Getting Ready for a visitor!

Just a quick note to introduce some of you to my friend Scott. I have known Scott since about our senior year of H.S. We met through a mutual friend and did not go to the same school. Later we became closer as a result of this mutual friend and a sheer love of adventure and the outdoors.

Here's an early picture, I'm guessing about 1992 by the lack surface area around my belly and the general increase in hair on our heads

Mt. Biking the upper Clackamas Area. From L to R Steve, Uncle Post, Me and Scott. Notice the lack of suspension and disk brakes on those Mt. Bikes!

Scott is definitely on a different level of adventure and fitness as I. Where I have daydreamed more than experienced, he has experienced. My 4-6 backpacking/fishing trips per year are his 20-30 trips per year.(he may correct me with more) The point is we still share the joy of adventure, whether hiking, fishing, competing(Ironman- not me) and travel.  He has competed in down hill skiiing and Mt. Biking and has always had a love of rambling in the mountains. Currently he is getting ready for the Ironman race and will be training hard once he returns home to the states. I will also note that he has an uncanny sense of direction which I'm sure will help us in our upcoming adventures!

We look forward to Scott's arrival in about a week. He will be here for about 2 weeks and we have planned a trip to Siem Reep in Cambodia to check out the Ankor Temples.

Mekong Delta Trip

Hello All,

Sorry the information has been slow. I will try to catch up.

We went for a nice day trip south to the Mekong Delta area and had a great time. In the map below you will find Ho Chi Minh(Saigon) where we stay and then to the south are the cities of My Tho and Vinh Long. This is where we spent most of our time on this one day long trip.We took a bus from Saigon for 1 1/2 hours until we reached My Tho.  After visiting the "Happy Place" (our guide's euphemism for bathroom) we -

 boarded the boat and headed downstream with our tour guide Phuk (pronounced took). He told us about how the Delta has 9 different rivers coming into it and how although the water looked dirty it is from all of the sediment in the water. Here is where Tony Jr. gave us a quick lesson about turbidity. The just finished a unit in school about water. Timely! 

We got of the boat and went to an area where they make rice paper and rice candies. They grind the rice in these large stones and then the slurry is poured on to very hot rocks to cook. After they are done they are sold for many different food preps. We tried them raw and cooked like potato chips. 

Grant having a turn at the rice grinder

This is where they cook the rice slurry. She would then carefully place them behind her on the bamboo to cool. 

Then we had a "traditional" vietnamese meal. I don't know how traditional it was but it was very yummy. It was part of the tour and was geared for the tourist. We had Elephant Ear fish that was flaked off and made into spring rolls. Other dishes were a spicy pork, some sort of greens similar to swiss chard, dumpling soup and  fried spring rolls. It's easy to understand i will not be loosing any weight! It was very good!

Elephant Ear fish

There were many small fishing boats and floating fish farms. The farms were simple floating buildings w/ nets holding the fish. 

We got back on the boat and headed to our next destination. 

There are so many different types of fruits here. I will need to try them all!

Grant taking a rest. We are still not used to the heat!

After a quick rest and visit to "The Happy Place," we boarded the boat for the next adventure. The boats move slowly and loudly down the large river and it is a great time to watch the fishermen and their nets and see all the other tour boats. This area is a big tourist destination.

Below are some pics and clips that I have not really previewed. They show the coconut processing from raw to finished product of a sweet candy. 

After sampling some nice candies. We boarded our next mode of transpiration! On this ride we shared w/ a young man who was looking to get a job with this tour company so he was trying out some of the various tours they provided. He spoke very good English and was great to talk with. 

After a nice ride we stopped for some refreshment and some nice traditional music. I plan to insert some video here when I figure out how to do it!

Then we boarded a smaller boat for a pleasant calm ride down a narrow canal. I felt bad for our host she looked so old and frail. All of the ladies that worked this section of the tour and rowed these boats were quite old. Tony and I helped paddle.

I love this picture that Christine took of the woman who paddled our canoe. 

Below are some other pics I will annotate later. We are off to Mui Ne for an overnight at the beach. The boys also have some other entries started that we will post next week. Thanks for taking a look and please send a comment or question. Thanks Jivy for lighting the fire. . . 

There is much more to see down here. I have heard you can arrange home stays where you spend the night w/ locals after your tour. I would love to do this.

Trip to District 1

We went into District 1 (basically down town Ho Chi Minh) to explore, do some shopping and have dinner. We still feel like our apartment is a bit sparse and Christine wanted to hit the Bhen Tein Market for some baskets and look for lamps. The boys were anxious to look for games for their DS as well.

The Ben Than Market ( Ben Ten) is an open air market for just about everything. Like Saturday Market on steriods.! From Clothing to household and prepared foods to all groceries you may wish to take home. I enjoyed the meat and fish area. Much of the fish was live, swimming in small tanks being pumped oxygen. Here are a few pictures.

Garlic

Chrstine has some more pics I will post when she gets back from work. I have many pictures to share and I know that its much more fun to see pics and captions than read my banter. More later today. Cheers, 

Live fish

BTW- My friend Jon mentioned the local Saigon Red and Saigon Green beer. I finally found some, but your not going to believe where!

I had to go to the Hard Rock to find a local beer! Crazy! I thought we had a pic of the bottle and some food, but lost it some how. I'll try to get some more local flavor soon. 

Here it is. This one's for Jivy!

Grant's New Bike

Mine is the black and yellow. 

I got my bike yesterday its black with yellow on it. It has bronze foot pegs. I like the foot pegs because it gives my feet a rest.Yesterday i went for 2 bigs bike rides with my family. We went around are block which was about 3 miles   then we went to our apartment, then to my moms coworkers house. They showed us around there place  and we saw a huge caterpiller. they got a dog named tiger she's a girl. After that we got kem (ice cream) then we went back to the apartment.

My New Bike by Tony Jr.

My new bike is a blue mt. bike with a white decal. I got it yesterday. The store we got it from was very small but there     was lot of people there. Some of them touched me and grant. After we bought The bikes we asked the owner if they delivered bikes and he said yes. After that we hailed a taxi and went back to the apartment.

Mine is blue. Grant's is in front

My bike is blue with a white decal. It came with a lock and key and a light for riding at night. I'm glad we got bikes to get around easier.

Getting Settled

It's been a few days since I posted anything. We just had the internet installed which is DSL. I'm going to have to get used to the slow response, but its not bad. We are looking for a wireless router and will install that as soon as we can. The boys are disappointed they cannot use their iTouch's to text and email yet, but we have found a local cafe w/ wifi and will try to go a couple of times a week to catch up. We are learning to be patient as things move along much slower here.

We have moved into the new apartment. It is very nice and comfortable. The decor is very modern which is a change for our normal living, but I am not complaining at all. It has 3 bedrooms and 2 1/2 bathrooms. There is a small but comfortable living/dining room w/ a bump out kitchen. I will take some pictures a little later and post them as well. We are on the 10th floor facing east which is makes for a beautiful sunrise. Our friend Chris picked it out so we could have afternoon shade and have some time w/ the windows open. He suggested not living in air-conditioning all of the time and after only a few days I agree. I open up the window in the morning for a few hours and in the evening.

Here is a picture outside out balcony. There's a small space to go out and enjoy the view of the river. I am fascinated by the boats, barges and ebb and flow of the river.

Add caption

I'm not sure what this boat is for. Looks like a ferry or tour boat.

We made it to Ho Chi Minh!

We have arrived! After a very short 27 hour journey from door to hotel, we are here. Air travel was more like 18 hours but with a 3 hour layover in Hong Kong and waiting for visas, going through customs,etc  added more time than I thought.

It is about 1pm Sunday afternoon We decided to get a hotel downtown for the night so we didn't feel like we needed to rush to the grocery store and move in at the same time feeling pretty tired. All of our bags made it though unscathed and seemingly with all their original contents; even the homemade raspberry jam and Costco sized brick of Tillamook cheese.

Just a short entry to tell everyone we made it safely. I am very proud of the boys! They slept when they needed to and had little complaints along the way, save waiting in lines. We are going to find some food and hit the pool at the hotel now and try to stay awake as long as possible.