Vietnam Part One - Abby

At the end of SI, Nina and I split up for a bit.  Nina left Summer Institute a few days early to fly back to the US for her sister's wedding.  I spent a few extra days in Lincang, and then flew to Xi'an with a one day layover in Kunming.  Nina and I met up again in Ho Chi Minh City where we stayed with her friend Cam and her family.  The trip was amazing - we hung out with Cam and her parents, saw some great sites, ate some delicious food and recovered - me from Summer Institute and moving all my stuff to Xi'an, Nina from spending 72 hours traveling back and forth between Asia and the US in under a week.  Here are some pictures from the first half of our trip:

On Thursday and Friday we stayed in Ho Chi Minh City and visited a few museums and temples. 

The Reunification Palace

Line of motorbikes outside a Buddhist temple

At first I thought we kept passing motorbike dealerships, but then I realized they were just parking lots.

guy transporting live duck via motorbike

one of my new favorite fruits: custard apple!

Nina and fruit ninja

Many streets are very narrow with tall homes, so it's difficult to see the entire building from the ground.

Then on Saturday we went to Dai Nam Tourist Park, which we nicknamed Disney World.  It is an enormous tourist center that includes rides, huge temples, an artificial sea, and a safari.  It was completely surreal.  We didn't go to the safari or sea, but there were plenty of other things to do. 

There were lots of pretty gates and bridges.

We headed into this intimidating looking building, not sure what we would find inside.

Inside: amusement park ride from hell, literally.  We moved through scenes of people being tortured in the afterlife on a little raft while tormented souls jumped out at us. 

We went into another building that was supposed to have something to do with snow.  They made us put on coats despite the fact that it was about 95 degrees out. 

We went inside and it was a huge room full of artificial snow!  We sledded down a hill and then I made Nina and Cam pose with the creepy Santa. 

We also rented tandem bikes and rode around the amusement park.  It was enormous and really pretty.  Cam and her mom were excellent tandem bike riders.  Nina and I were a bit rustier and there were a few close calls with nearby motorbikes, but we managed.  I had had a bit of practice because my PM group rode tandem bikes around the city of Lincang one day (fun and terrifying - I haven't gotten the hang of Chinese traffic patterns yet).  They are so much more difficult to balance on than  you would expect!

All in all, a very weird and fun day.

Pretty temple- and notice the man-made cliffs behind it.

dramatic storm clouds