Good Morning Vietnam!

March 8, 2011
We entered Vietnam 7 days ago and I really don't know where the time has gone. 
The plan has been to make our way along the coast from south to north starting in the city of Can Tho and ending in Hanoi.
Unfortunately we have managed to fall a bit behind on our time line so we are forced to cover a lot of distance in a short span of time.
We crossed the border by bus, a trip that we were told would take approximately 4 hours. Eleven hours later we arrived in Can Tho. The extended drive was not all that bad at first. We drove through rice lined roads  in the country side and witnessed the ox and water buffalo at work, pulling wooden carts heaping with plump rice sacks. The country side certainly fit the bill of what I imagined Vietnam to look like. 
We changed buses in Chau Doc and in keeping with tradition, this bus ride was another adventure. For a minivan built to seat 16 people, the Vietnamese defied normalcy and managed to squeeze in 22 people. At one point there was 6 people in the front bench alone. Luckily for us, but not necessarily fair, they evacuated the previously occupied back seat for 4 of us tourists and never squeezed anyone else on the seat. It was by no means a comfortable journey, but compared to the locals, we were in the lap of luxury.
We really enjoyed Can Tho. It's a busy city, but you can escape the hustle and bustle at the riverside while dining on food cooked on a Vietnamese BBQ or sipping on a sweetened ice coffee. In our guest house we saw our first snake and frog kept in an aquarium that were also listed in the menu.....we did not indulge.
We also enjoyed the floating market where vendors sold all types of produce on wooden boats of all shapes and sizes.
From Can Tho it was off to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). And we thought the traffic was hectic in the rest of SE Asia...Wow! Human Frogger across 6 lanes of traffic. (I, Riley, have never heard of Frogger, but Q insists that most of you will get the analogy)
Here we submersed ourselves in city life. Visiting parks and museums, negotiating the markets, tasting local cuisine and splurging on fancy drinks served on a roof top patio overlooking the city. (splurging = $6 since a beer usually costs about .50 cents)
We also took in the Cu Chi tunnels, a section of underground tunnels spanning 250 kms which previously housed the Viet Cong. It was a fact filled day of the history of the Vietnam War.  
Prior to coming to this country, numerous other travelers had warned us that the people in Vietnam weren't as warm and friendly as other areas of SE Asia. This hasn't at all been our experience. On our last day in Saigon we spent the better part of a rainy afternoon chit chatting with university students who simply wanted to practice their English. In return, they were happy to answer our many questions about their culture, their government etc. and were a wealth of knowledge for us.
To get to our next city, Nah Trang, it required an overnight bus trip. We were a little gun shy from our last overnighter experience, but our alternative options were limited. We went with it and were pleasantly surprised. Although Q is a little too long for the asian sized beds, poor guy, after his fix of Gravol, he slept like a baby. I was able to curl up with a blanket and sleep relatively well also.
We arrived to rain in Nah Trang, so the city felt a little dull. We planned to leave after only one night, but once the sun came out, our minds quickly changed. The beaches are fabulous and life just moves a little slower here. Definitely more our style.  After napping, sunning ourselves and Q taking on some massive waves with more ease than David Haselhoff, we are forced to move north to Hoi An due to lack of time. Tonight we will face, head on, another overnight bus trip.