Todd and Lisa's RTW trip

We love singapore…especially the airport!! First of all singapore airlines is so nice. We were disappointed that our flight was only 1 1/2 hours. Then when we arrived at the airport, there were free internet kiosks all over and…. the back street boys were giving a free concert in the terminal lounge. Now don’t get us wrong, we are not BSB fans, but a free concert is a free concert!! When we went through customs, they had a candy dish out. Candy at customs, this ain’t vietnam anymore!!! We arrived at 3 and didn’t leave the airport until 6. We were like tom hanks, Terminal man!! To top off how great the airport is, it is connected by the subway to the city so there was no hassle with taxi, bus etc….

We found the city equally as great, but without as much free stuff!! Everyone is so nice and helpful. The city itself is extremely clean (because they beat you if you litter) and beautiful. Todd kept making Lisa jay walk illegaly. He doesn’t believe how strick the laws are here! There are huge modern buildings, but in between them are small streets that are full of rows of old chinese and british buildings that are restored, upkept and spectacular. We really enjoyed our time here just walking around and chilling out. It felt so nice to be able to let our guard down because we know it is safe here. Yes it is expensive, but who cares!!! plus dropping 20$ at the bar put into perspective that our run in with the police was no big deal. That lady can take our 20$ and shove it!!!! (even though the principle of the whole thing still pisses us off!).

Singapore is full of malls and eateries. We didn’t do any shopping, but we did a lot of eating. We found a n.y. style deli and had reuben sandwiches. They were the most amazing sandwiches. Kinda like pizza hut in delhi. We also went to chinatown for dim sum and little india for indian food. It was fun in little india because we were reminising about being in india. Who needs to travel around the world… you can just come to singapore!!!

Just a little reflection on our time in Vietnam. We liked it, Lisa more then Todd, but it was really difficult. The people there seem to be very angry. Surprisingly, not the older generation, but the middle generation (around our age). We also heard TONS of stories from people being ripped off, robbed etc. We know it happens everywhere but we heard more stories in vietnam then other countries. Also the transportation system in shit there, especially in the south. Most tourist fly around, but when you are on a budget like ours, you are forced to make do otherwise. Sometimes to get to a town we would have to take multiple buses, even backtracking. It took forever to get nowhere!!! Finally, we spoke with some people(our age-ish) who can not get good jobs because there parents were part of the southern republic (not communist) party. Also many of our rickshaw drivers where doctors, educators or former go’vt officails who also can not get jobs. We can’t not understand why we (americans) have been forgiven, but they will not forgive there own people. The kids who are being punished really infuriated us. We could not imagine not being able to do something because of our parents opinion 35 years ago!! Y’all know we are not political, but it really bothered us.

We are in the airport now (our favorite place) using the free internet to write this entry. We leave for Bali in a few hours…..

We don’t know where to start with this post, from the beginning or the end. The end is much more exciting… but you’ll just have to read the post below…

Ok, so we spent our last day in Dalat riding bicycles around the central highlands. It was really spectacular!! Dalat is surrounded by fields of vegatable and rice farms, very bright green. It was also really hot… so it didn’t last more thn a few hours. That night we caught a night bus to HCMC (Saigon). Our bus arrived at 4 am. They let us off in this area that was happening!!! The bars were still open with people drinking and smoking. We were half a sleep and totally confused by the situation. We found a park and sat down. The funny thing was… the park was full of people excersising. Really, at 4:30 in the morning. We just sat on a bench, stoned from our ambian, and watched as all the little vietnamese people did all sorts of calistenics. Definatly one of those moments when we are like ‘ what is going on’. Eventually we moved from our bench and into a fancy hotel to sit in there lobby. We had nowhere to go because we had booked a plane ticket for 1 pm. As we sat in the lobby, we remembered that there was an earlier plane, but we couldn’t remember what time. We said F- it and hopped in a taxi to the airport. Luck was on our side because we arrived at the airport at 6:10 and we made the 6:40 plane!!!

[read on]

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