Greetings from Vietnam

Since my office and Sydney's school are closed next week for Chinese New Year, Sydney and I flew to Saigon last Friday to spend the Tet (or the lunar new year, which is on February 7th) in Saigon with my parents. We have been very lucky with our flights here from Shanghai. We were upgraded to business class from Shanghai to Hong Kong and had an entire row of seats to ourselves in economy class from Hong Kong to Saigon. I didn't buy a ticket for Sydney for these flights because they are only a little over 2 hours for each flight so the extra room was a relief. The flights were uneventful, as was Sydney, which is how I like to fly.

We are staying at the Rex Hotel in Saigon for its location and affordable price, and definitely not for its comfort. The hotel is very outdated and is in the process of a much needed renovation. I stayed here 4 years ago and I don't remember it looking this worn down. I paid $68 a night back then. It is about twice that much now because of Tet. But it is in a great location --- walking distance to most of the places to which we want to go. The room that we booked had a great view of the city but it was so noisy at night that neither Sydney and I were able to sleep so we had to switch rooms. We had to downgrade in our room choice but at least it is quiet and the air conditioner worked great. However, there is no internet connection in the room. They do have computers with internet connections in the common area. I didn't realize how much I relied on the internet until I don' t have easy access to it.

It is amazing how much different this area looks from 4 years ago. More 4 and 5 star hotels have been built since then as well as shopping malls. The malls are 3 - 5 stories tall and well air-conditioned, which is a great draw for customers as the temperature here is in the low 90s for the high. But it feels a lot warmer than that. The most striking aspect about the malls is that they have stores such as Gucci, Calvin Klein, Burberry and other expensive brand name stores. Saigon (and Vietnam in general) is a very poor country and still a third world country in many respects. People here live on average of $3 per day. I wonder how many people here can afford to shop at these stores. I noticed that there were people browsing in these stores but no one bought anything.

The city is well decorated in preparation of Tet. There are fresh flowers everywhere as well as statutes and pictures of mice since the new year will be the year of the rat. Most of the mice are Micky and Minnie Mouse and I'm sure that Disney is receiving royalty payments for the use of those images. There is a street near our hotel that will be closed off to traffic on new year's eve for a celebration and it is beautifully decorated with flowers, topiaries and statutes of mice.

As soon as we checked into our hotel on Friday, we changed clothes and headed to my favorite restaurant here, Ngouc An. And yes, I had pho -- the best tasting bowl of pho that I have ever had. The fact that it costs less than $2 was just icing on the cake. If Sydney wasn't so tired, I would have ordered a couple more bowls. Sydney and I have been eating pho a couple of times a day now, and neither of us are tired of it. The food here is just amazing -- light, fresh and flavorful.

Saigon is not a kid friendly place (i.e., there is nothing for kids to do here) and since the temperature is so hot, we only make it out of the hotel in the mornings and evenings. We spend our afternoons in the hotel. It's been a struggle to find things to keep Sydney occupied. We take long walks around the city, which she enjoys. I'm a little overwhelmed by the noise and throngs of people, but Sydney gets a kick out of it. We sit on the steps in front of our hotel sometimes and just people watch. There is a small park across the street from our hotel that we walk around a couple of times a day. We've done some shopping and I bought Sydney a couple of really cute dresses for this summer. I found a bookstore today that has a large English book section so the new Elmo books have helped to keep her busy.

It has been so great to be in a city where I know the language. My parents speak to Sydney in Vietnamese and after a couple of days, she seems to understand the gist of what they are saying. She's repeating everything that she hears now and as a result, has learned a couple of Vietnamese words. I taught Sydney the traditional greeting that children give to adults (bowing with arms crossed over their chest) as a gift to my parents last fall in preparation for our visit to Dallas over Thanksgiving. That bow has won Sydney many admirers here.

I'm leaving Sydney with my parents tonight and flying to Siam Reap, Cambodia to check out Angkor Wat. I've been wanting to see Angkor Wat for years now and since Saigon is only a 45 minute flight to Siam Reap, I didn't want to miss the opportunity to go. I really wanted to take Sydney with me but I've been told that Angkor Wat is definitely not stroller friendly and having to carry Sydney around for hours in 90 degree weather would make the trip a miserable experience, for the both of us. I'll be flying back to Saigon tomorrow afternoon.