In the wise words of Forrest Gump: "Vietnam- it's this whole other country." Vietnam isn't a whole other country. It's a whole other planet.
ARRIVAL IN HO CHI MIN CITY
My plane left Tokyo and flew 6 hours direct to Ho Chi Min, Vietnam. Talk about culture shock. Believe the hype- it's crazy. I arrived to swarms of taxi drivers offering me a ride to the city. Eventually I found a nice looking man who offered a ride for $13. "$13?", I scoffed. "That's as much as I would pay in San Francisco!" After searching for competitive bids, I realized this was the lowest. So I hopped into his 1982 Mazda hatchback, and after the car wouldn't start and he had his boss open the hood and fiddle around for a while, we were rollin'. Rollin' deep.
Come to find out, this $13 cab ride was 45 minutes long, and probably would have cost closer to $100 in San Francisco. Needless to say, I was happy to pay when we arrived safely.... after nearly hitting at least 15 Vietnamese moped drivers.
We arrived at the Metropole Hotel- an extremely nice and modern hotel (compliments of Wendy Ridenour). I checked in, and after getting settled, it was off to my sleek, modernist bed for some modernist sleep.
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