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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.
