Ho Chi Mein City

At the beginning of April I had to leave the country. It wasn't anything personal against Cambodia...or maybe it was :) I had to renew my visa. Which meant leaving and re-applying when I came back in. So with Heather my fearless travel companion we bought our international bus tickets and headed to Vietnam. I will say this was great timing and a great break from the work here. I find at times that it is hard to constantly have the issues on my mind. Every week we meet to talk about when and were the girls will be going next and I hear their stories...it starts to wear down your heart.

So off to a bigger city! On the trip we got to cross a river on a ferry. They drove the bus right on. Once we arrived we found our Hostel which was down a lovely little alley behind the main buildings along the street. I loved seeing all the little bird cages with song birds hung along the walk ways. We had to do a money exchange and then headed out to explore this new area. The food places were great, we were close to a nice park, and found a great ice cream store. We had been on a bus for about 6 hours so we went down to see the local market.
Here is the awesome ice cream fondue Heather and I split. My 7 flavors of ice cream were: mint chocolate chip, mango, banana, strawberry, Cinnamon, vanilla macadamia, and Coconut.

The market was similar but they use beads to decorate tons of stuff. They also have fun tea sets, chopsticks, and purses. It was fun walking through and spending time out of a chair :) We also found some fun things to take pictures of...
It would be ironic if the Hotel ever lost power.

For my BMW Friends:)

Can you find the guy sleeping? Why wouldn't you take a nap there?

Wait Notre Dame?...am I in Paris? Nope, the French Build one here too!! (even named the same)

American does not hold the Monopoly on Circle K!!

On Saturday we went to the Chu Chi Tunnels and War Remnants Museum. We enjoyed a nice dinner of ice cream (no really...did you not see the picture?).

It really is the simple things in life. I cannot explain the joy that filled my heart as we asked for direction, realizing we could stay out past 9pm in this city without considering the risk factors. We hailed a cab and waited as it drove through the crowded streets, we were struck by the silence inside the car and how rare it was to ride in a car. He dropped us off and we checked the mall map, floor 13. We pushed the buttons inside the elevator unsure of what we would find once we got there. Would they have anything in English? How much did we care if it would be or not? At the desk we saw they did have American ones and quickly bought our tickets…we were going to see a movie!!! We giggled like little school girls grasping our treasured entrance stub which cost us $3.70. We looked at the concession counter and knew that we wanted share popcorn ( $1.60, I think I can handle splitting that)…we were informed they only had the sweet kind. Besides the kettle corn I have had in Shipshewana, Indiana this blessed popcorn was pure pleasure in my mouth. So Heather and I enjoyed watching the new Alice in Wonderland movie that Disney just put out. So really it is the simple things in life