Got White Teeth?

During the whole trip my dad insisted that he wanted to get his teeth whitened while we were here because it was so much cheaper than getting it done in the states. My dad found a dentist in Saigon but the dentist was running late and they weren't sure if they could fit us in.

While waiting for my dad to figure that out i was stopped by another shoe fixer. This guy wasn't nearly as nice as the first guy that glued my shoes. He wanted 20,000 dong for gluing them ($1) but my dad said 10,000 dong. So he agreed and while he was gluing them he said he could clean them too!
Of course once he was done cleaning one shoe he wanted 30,000 dong. But my dad insisted on 20,000 dong. As a result he didn't clean the second shoe nearly as well as the first one. Oh well, they'll just get dirty again. Plus i need some new sneakers anyway.
i'm probably going to regret posting these pictures but why even bother taking them if i'm not going to share them with you? i'm certain you're all very curious on what goes down while getting your teeth whitened.

i believe the process uses some kind of acid. To protect your gums from deteriorating they put this gel over your gums where they meet your teeth to protect them. Once that dries with the help of some crazy blue light, they add a bunch of crazy chemicals to whiten the teeth.
After the procedure my teeth looked fantastic. i felt like i was ryan seacrest. Because...you know, his teeth are really white. Too bad they got dark and gross again the next day...
Here is the tray with all the goodies they used on my teeth. Ugh, what a long process. Took like an hour. Can you imagine being awake with your mouth open for an hour?! A bug couldn't have flown in my mouth!
That pretty much wraps up my Vietnam trip. Had a really good time in spite of spending practically every second with my parents. Now the next adventure is to get a job...or is it another motorcycle trip?

Tourin' Around Saigon

Once we arrived back in Saigon we decided to take a tour of the presidential palace. This place is huge. Pretty much the Vietnam equivalent to the white house...except it got over thrown and turned into a museum.

This place even has an old school theater! The projector is massive. i wonder if it still works. This thing sure isn't no DLP projector.

Out back on the roof there is a helicopter. They wouldn't let me get near it.

In this picture i'm sitting in the War Room. There were signs that said don't touch anything but i did anyway.

Can't visit the president's crib with out climbing the walls in the underground bomb proof shelter.

Oh dear, can't get my mom out of the kitchen no matter where we go! Even though this kitchen is ancient my mom loved it. She was telling my dad and i how easy it would be to too cook for people in this thing. She could dish out food like no bodies business if she had a kitchen this size.

Here is the front of the palace.

The picture i took of my parents turned out better than the one of my mom and i. Probably because i took this one.
Here we have some tanks! Probably not the same tanks that knocked down the gates on April 30th 1975 (my birthday!).

For dinner we ate at random food court while wondering the streets. i ordered some goi coun for myself and pho!

The pho tai was really good and so was the iced coffee.

This night was insane. The whole city was lit up for Christmas, New Years, and Tet. The streets were filled with crazy Vietnamese people that wanted to get their picture taken with the decorations. So silly if you ask me. There were a bunch of vendors too selling light things. Like hair bands with devil horns on them that lit up...what does that have to do with Christmas? Wait a minute...i think i just figured it out! Horns, like an ox! Its the year of the Ox! Is that a stretch? That's the best i can do i'm stickin' with it.

To get a better idea of how crowded it was we went up onto the roof of the Rex Hotel. While on the roof we watched the chaos and had a few drinks.
Not only was all this crazy celebration going on but Vietnam was currently in a soccer match for the Tiger Cup or something. Once Vietnam won the game that's when the city really went crazy. Hundreds of people were parading around on scooters all over the city.
Inside the Rex we found some musicians playing some old school Vietnamese instruments. The instrument on the right is pretty cool. Its only one string but can produce all kind of crazy sounds while changing the tension of the string.

Had a pretty good day for our last full day in Vietnam...but i'm ready to go back to the states.

Last Night in Chau Doc

Today we went on one last bike ride to the Cham village. Tin tagged along and helped us grab ferry tickets so we could get across the river.

Its pretty crowded on one of these ferries. i think it costs like 6,000 dong to ride one of these.

After buying what we wanted this Cham village guy introduced us into some english speaking people that were visiting friends and family. i think the one guy was from Seattle and other guy from somewhere in Texas or Cali. We were also invited to a wedding but couldn't make it since it was our last night and wanted to spend it with the cousins. i think what my dad is sitting on is the groom's thrown? i have no idea. Everything in this village is just so different.
Woot! Another puppy! This is Elvis, anna's love and joy. She would get so fussy if anyone tried to take him from her. i seriously thought she was going to kill him because she was so rough. But he lived anna's visit! Hip hip!
i think jimmy liked me more, but elvis seemed to warm up to me after spending some time with him. Ugh, someone buy me a puppy already.
My dad wanted to check out a rice mill so he had Tin run around to find one. Once he did he came back to bring us to it. The crazy old rice man showed us how everything worked and how the rice got polished and all that fun stuff.
All this machinery was run off one moving part and there were belts wheels going all over the place to run different tasks.

Wei and Lam!

For dinner we had fish again! i wouldn't say this was my favorite meal of the trip but my mom seemed to like it so much i requested. These fish are so meaty.

i'm sure you're thinking that these things are pretty ugly looking...but the only way to serve fish is to have the head still on it. That's the only way you know its fresh!
The whole trip was determined to find some bia hoi, fresh beer. This beer is freshly brewed and delivered all over the town. While Saigon has several breweries that produce fresh beer, Chau Doc only has on distributor so you have to go there to be certain your beer is really 'fresh'. There are no preservatives in the beer too so this stuff has to be consumed quickly.

Our guide to this place was Lam's dad, Liem? i have no idea how to spell his name but he sure knows how to drink. He's an electrician. He learned how to fix things from a guy that was renting the bottom floor of his mother's house for an electrical shop. Pretty sweet deal if you ask me.
Each of these jugs hold two liters. We drank two of them. The beer wasn't amazing but definitely drinkable. You can tell they use rice in the brewing process. Guess how much one of these cost? 14,000 dong. That's 5.6 beers for like 80 cents! Or a 30 pack of beer for 8 bones! Ugh, why did i wait so long to drink this stuff?! i could have been crunked this whole trip for cheap! Oh well...i'll know better for my next visit.

Well at least i got to try some bia hoi and drink enough to get buzzed. It was so cold too...hmm.

Caught Me A Water Buffalo!

Since the day before i failed miserably finding a nice water buffalo we went out again to find some more where silly Vietnamese communists can't get all up in our faces.

Wasn't long until we found some more water buffalo! These were some real water buffalo with long horns and the whole shabang.
The first herd we saw were kind of hard to get to so after taking some video and pictures we went up the road further to another herd that were grazing.
Can't say you've been to Vietnam without riding a water buffalo! So i asked the guy if i could hop on one of these bad boys. Sadly, the water buffalo doesn't like lazysons so he was trying to get rid of me. The owner thought maybe if i got on the water buffalo by myself he wouldn't mind...but no. It was even worse. It didn't help that we were on a hill either so i fell after riding it for like 30 seconds. i'm no cowboy that's for sure...more like a rodeo clown, lemon.
There is like nothing to hold on to on these things. i tried grabbing the horns but he didn't like that and i almost got impaled. When i fell off the thing i fell into a nice thorn bushel and cut up my feet and legs. But no regrets, next time i'm wearing pants and getting one of these things in an open field. Also i might feed it some carrots or something before hand to befriend it.

Later in the day we grabbed some drinks at our dessert place.

Lam is so funny, spoiled, but funny.

The church by the house was had some kids practicing some choreography for the christmas service going down in a couple of days. The choreographer was totally gay. Like...i've never seen someone dance and prance so gracefully with a look on their face of thinking what they were doing was the most awesome ever.

Nativity scene or something going on here.

Tomorrow we'll be hitting up the Cham village again. Get me some gangsta clothing and my mom some curry spices.

Searchin' for Water Buffalo

We didn't have any plans while back in Chau Doc. Spent most of our time packing and hanging out. Tin and Thao tore down the shack back behind their house and built a fence to protect their property. It smells pretty sick nasty back there because there are still pools over water from people houses just collecting and growing all kind of weird stuff. But at least it looks better than when that shack was still around.

Woot its finished!

Around noon, my dad, Tin, and i hopped on our bikes to search for some water buffalo. i still didn't get my fix yet. Tin took us to the border where we ran into some. They were pretty lame though. They were all young and their horns were super short. After taking a few pictures, the border police told us to leave be
Look who i found! Its jimmy! Snap! He got fat over 4 days...what have they been feeding him? Wasn't chicken soup thats for sure.
Here is baby's lover. Not sure what her name is but here is jimmy getting a little somethin' somethin' to eat. Baby is pretty cruel to his g/f. He doesn't give her the time of day. Sure he's blind...but that didn't stop him from...
Here is my massage girl. She's pretty hilarious. Whenever i come in this salon place they change the music to something in english and it is ridiculous. Like stuff from the early 90's. This day i got a pedicure and manicure for the first time...never again. The chick cut up all my nails and they were bleeding like crazy. Then this massage girl was afraid they'd get infected so she poured alcohol all over them, that was fun...not.
According to cheri, all the vietnamese girls in this place think i'm very handsome and want to kidnap me. i'm sure cheri was just pulling my leg. They're probably wondering why i'm so short and fat because the american's they see portrayed in the media are all ridiculously good looking and fit.