't think I would do it again. Too humid and too many bugs. It was so humid that my bedding and my clothes the next morning were actually damp. Very weird.

Anyway, really tired today after getting up early and visiting a bunch of local markets and villages. Climbed up 950+ stairs at the end of the day to get to the top of a mountain here with an awesome view of the Delta and into Cambodia. Was absolutely drenched in sweat at the end, but it was worth it.

Today is the 'buddha birthday' and they are having a celebration in town with some live Vietnamese singing on stage. Interesting. Will have to post more stories and pictures later.

Frank out.

Slept in today and will relax on the beach while Marc and Elise are diving. Here are some nice photos that Marc uploaded last night:

• Hong Kong
• Halong Bay
• Hanoi, Hue and Hoi An

Today my buyers remorse is gone after I got my sweet new clothes. The suits and everything else looks awesome. I think I'm most happy about the jeans and the blazer. Finding jeans that fit really well can be a challenge, but these babies fit like a glove. :-)

Now we're in Nha Trang on Vietnam's central coast. It's a pretty touristy beach resort kind of place. The beach is very nice and it's huge and not very crowded at all since it's off season. The weather has been perfect since we left Hanoi with nothing but sunshine. We found a nice hotel right by the beach and today we basically just lazed around. Tomorrow we're going on a diving charter. Since I don't want to dive I'm just going to snorkel. The diving here is supposed to be the best in Vietnam.

One thing you notice a lot in Vietnam is that women cover most of their skin to protect it from the sunlight. That is because being tanned is considered unattractive in Asian society, so they try to maintain pure white skin. They will wear long pants and shirts, hats, gloves, socks and some sort of facial cover. Not every woman does it, but it is quite common. Our tour guide from a few days ago was telling us that a tanned girl wont find a boyfriend. He kept bragging that his wife had 'very very white' skin. The whole thing was quite funny. Then it occured to me that I think it is a little odd for the women to cover up like this, but that otherwise it is fine. However, when I was in Egpypt it made me feel uncomfortable when women would wear burkas in public. But apart from the specific clothing used to cover their skin it is quite similiar to how they cover up here. In one society the pressure to cover up stems from religion, in the other it stems from societal expectations of beauty. In both cases it is considered the norm, yet in one case we judge it quite harshly. I'm not really making any further point here, but it's something that I was thinking about today.

Anyway, on a lighter note to get to Nha Trang we had to catch a night bus from Hoi An. It was really uncomfortable and I hope it's the last night bus we have to catch. I managed to get a double seat to myself early on, before they were all taken. About halfway through the journey when the bus was stopped again (it stopped almost every 2 hours) an Asian fellow from the front got up, walked to the back and said: "Are there any more seats in the back? Oh God, it is so uncomfortable and torturous." I don't know where the guy was from but he had the most hilarious accent. For some reason it reminded me of a Scottish accent. I couldn't stop cracking up and I think the guy thought I was a jerk since I had a nice double seat to myself. Ah well. Tough luck -- you snooze you lose. Zing!

I'm suffering from terrible buyers remorse right now. Why, you ask? Well, remember the last blog post about the excellent tailors in Hoi An? Because of them I learned two hard lessons today:

1. Good suits don't cost $20
2. I get easily carried away when a little Vietnamese lady brings me lots of fabrics and shows me all the wonderful things she could make for me

I'm a little embarassed to post this on the blog, but I might as well. At the end of the tailoring session I got:

• 2 suits
• 2 dress shirts
• 2 casual shirts
• 2 short sleeved linen shirts
• 1 casual blazer
• 1 linen drawstring pants
• 1 jean
• 1 shorts

Yeah exaclty -- holy crap, what were you thinking man? Lucky for me things here are cheaper, even if it's not $20 for a good suit. In the end this all came out to $430. The lady just totally sweet talked me into it. What can I say, I'm weak!

The tailor was quite the experience for me since I'd never been to one before. First we sat down around a table and decided on the styles for the various things. I originally just wanted a suit, but of course they walk you through the various other items you can get. The lady advised me on a lot of things that I wasn't sure about. There are more parts to a suit or dress shirt than I had imagined. After that we picked fabrics, then they took my measurements, and of course in the end we haggled about the price. I was able to talk her down a little bit from the original price, but not as much as I thought. Shipping all this back home should cost another $30 - $40.

Anyway, now I'm going to get a beer and relax. Hopefully the buyers remorse will pass soon! :-)

Another day, another blog post. I'm really getting into this blogging thing...

We just got into Hoi An which is a nice little beach town along Vietnam's central coast. They are famous for their silk and tailoring here and you can get a new suit made starting at $20 or so. Later today Marc and I are going to check it out and get our measurements taken. Maybe I will get two suits since it's so cheap and then just mail them home.

Anyway, yesterday and the day before we were in Hue. It's a little further north and close to the former DMZ. On the first day we rented bicycles and cruised around town. The thing is, traffic here is a little crazy. People don't signal and basically everyone just goes with the flow. Indecision is bad, because if you're not moving then people don't know what you are going to do. Whereas if you keep moving everyone else will 'flow' around you and avoid you. Everyone here rides a scooter and it is by far the most common vehicle. If you need to pass someone you honk so that they know you are coming up on the left. At first it's a bit nuts, but it's fine once you get used to it. People also go really slow, so that helps.

We also biked through a more rural part of town and about 20 kids were running after our bikes cheering 'Bye Bye' when we left the area. In general, whenever we get off the beaten track and run into kids they come running up to us to say 'Hello' and get a high five. It's a neat experience.

Hue is a really nice town with an old Citadel in the town center. It's a lot more quiet than Hanoi and I liked it a lot better.

The next day we rented three scooters and a guide to tour the DMZ. It's 70km outside of Hue, so we had to scooter all the way there and back. It was an excellent idea to get our own guide since we didn't run into any other tourists all day! The Vietcong tunnels are quite amazing and a lot more extensive than I thought. They had 300-500 people living in the tunnels and had underground schools, hospitals, meeting rooms, etc. During the war 18 babys were born underground. It was a really neat thing to see. We also looked at a number of other sites and took many rural roads with our guide, so we saw a lot of Vietnam's countryside. It's very beautiful with rice fields, patches of jungle and the mountains in the background. The heat was intense and at the end of the day we were very tired. We scootered more than 200km to see all the sites and get to/from Hue. The weather in central Vietnam is not as humid as Hanoi, but the sky is blue and the sun beating down makes it feel just as hotter.

Our guide told us that up until 1991 Vietnam was a closed country and living conditions were 'very bad' as he said. It's very noticeable now how much infrastructure has been added in the last decade. The roads are all brand new and in excellent condition. Even the rural areas now have cell phone reception and power. Construction of infrasture and housing seems to be happening all over the place. I think in another 15 years it will look a lot different. The country has a great feel to it with everyone looking to the future very positively.