A few "planned" highlights

It's 7:46 in the morning, and I'm sitting at Starbucks working on a report for work. (Anne, If you're reading this, I'm not working on a report for work.) Due to the fact I needed a snack and a refill on my tea, I've taken a break and thought I'd put up a quick post. And in it, I thought I'd write about a few places I'm really looking forward to experiencing during our trip.

1. Halong Bay

Halong is in the north, and is a large bay of water with thousands of islands and caves to explore. You can rent a sea kayak for about $2 a day, and I've read it's a really good way to get up close and personal to the people and culture located here. Fishing is a way of life for the people that live here, and there are floating "cities" found throughout the bay. According to one article I was reading, some people are born in the floating houses and never touch foot on dry land their entire lives!

2. Imperial City in Hue

3. Tailor shops in Hoi An - I guess there are hundreds of tailors working throughout Hoi An, and you can get custom made clothing all day long for dirt cheap prices. Custom tailored suit for $100? Why yes, thank you. I wonder if I could be a tailored stocking cap?

4. Nha Trang Beach

I know, I know. I'm not really a beach kind of guy. But this really isn't your typical Florida / Caribbean looking beach. Plus, you can get a 5-6 hour spa treatment that includes mud baths, facials, massages, mineral water steam showers, and who knows what else for about $10. I think it may be worth a checking out.

4. CuChi Tunnels -

I don't know who this dude is, but WTH! You can go down into the tunnels like this, and get a small sense of who the VC lived during the war. I've read some of the soldiers would be underground for months, if not years. Plus, after the tour of the caves, you can shoot AK-47's and Colt 45's that were used during the war!

5. Mekong Delta

I'm hoping to catch a boat ride through some of the delta and chat with some of the locals around here. Actually, that's what I'm hoping to do throughout the hole trip. As cool as it will be to see the sights, I really want to get a sense of the people's beliefs and outlooks. How do they remember the war? What's the most important thing in their lives? How to they view Americans and the rest of the super modern world? These are the questions I think can't really be answered in books and are only discovered through travel.

6. War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City - People say due to it's location in the south, there is a big bias throughout the museum. Good! Why not hear the side we never learned about in school or growing up. While visiting a museum in Japan, I entered into a Hiroshima exhibit, and everything I read sounded nothing like the way it was described in my history books in school. Not even close. I'm not saying what I read what right or wrong, but it opened my eyes to how different the war was viewed by the Japanese and how the bombings effected the people there.

While this list only has six things, they are the six things I am most looking forward to. We are flying into Hanoi in the north and leaving out of Ho Chi Minh City in the south, so we will be traveling the length of the country while we are there. I'm sure we'll stumble upon things along the way that may prove to be much more interesting than the stuff listed above. And that's why I really glad we are just going to take it one day at a time, making no set plans before we go. I'd hate to miss something unbelievable because it wouldn't fit into a plan.