Vietnam!

After a painfully long 16-hour flight from JFK to Hong Kong which left on Monday morning and arrived in Tuesday afternoon, we had about two hours before our connection to Ho Chi Minh City left. We finally arrived at our hotel in HCMC around 7:30pmcon Tuesday. The whole group was exhausted; with no other choice, we rallied and headed to exchange money and eat dinner before heading to bed horizontally for the first time in a few days. We had to be up early this morning. With the bus scheduled to leave the hotel at 6:30, we didn't have time for a full breakfast, just a boxed one on the bus. As we headed out to Can Gio during the morning rush hour traffic, we got our first glimpse at the city. More motorbikes than I've ever seen before. They're everywhere, yet with no identifiable traffic pattern. We traveled by bus, ferry, and boat to an island with government officials to hand out care packages and bicycles to kids that brittanys hope works with in the community. It was a formal ceremony of sorts, filled with speeches, photo ops, and organized chaos. From there, we took a brief walk through the village before heading back to the boat, then bus, then ferry, then bus (again), with a stop for lunch somewhere along the way. Luckily for me, I'm not the lone vegetarian, so we get our own table with plenty of veg-friendly foods. Yum!!! We sat in a ton more traffic in the afternoon as we waited to get back across HCMC to a center for blind children that is run by some nuns. They sand and performed for us, while some of the Etown students prepared games and activities accentuating their other senses. It was a jam-packed day. Upon returning to our hotel in HCMC, I went with 6 other "adults" for a hot stone massage. Totally worth it. Tomorrow is another full day (with time for a buffet breakfast). The group is splitting up, and I'm headed to see the Cu Chi tunnels. While I'm certain it will be a fascinating morning, I can't help but be mildly anxious due to the crawling-through-small-spaces-designed-for-wartime aspect of it all. Hopefully I'll be able to post some photos before the end of the trip, but no promises.