Beautiful Sights from Vietnam

Chris here -

Vietnam - what a beautiful country! We have had the privilege over the last week of seeing some beautiful sights in Vietnam. This is a country that an adventurous person could learn to love very quickly. The countryside ranges from beautiful beaches to mountainous jungle and everything in between. Everything is extremely lush and the sights and smells can at times be overwhelming to the senses. It is too bad Hemingway never captured this country in one of his novels.

The markets and shops are still primarily small establishments run by individual families and are a pleasure to peruse. The food markets are amazing with every kind of fruit, vegetable, and meat imaginable and noodle shops range from exquisite sit-down establishments to temporary sidewalk gathering spots. The sidewalk shops have simple stools laid out surrounding a lady preparing and selling noodles and roast meat from simple charcoal fired stoves. You get the sense these are the local's favorites and the ladies have been operating in their same section of sidewalk for quite some time.

The people have an easy grace to them brought on by living in such a hot and humid climate. It is not uncommon to see stall vendors and store owners laid out relaxing without shoes while waiting for their customers to come by. It is a lifestyle of primarily waiting and replaying similar occurrences day to day. Scooters are the primary mode of transportation and if good forbid suv's show up here the city would be nothing but one big traffic jam. There are few traffic lights and everywhere else on the roads it is just "go with the flow". It involves lots of honking and death defying maneuvers but seems to be very efficient for the adolescents and middle age men who seem to be the only ones brave enough to give it a try.

Well enough talking, a picture is worth a thousand words, here are some of the beautiful sights from the last couple of days. (Will add pictures later because our connection is bad.)