Vietnam!

These propaganda poster is kind of a rare sight in Vietnam, these were everywhere back in "old good days"




You use what you have, here they use the trees for the powercables!!




Another communist propaganda poster

We went on a trip to on of the war zone, they had build very basic tunnels, but they were very long, they were 260km in total.

In the morning they cooked all their food because the steam looked morning fog. They did a lot smart things to outsmart the americans. They had speciel shoes that gave a backwards pattern so it looked like they walked in the opposit direction.

Our guide was really good and very funny!!





This trap was design to kill the enemy slowly! It took around 3 hours for the enemy to bleed out









This is a big mess! Everytime they have a power failure they just put in a new cable!

305.000 for a dinner!! That's something!

The first steps on communism territory

What I really love with Asia is that everything is so different, if you travel to other western countries, a lot is the same. But here even a visit to the toilette can make you really confused, no paper but you have a water hose next to you. We have a Swedish say 'ta seden dit man kommer' it means that you always try to adapt yourself to live by the rules where you go. There is no exact translation of this.

So it's time to leave Malaysia and Kuala Lumpur behind. It's been 4 interesting days, but I got I little bit lazy because I got a little to many drinks. The funny thing in Malaysia is that you pay the same for a beer that you do for strong spirit's say whiskey or brandy (and vodka of course). So a big beer (750ml) is 13 ringit (4 dollars) and the whiskey was 14 ringits and it's was around the same size. It's so weird, drinks are expensive because of taxation, but they seem to just put tax on the amount of liquid regardless of amount of standard drinks.

Our flight took one and a half hours, it really went fast. It really felt like we went in to a magic machine, less then 2 hours ago we were in a whole different country. Even if these country's are close together they are so different. So now for the first time in my life I put my feet on communist soil. On the airport they checked everyone for visa, Jodie needed to get a visa to enter the country, we made a friend with a German backpacker and she needed a visa as well. But if you are Swedish you don't need a visa, because of our good relations with our socialistic friend countries that shares the same values. The idea of an society

As our guide told us 'Vietnam is a communistic country by name but not by nature' which you already got a taste of at the airport. The taxi drivers are crazy, they try to rip off tourist. I talked to a taxi driver and asked the price to the hotell and he grabbed hes mobile and wrote 25, and I asked you mean 2.5 dollars and he told me NO NO NO 25 american dollars. Inside the airport they sold taxi tickets for 7 dollars which takes you wherever you want in town. They do this because they no that the taxi drivers try to rip off everyone at the airport. The taxi driver was nice, but the tension was high, we was just gwaiting for him to stop the taxi and ask for more money which we heard happens to a lot of tourists. But thanks to our taxi ticket we were completely fine!

We got dropped off next to the guesthouse. It's was a little family business, they owned and operated a couple of gueshouses in the neighbourhood. It's like a small hotell. The room was very nice, it's was two big doublebeds, own shower and bedroom. And of course air con, the most important!!! Try to get a good night sleep in the tropical without it!!

Me, Jodie and our new German friend stopped at the second restaurant that stopped us at the street. He was a skilled salesmen, he saw that we just had arrived and was tiered and need a cheap cold beer. So he told us cheap bears, and they were. They costed 80 cents and they had happy hour so for every second beer you buy you get one for free, which is really weird, happy hour is suppose to be pay for one get two. Here we understand how bad english this Vietnamese people speak. But they have their reasons, it wasn't until 1996 that they introduced a free market economy which made their country blossom. The tourism went from zero to extremly big, and Vietnam is the 3rd larges oil producer in the south east Asia. Yeah if you haven't figured it out already, the damn americans came here just to get the oil. Vietnamese people do talk a lot bad about American people, they call them fat and stupid Americans. But the question is, are they wrong? The country in the world with the biggest problem with overweight is America. And were they put an bellow average intelligent, texas coybow and ex cocain addict to run the country. Yeah I'm talking about the 2nd George Bush.

The little I have seen of Vietnamese people have been so far good, they are very shy and quit but seems very nice and honest. I had a breakfast on the local breakfast place, and I was the only western there, because western people want their breakfast with bread, cheese, etc. We were four people sitting at a tiny little people, all squeezed together but everyone was to shy to say hello to each other. I was shy to, but it was morning and I like to shut up and eat my breakfast in piece and quit, so even if we were very different we all shared this moment with each other and it was beautiful.

So far I really enjoy this country. It's cheap here, you get a hotel room for around 10 dollars (5 each if you are a couple). I normal dish at an restaurant is around 2-3 dollars. If you buy the food from the street it's even cheaper, but to my disappointment I haven't found much street food. The food from the streets is usually more genuine, they serve it their way and it's always here you find the best price.

We landed in Saigin (Ho Chi Min) and we bought an open bus ticket, so we can hop on and off as we like. We are travelling north and the bus is a sleeping bus, so instead of normal seats they have beds. So we use the bus to save money on accommodation and we use the time on the bus for sleeping. It's like taking a sleeping train, you wake up and your almost there, BUT this is a LOT more bumpy ride!!! But you get a decent sleep actually.

Because we always are so busy, I don't much time for the blog, so I always write this blogs on the sleeping bus before I'm going to bed. Jodie sleeping like a baby next to me. But it's good for me, I can relax and write and it's makes me really sleepy when I'm finished with it.

I can keep writing forever, but I would my readers would loose interest and I'm already writing on overtime. So basicly, good night! Here comes some pictures of our adventure.