Hello - Bye Bye

I can honestly say that Vietnam is filled with the nicest, most smiling people I've ever met. I say that after spending the past three days in small fishing villages and in Saigon.

Two nights ago we stayed at a homestay. I gather it is something akin to a family run B&B in the US. This family had 6 or so bungalows right on the river. Ryan and I arrived there at around 4pm in the afternoon after a boat ride of 20 minutes to get up the little canal. We were the only ones staying there at that time, so we just chilled out on the porch, drank a beer, and watched the various people paddle/motor down the river.

After an hour, we decided to head into the "village." We natually assumed that there was a central village as we headed off on the 5 foot wide foot/bike path along the canal. However, we quickly realized that that was the village. Vietnam's culture along the Mekong is a river culture, and everything is based on the water. So, not much exists if it is far away from a body of water. As we walked down the path, every child ran out of their house to say "hello" to us. In most cases, their parents and grandparents came along as well. Every person gave us a huge smile, and often shooed their barking dog away from us, and laughed it off.

Along the way people tried to speak to us in English, and we were asked numerous times to participate in games they were playing along the path. We stopped at one point and played some "hackysack" with a bunch of kids in their front yard.

Just to give you a sense of how excited everyone was to say hello to us, we had kids yelling from the other side of the river at us. These 5-7 year olds proceeded to climb over the monkey bridge just to give us a high five. In fact, if you've ever wanted to know what it is like to be famous, just visit this village, and you feel like the president.

What I found most amazing that we met both men and women who were living, and most likely served, during the American War (what the Vietnamese call the Vietnam War). Not one person showed any resentment towards us despite us being from the US. Everyone welcomed us with open arms, and people have continued to do that here in Saigon. Thus far, it seems like this country has completely forgiven us for the atrocities that we carried out during the war. Today we visited the War Remnants museum for, what I gather, was a much more realistic picture of the way the war went down, and how awful our country was during that time. If you have not yet visited this country, you should. Not only for the history, but I guarantee you that you will love the people, and the country itself.

Stay tuned as we head out tomorrow for Dalat, and the next 6 days will be comprised of trekking, mountain biking, canyoning, scuba diving, and drinking.