Good Morning, Vietnam

Do not be fooled, dear readers. Though this post bears a time stamp of 11:45 a.m., I am actually writing to you from the future...where it's nearly midnight in Vietnam.

We've been here two days now---somewhere during that 30ish hours of travel we pretty much lost a day---and already we've seen/done/eaten/bought/photographed/ooohed-ahhed a lot of really cool things. So many, in fact, that I can't let myself write too much, lest posts turn to pages and you get bored. Summary: things are great.   I am always amazed when groups cohere while working toward a common goal, and in no time develop a shared history, inside jokes. 

Team Awesome is getting along awesomely.

So instead of anecdotes, I'll post some photos, and promise that there's still so much more to come. [Tomorrow's our first orphanage visit!]

Thursday: Early morning bustle inside Ben Thanh market, Ho Chi Minh.  

Lacquered goods? silk? raw meat? scorpions in jars?  Yep.

Breakfast in Ben Thanh:  our first pho. delicious. and that banana i ordered? surprise! turned out to be a smoothie. all for less than $3 USD.

Thursday afternoon, Danang:  view looking up from within Marble Mountain.  natural light in this beautiful, ancient space caused by 1968 bombing.  awestruck at combination of beauty and destruction.

125 thigh-master-ish steps and other climbing worth this view from atop Marble Mountain.

we found "lady Buddha" (as our helpful guides, who helpfully guided us to their shops afterwards, called her) is chilling in the trees, near a pagoda where monks still worship.  

Friday, Hoi An:  a sampling of silk at YALY Fashion Town, where some of us splurged on custom-made dresses and suits.

The girls model silk-wear...

...while the boys pretend to be car models?

A peek into real life in Veitnam. We take an hour-long boat ride down the Thu Bon River for less than $1 each---80,000 dong.  We sit on sea-foam painted chairs, watching fishermen balance in tiny boats and cast nets that spread over the water like jellyfish.

lantern stand in Hoi An's Old Quarter, where some of us got sweet market bargains.

view of a Hoi An street. Sesha says these lanterns, featuring different countries, are probably left from Miss Universe, which taped in Vietnam last spring.

Good morning Springfield, Goodnight Vietnam.