River Ray Estates

After arriving to Vung Tau and waiting a while to be picked up, this guy named Dins (pronounced "d'n") picked us up and brought us to the resort. I had no idea it was so remote. It was in the middle of nowhere, and contrary to what I was told when half the payment for the room was required in advance, it was almost totally empty. There was a two-pod Swiss family with three young boys, who were later joined by a Vietnamese couple and their baby, who claimed to be related to them, I assume through marriage somehow, and no one else was staying there, that we could tell.

Here's the house they put us in. It's called Marigold, and is one of several wooden houses divided into individual suites. We got the top floor:

It overlooked this pond:

As well as this gazebo on the river:

After eating supper at the club house, we were shown to our room by flashlight, as it was dark already (we had forgotten about early sunset because it was so warm it tricked us into thinking it was actually summer). The room was funny. It had one double and a twin bed, with two bathrooms--one with a toilet and a sink, and the other with a shower and a sink. There was no balcony, per se, but actually the whole room was kind of like one big balcony, as there were three big doors that opened up over the pond, with railings.

Two people who didn't speak English went through a lot of trouble setting up a DVD player for us, only to end up giving us a bunch of CDs of Vietnamese music, and one DVD of Charlie Chaplin and Mr. Bean. Awesome. Mom and Amber were jetlagged, so they fell asleep around 8:30, even before the DVD people left. I woke them up twelve hours later for breakfast, which apparently we missed (no one told us breakfast was from 7-8). Since we were practically the only people in the resort, the kitchen made us probably the same breakfast they would've given us at 7:00--omelettes and baguettes, as well as the aforementioned wicked good coffee.

We had planned with Dins to go to a hot spring we saw in the guidebook he gave us, but before he left, he offered to upgrade our accomodations to a whole house, instead of just a room. We moved to Lily (the name of one of my mom's cats):

At the base of the house was a driveway with this sculpture:

To get to the club house/restaurant and the pool, we had to go past the driveway along a bricky trail, past this thing, which would seem to be a fountain, and may actually be turned on when there are more than 13 guests:

After some more path there is a bridge (not over water, but over thick underbrush and brambles and the like):

Then down those stairs (that's Amber up there) and over more path:

Here's a cool tree on the way:

And still more path:

Those poles in the above pictures, by the way, are guides for trees they're growing to make the place look more filled in in the future.

Past this little pool:

And finally to the open-air restaurant:

You may have noticed the observation tower in one of the photos above. Here it is again:

And here are a few views from the top:

I think I was the only one to go up there. Those other two seem to be afraid of heights.

Anyway, the pool was to the left of the restaurant. One one side there is a little kiddie pool, with what looks like it could be a waterfall:

Then the main pool in the middle, which was only waist deep the whole length:

It had two rowboats in it, which were fun for playing around or sitting and reading in:

That's the River Ray you're seeing in the background, by the way.

On the other side was a jacuzzi:

Remember my entry on sseokso, the rotten smile? If not, you should go back a month or two in my blog and read it. I think it's one of my most interesting entries. Here's an example of sseokso, hanging around the pool:

And apparently Joe Camel has made it out to Vietnam:

I have more pictures of the inside of our house, as well as the river and beach that the hotel is situated on, but I'll get to those soon enough.

Ho Chi Minh City

Getting to Vietnam was kind of hellish. It's only a five hour flight, but I had to fly from Seoul, so I had to take the bus again at 12:30 Friday night, get there at 5:30am, and wait for my 10:30 flight. I talked to this Filippino lady from New York for a while, as she was very confused about how to find out her gate. Then I went to Burger King, very excited because we don't have Burger Kind around here, to get breakfast, only to find that they had SOLD OUT OF BREAKFAST. Can you imagine? I was able to get a double cheeseburger plain, so that was good enough. I miss those.

At 8:30, I discovered that my flight had been delayed over six hours, due to them not being able to get a plane over there. I was dismayed. I'd already been there three hours. I was so tired from not sleeping much on the bus all night that it didn't occur to me to ask someone what the hell. So I sat down and slept leaning on my bag for two hours. At 10:30 I decided to try to check in and ditch my suitcase, only to find out that they'd been putting people up in a hotel all morning because of the delay. Damn it. Anyway, I got to take a nap at the hotel and got a free lunch, so it was okay. The flight was amazing, too. I watched Dark Knight and Iron Man, had a great meal, and didn't have anyone sitting with me in my row. There were also tons of cute babies around to make faces at.

I arrived in the evening and got picked up by someone from the hotel (luckily Seoul hotel I was waiting in had free internet, so I could change my airport pickup time). We stayed at the Empress Hotel the first night in Ho Chi Minh City. My mom and sister arrived about three hours after me.

The next day we walked over to Ben Thanh Market, a major destination in Ho Chi Minh. We got slightly lost on the way, but ran into Tao Dan Park:

Once we found the market (whose entrance was surprisingly obscure, I must say), we did some shopping. I was shocked to find the prices pretty exorbitant. The first lady whose shop I paused at (or rather, the first woman who literally dragged me to her clothes and wouldn't let me go), tried to get away with selling me two cotton sleeveless shirts for over $30. I was outraged. The sellers there are totally aggressive, and the prices were not great for such a poor country. We eventually bargained into some soooort of good deals, though. The market is crazy because it's just row upon row of tiny stands. all lumped together, with extremely narrow alleys among them all. We lost each other at one point, and I think it took about a half hour and the aid of a shopkeeper (who we then had to buy something from) to reunite in the mire. I wanted to take a picture, but I was afraid to pull out the camera. Kind of sketchy.

After shopping, I went to get my hair shampooed and cut, as I heard the salon experience in Vietnam is amazing. It's pretty good. They give you like a mini shoulder massage beforehand, then during the shampoo you get a wicked scalp massage, and a little bit of a facial massage. You can get more intensive treatments added on, like a full facial, massage, etc., but we didn't have time for that. It's cheap, too. I paid less than $10, including tip.

To get to the next destination, River Ray Estates, outside of the coastal city of Vung Tau, we took the hydrofoil, a river ferry:

It was about a 90 minute ride, and less fun than I imagined. It wasn't the kind of ferry in which you can hang around outside. We just had to sit inside and listen to the engine roar. Don't even ask about my trip to the bathroom.

Here's the view from the dock in Vung Tau:

I had arranged for a pickup with the resort, but we had ended up taking the ferry an hour earlier than planned, so we had to wait an hour for the dude to get there, as we didn't have the phone number. Taxi drivers were kind of harassing us for a while, and it was mildly annoying. They really liked Amber. A couple guys hung around, gave her a flower, took her picture. I think with her lip piercing and Paris Hilton sunglasses she seemed really glamorous to them.

Vietnamese Coffee

Oh, man, the coffee here is wicked good.

Dry Season

Well, I haven't been posting as much lately because I've been so busy preparing for Christmas and my winter vacation to Vietnam. So now that Christmas is over and I'm only a couple hours away from leaving for that vacation, I will be writing even less (probably not at all) over then next 10ish days. I will, however, have plenty to show and tell when I get back. Until then, patience.

Happy New Year and such.