We are sitting in our nice, cool hotel room, trying to finish off the last of the Pepsi’s, Diet Pepsi’s, and animal crackers that we don’t want to stuff in our suitcase because they are all already close to or slightly past the weight limit.  Note to those that follow us:  Pepsi is better than Coke in Vietnam.  I don’t know why, but it may have something to do with the Coke here having more carbonation than in the US.  Coke is a bottle is better than a can.  Pepsi tastes spot on! (You can tell I’ve been around a lot of Aussie’s on this trip!)

Everything went very well at INS.  Ms. Russell, the interviewer, was an extremely nice lady who was very pleasant to deal with.  We were in and out in just 15 minutes.  Thank you to everyone who has prayed us through all this.  As we waited to go to the INS office, Mia got a little hungry and decided the chair in the lobby looked appetizing!

We fly out tonight at 6pm for Hanoi with hopes of getting an interview for Mia’s VISA tomorrow morning.  It is still going to be tight on hitting our flight Friday night, but God has worked through the process so far and we believe he will continue to help us. 

Yesterday afternoon, after Mia took a little nap,

we went for a walk with Scott down to the Saigon River.

On the way, we passed the Saigon Opera House.  I have been meaning to take pictures of this building ever since we arrived because it is a very pretty building.  Today was my last chance!

The Saigon River was nothing really to talk about.  As you would expect, there were some nice parks along the river, but nothing really spectacular.

The river itself is pretty dirty as I think they dump raw sewage in it.  We had a guy come up to us and offer to take us for a one hour boat trip along the river for $200,000 VD.  It was tempting.  But the thought of being stuck out in the river with this guy and the price changing was a little much for my stomach.  So, we decided to ride the ferry over to the other side.  Here is Scott waiting for the ferry to unload before we got on.

You had to climb up to the “observation deck” for the extended 4 minute ride across the river.

As we were getting ready to go on the ferry, there was one aggressive taxi driver that kept shouting directions to us.  I don’t know if he was hoping that when we came back we would ride with him or what.  But, he kept directing us through the process of getting on the ferry.  One of the last things he told us as we were getting on the ferry was to be careful on the other side.  THAT sat well with me.

When we got to the other side, we had to let all the motorcycles and cars off first before we could get off.

Then, we exited the ferry station into District 4 of HCMC.  Here is the view from the gates of the ferry.

I don’t know about you, but I wasn’t really encouraged by this view.  In fact, I felt distinctly uncomfortable. While it may just have been a different area, it seemed significantly more poor than where we had been and I kept hearing that guy in the back of my head:  “Be Careful.”  So, we turned right around and rode back!

When we got back tot he other side, there were several little boys that had just pulled a huge fish or something like a fish out of the river.  I have no idea what they planned to do with it, but they were pretty excited.

Last night we ate at a restaurant called Milwaukee BBQ, which really wasn’t a BBQ at all, but did have decent Western food.  Understand that when I say that, there is little resemblance to REAL Western food.  While the food here was fine, you really miss “American” food because there is NO place that makes food like home.

On the way over, I took a couple of shots that I have been meaning to show you.  First, the street cleaners.  These people work all day and all night keeping the streets of HCMC cleared of trash.  In fact, a lot of the street vendors just throw their trash into the street knowing that the street cleaners will come and pick it up.  They really do a nice job.  In this picture you can see the lady actually sweeping the street with a broom.  They do this all day long. I think they may be fairly low on the economic class scale, but they sure work hard.

The other people you see a lot are the tourist security officers.  These are basically a bunch of youth that help you get across the street.  There are several posted at every corner at the really busy intersections and they are tasked with helping to stop traffic while you cross so that you don’t get killed.  I’m not sure how much benefit they are to you, but you see them all the time.

After dinner, we went over to the hotel that Scott and his mother are staying.  It is in the back pack district known for really inexpensive hotels that are used a lot by young people visiting the country.  You are basically have to go down back ally’s to get to their hotel.

However, at $15/night it really is a good deal and, although the rooms are small, they were just as nice as ours.  They had a TV, refrigerator, A/C, and a cooling fan.  I think that IF we came back (over my dead body) we would probably stay someplace like this and save the money. 

After visiting for awhile, we went to a local restaurant for some ice cream before heading back home.

It was pouring rain, so we took a taxi back to the hotel.  We hated to do that because we have really enjoyed walking to all the places we have been.  But, we didn’t feel like getting back to the hotel sopping wet!

The hotel that we are going to in Hanoi says they have high-speed internet, so hopefully I will get to continue the blog.  Worst case, I should still be able to let you know what is happening even if I can not post pictures.  But, I will try and do both.  I don’t know how much “sight seeing” we will do there as we are hoping to get in and out as quickly as possible!

Thank you again for all your thought, prayers, and e-mails.  It has made the trip a lot easier knowing that people at home care.

Cameron