'Nam

We all know how much I love to travel, so when Daron called about a month ago to see if I was interested in going to Vietnam AND I was able to fly on miles, there was not even a question as to if I was going.

After 14hr from O'Hare to Hong Kong, I had a 4hr layover and Monica came to whisk me away to Kowloon for dinner. Monica and I worked together while I was in Copenhagen and she and her husband hosted me for a long weekend in Hong Kong last year, so it was great to catch up!

Daron and I met up the Ho Chi Minh airport and then headed into to city. After sleeping off a little jet lag, we were off to see the sights of HCM. First up Reunification Palace, where Saigon fell to the North as the tanks stormed the gates to end the Vietnam War....or American War as they call it in Vietnam.

Then we went to the War Remembrance Museum. All the choppers, planes, and tanks outside were cool, but inside it was very depressing as there were several exhibits on the effects of Agent Orange.

Then we were off to Quan An Ngon for an amazing meal. The restaurant bring the best "street food" from the different regions in Vietnam into a great atmosphere.

For those of you who have not traveled with Daron or I, you will have no appreciation for the below. It is the best ledger - EVER! We always have a scrap piece of paper on our trips where we keep track of who owes who what...well, Daron went above and beyond on this one...

Then it was off to some of the many pagodas around the city.

From HCM we headed to Cambodia, but I'll blog on that amazing experience in a separate post. Next up was Hanoi. First stop, coffee on the banks of beautiful Hoan Kiem Lake.

We believe we ran across a taping of Good Morning Vietnam!

Both HCM and Hanoi have insane traffic patterns. Crossing the street is like a game of frogger - with thousands of motorbikes whizzing around, along with cars, bicycles, and people and virtually no traffic laws. Hundreds of motorbikes line all sidewalks in both cities - further leading to chaos on the streets since pedestrians are forced off the sidewalks.

The streets in Hanoi are filled at night with people pouring out onto the sidewalks sitting on little plastic chairs enjoying Bia Hoi - a light draft beer. Not bad at 15 cents a glass!

One day of the hectic city life was enough and we were ready to head out to a relaxing boat cruise in Halong Bay - which will be covered in a separate blog post also. After Halong Bay it was back to HCM for one more day before the trip came to a close. In the morning we headed to Cu Chi tunnels, 200km of underground tunnels where the Vietnamese mounted their operations of the Tet Offensive. The experience was quite sobers as we were shown all the traps that the Vietnamese built and saw the huge craters formed by bombs.

Crawling through the tunnels was another experience all together. I only went 60m and that was enough as it was quite claustrophobic.

That afternoon I went into the office for a little while to meet some of my colleagues, then off for a hot stone massage (massages were an everyday occurrence on this trip!) before meeting up with my colleague Ms. Anh for a delicious dinner.

All in all, a fabulous trip....where to next??!!!