Vietnam

Good morning Vietnam!!! Vietnam is awesome. Twenty minutes after we arrived in Ho Chi Minh City we were on our way to rent scooters. The driving is absolutely insane, but after I saw grandma on a motorbike I was up for the challenge. Driving in Vietnam is like playing a video game and playing chicken with everyone. There are no rules, and at times I found myself driving on a sidewalk three deep. Walking across the street is like playing Frogger.

After a few nights in, we attending a German Oktoberfest. That was definitely an experience. We partied pretty hard with Vietnamese corporate locals while standing on tables and chanting the night away. Any chant you started would end with about 30 chanting men slamming mugs and doing it all over again. Good night Vietnam!!!

Taylor and I then decided to embark on a 5 day motorbike trip through the mountains with our local tour guide "River." This action would probably be the coolest thing that I've ever done besides traveling for four months. I was riding a motorbike through many small villages, waving at all the minority children, honking at women with the weakest horn imaginable, and trying to hit little baby chickens while watching the clouds peak over the tallest mountain tops.....just kidding about the chickens. During our 5 day moto trek, we spent the night in a rice field surrounded village and woke up to a Vietnamese elephant ride. Let me get this straight, I was in Vietnam... surrounded by little women wearing coned straw hats working in rice fields... riding an elephant through a lake...watching solo fishermen drift in their little wooden boats... all while listening to Incubus's song "Aqueous Transmission." Please don't hate me. (go to youtube.com and type in Aqueous Transmission to hear the song. You can listen to it while looking at the blog photos)

As I was getting my scuba dive certifications in Nha Trang, I got the rare chance to see a large octopus. It was amazing, I had only been in the water for two minutes with my guide Gab (who looked identical to Chris Martin the lead singer of Coldplay) and I was about two feet from this "majestic and jositile creature."lol The octopus changed two different colors in about 5 seconds. "Awesome!!, Totally awesome!!" (Sean Penn, Fast Times at Ridgemont High.) I spent 5 days scuba diving and made some really cool friends that week. I was sick to my stomach and didn't want to leave them, but I must go on... must go on. I'm' pretty sure that they were sick to their stomach's to see me go as well.

I spent 3 days and 2 nights in Ha Long Bay, and it was probably the most beautiful place that I've ever seen. At that moment I wished that I was on my honeymoon cause some serious things would've happened. The views were astonishing and each day kept getting better and better. We kayaked each day for a few hours through caves and cliffs to find our own coves to swim in silence. I couldn't believe that I was there, listening to my favorite bands, standing on untouched Islands, hearing nothing but wind and waves crash, and knowing that I was in the middle of beautiful no where. The pictures I have posted give no justice. Just times them by 78 hours. And for the record, rooster testicles taste identical to duck embryo, but different to fried baby eels.

Click here to see all my Vietnam photos and slideshow.