My Thoughts on Vietnam 2006

*This is a record of my trip to Vietnam two years ago. Because of internet problems I didn't blog much and I am trying to record all the little things I don't want to forget.

On December 24, 2006, my sister Terri and I left for Vietnam to bring Grace home. Five airports later we arrived in Saigon on December 26. We didn't know what to expect when we got off the plane. Would someone meet us at the gate? The answer was no. Unsure what to do we followed the herd of travelers and got in the long lines. We had our passports and visas ready for inspection.

Our visas were not stamped in our passports, they were pieces of paper that you just stuck in your passport. When I got the visas in the mail mine was fine but there was a letter stapled to Terri's. It said that when issuing it they made a mistake in her name. The letter showed the correction and was stamped all official like. Why they didn't just issue a new one I do not know. Paper shortage maybe. When we came to the front of our respective lines I zipped right through. Terri did not. They took her from one official to another. I began to get concerned, afraid that she was going to be thrown into a Vietnamese prison in a case of mistaken identity.

This room was packed with people and I strained to keep Terri in my sight. Another problem is that I am 5'2" but at least Terri is 5'10." Well they finally let her through and we got our luggage and headed outside. When you walk out the door there is this crowd of people who look like they are waiting for a celebrity. I might have felt special, but I was in such need of a bath special was out of the question. There were lots of signs bearing peoples names and we scanned them for mine. Wouldn't you know they had Terri's name on the sign. Probably thought it was the man's name.

We arrived at a hotel and were met by Quoc, my agency's in country facilitator. He informed us he had a room for us and that we had about 2 hours to shower/rest before we headed to the airport to catch a flight to Danang. After a much needed shower we went back down to the lobby to prepare to leave. That is where I met my good friend Kelly. She and I had been emailing forever and I absolutely couldn't wait to meet her and Justin. We also met the rest of our travel group.

Our accomodations in Danang were fantastic. We were right on China Beach and the resort was just beautiful. The rooms was lovely and there was a crib already in the room. A metal crib that had metal slats on the bottom. It was incredibly cold and uncomfortable looking. And the bottom was about an inch off of the ground. As short as I am I would fall in trying to lay her down in that crib.

I didn't really care about that because the next morning I would meet my daughter...