Adventures By Design

In which the travelers marinate in their own sweat

This was our first full day in Vietnam, but we didn’t really do much. As great as this whole trip has been we both feel a little drained by now, and ready to head home soon. Still, in a couple of weeks our friends Nathan and Amy will be meeting us in the North of Vietnam in Hanoi. Having other people join us for parts of our trip (Andrea and Phil, Jesse and Janelle, and the great folks we’ve met on the road) has made our time more interesting and fun. There is only so much alone time we can take!!

This morning we set out to find a new hotel. The place we stayed last night was okay, but we were looking for something a little nicer for the rest of our stay in HCMC. We left our bags at the old hotel, and wandered around for a while, looking for a suitable place. It’s so much easier to look for a hotel without our bags in tow; partly because they are heavy and a pain to carry, but mostly because having them on our backs makes us a target for every tout in the area to try to get us into their hotel.

After checking a couple of places we found a suitable one and checked in. We hung out in the room for a while, but quickly realized that the air conditioning (that we were paying a premium for) wasn’t working. Reception sent one of the security guards up to check it, and after playing with the remote for a while he declared it fixed. It most certainly was not fixed, given that it was still shooting out warm air, so back to reception we went, and asked to change rooms this time. They said that they had another room, but we needed to wait an hour until someone checked out. We killed an hour in the coffee shop next door and Ric taught Gin the game Jesse and Janelle had taught him: Yaniv. After an hour we returned to a new room, and blessed coolness…ahhh…

We had dinner, checked out a view tour agencies and the trips they offer, and then headed back to the hotel, and it’s free wifi to relax and catch up on some blogging.