sketch happens

my adventure in vietnam is drawing to a close, but my thai adventure is about to begin...

since my last update, whitney and i have done quite a lot around vietnam...

on saturday, we wandered around ho chi minh city, and the highlight [for me] was the war remnants museum--formerly the museum of american war crimes. [once again, i'm pretty sure we were the only americans there...] the exhibits included weapons and bombs used by americans in vietnam, u.s. army planes, helicopters, and tanks, and a prison recreated for the purposes of the museum. it was all very interesting, and of course very biased. regardless, i thought the exhibits were very interesting [as some of you know, the vietnam war era is one of my favorite periods of history--along with wwii.]

on sunday, we explored ho chi minh city a little more--we went to the reunification palace, which is where the truce was signed between the north and the south in 1975. we were able to see all four levels, and go in to many rooms. in one room, whitney made an announcement on the microphone [probably against the rules...] and in another room, there was a sign that said "do not touch"...so naturally, i had to--and i have the picture to prove it [definitely against the rules...]

today, we took a super sketchy boat ride up the saigon river to go to the beach at vung tao, which was also super sketchy. when we arrived at vung tao, we had an interesting time trying to get the taxi driver to take us to the beach...whitney ended up drawing a picture for him, but it looked like the loch ness monster and i think the driver was kinda confused. finally, he understood what we wanted and dropped us off at sketchville beach. for real. we were accosted by nearly a million women selling things--and they would not leave us alone!! one lady tried to sell us stuff for fifteen minutes. but, the water felt nice and we had a very relaxing afternoon on the beach. the boat ride home was also super sketchy. the people sitting around us were evidently playing musical chairs--at one point, a buddhist monk sat next to me, and when he got up, a sketchy guy sat next to me who proceeded to stare and whitney and me for the rest of the trip. all in all though, it was a good day!!

tomorrow, we will explore the rest of ho chi minh city, hopefully stopping by the notre dame cathedral, the jade emperor pagoda, and maybe a temple or two...

...and then it's off to thailand we go!!