yes yes the motorcycles, i get it!

hahahaha. why is everyone warning me about the motorcycles?! First Wikitravel, then Jorrit, then Rini. Seriously they're not THAT bad! in fact, i don't even pay much attention to them.. just walk in my own world and they know just how to avoid me! amazing, isn't it?? okay it's too early to tell.. i've been here in HCM for only a few hours, so I'd better shut up for fear of being proved wrong later on.

I'm currently bumming around, waiting for the guesthouse to prepare my room. I took a bus from the airport to get here. it probably took a lot longer than a taxi (seriously, it was the slowest bus ever) but it cost me only 3000 dong (1 USD = 17,000 dong!). There wasn't any tourist in the bus though.. it made me feel slightly smarter (than i already am hehehehe).

 I then dumped my bag in the hostel reception and walked around the area for a bit.. came across this internet cafe and.. well, the force was simply too strong for me to resist! i think the internet lady mistook me as a Vietnamese because she gave me a "Vietnamese" computer (i.e. instructions in Vietnamese!). oh well. i'm 6.24578% Vietnamese.. maybe that explains why i've managed to manouvre my way around this Vietnamese computer and even type a blog on TB! :P I must say though, HCM's not very pretty. hahaha. but who cares, right? i can't wait to get to Dalat, Nha Trang (where i'd happily brag to Jorrit and make him suufffffer from jealousy) and Hoi An.

So yay i'm finally in Vietnam! Exploring Vietnam was one of my new year resolutions for 2008.

. took me a whole year to accomplish this one, ay? oh oh oh did i mention, i had free food on the budget airline i took earlier because the flight attendants, they all loved me!

ok fine, my sister's boyfriend was one of them. hehehehe. ok so where was i? damn this monkey mind! 

So while the force of the internet is overwhelmingly powerful, it can never beat the force of hunger. i'm off now to grab a bite before returning to the hostel to.. hmm.. maybe catch a nap since i didn't have enough sleep and the lady beside me in the plane was weird (well, nothing to do with my lack of sleep, really. i just wanted to mention her). meeting up some TBs for dinner tonight, that should be good fun! :) 

Chao!!! *okay i need to find out if this means hello/thankyou/goodbye or all of the above*

oh, and Merry Christmas!!!

So where did I stop the last time?? Oh, the motorcycles. Yes, I was in the internet cafe. and believe me from then on I tried my best not to use the internet during my vacation and I think I did pretty okay. Okay, let's not digress. After checking in at Luan Vu Guesthouse, I took the opportunity to shower and sleep! yes.. even though I was starving, sleep was what I really needed. Got to nap for about an hour or so, after which I washed up again and hunted for food. Found this cafe somewhere in the middle of Bui Vien Street. It's called Stella. To be honest, all the cafes looked similar and so did the menus. What made me go to this cafe though, was two other persons eating on their own. hahahaha. well I was alone, so I figured I'd fit right in. After all, the last thing I needed was having a group of people making noises over a meal and distrupting my thought processes as I contemplated on life and its meaning... (yeah, right :P). The other reason I chose the cafe was a huge painting on one of the walls which caught my eye. So I sat, ate, read, people watched.. it was one fine afternoon :) 

I don't quite remember what happened between my lunch/coffee/beer session in Stella and dinner but i must have either walked around or gone back to the guesthouse to take another nap/shower.. oh wait.. I did both! Went to the Sinh Cafe office nearby and got myself booked for a day trip to the Cu Chi Tunnels (which I initially thought is pronounced as Choo-chee but later on found out it meant something bad in the American Slang).

And then it's dinner time. Boy, don't I love meals. I found the restaurant Rini (TB rintjez) and Chau (TB moshixkon) booked, located at Pham Ngu Lao. The first person i recognize as I entered the restaurant was Anshu (TB Anshuman1) and he was with some guy I couldn't recognized. Anshu introduced me to his friend who had just moved to Vietnam not long ago and his name was Kshitij. So it was just the two of them and no one else. Now, I was already 10 minutes late so where was everyone! Anshu said he had no clue where everyone was.. but thankfully, I'm a little smarter in this area (sorry dude!).. I went up to the 2nd floor and found Rini and a few others chatting away. :P The meetup's on after all! ahhaha. The 3 of us moved up and joined the rest and before we know it, more people joined the group. . they were mostly Vietnamese (Chau's friends), which was really awesome because what's travelling without getting to know the locals? :)

So there we were, about 8-10 of us, having awesome conversations over dinner and beer (i have to add this because beer is SO CHEAP in Vietnam!) and after a good laugh with the peeps and a lot of (friendly) bantering between Anshu and Niki (TB borneonikieta) about "killing animals vs being vegetarian", we decided to do some post-dinner activities and head to a club. I, for one, had no clue where to go so I'm pretty much game with any place as long as they let me in with slippers :P

The locals, together with Anshu and Kshitij (who have had their fair share of partying with locals in Saigon in the preceding nights) decided on Bounce. . the club itself was alright but the way to get there is awesome! hahahahha. We had to go to some underground carpark and find a special lift that would take us to the club, the whole experience felt sooo.... underground and dangerous. whahahhaah ok I might have dramatized a tad too much, but yeah I wasn't lying when I said we had to use that underground lift! At Bounce, we saw some locals and foreigners, they were playing RnB in the House and so we partied. Anshu the genius decided that since alcohol was so cheap, he should get us all a bottle of Moet.. which he did. I wasn't too pleased (but in a not serious way, of course) because I didn't like mixing my alcohols, especially not champagne.... but nyahaha, i drank it all anyways. I don't remember much of what happened except for a cab ride back to Bui Vien and the next thing I know, I was having breakfast at 3am with Anshu and Kshitij at Go2 Bar. I remember eating mushroom omelette and I swear to god, it was the best mushroom omelette I've ever tasted! So there, my first day in Vietnam.. it started with local buses and motorcycles, and ended with godawesome omelettes.. oh, and the thought of having to wake up 4 hours later to catch the bus to Cu Chi Tunnel. ;)