Sleepless in Saigon

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  Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Last night our perfect baby showed that she is human and kept me hopping from 11:30 pm to the crack of dawn. We are all falling asleep anywhere from 8 to 10 pm local time so I got a couple of hours of sleep before Anelise decided it was time to wake up and exercise her vocal chords. Lan was originally sleeping with her but she had done that the past two nights in a row so being the amazing guy I am I volunteered to let her sleep with Harrison and I would take care of Anelise. I expended my entire bag of tricks to get her to fall asleep and many of them worked if only for 45 minutes or so and then she would wake up again to begin her next act. But is is all worth it and with the time change and date line crossing, our sleep patterns are so wacked out that it was really no big deal.

Anelise is really showing her personality and she seems to have a lot of it. She recently started walking and loves to waddle around. She is laughing much more and smiling often, especially in the morning. She is a great traveler too. We spent a few hours shopping around and eating out yesterday and she went along for the ride with no problems at all. We took a taxi to get back to the hotel and the driver didn't know where our hotel was. At one point he hopped out to ask for directions. I dont know about you all but in my book, that is a bad sign. We ended just hopping out and cutting our losses with that guy. We knew we were within a block or so but spent the next 45 minutes walking around Saigon in the dark, with Anelise in a frontpack style carrier, sweating, avoiding motorbikes (seems like there is a million here) trying to find our place. Obviously we found it but not after some small amount of family stress (read into that what you want, you are probably right).

Today we went to a local market and bought fruit and some gift items. The butcher shop section of the market had folks butchering fish and meat right in front of you, most of the fish was still squirming around. Other sections had all sorts of animal innards available for your dining pleasure. It was quite a visual, aromatic and gutteral experience. Everywhere we have traveled with Anelise, Vietnamese people would come up and touch her and smile at her and ask us questions about her. It was a bit much at first but their curiosity was sincere and it became a way to talk with complete strangers. When we go to restaurants with her, servers will pick up from our table when the food is served and walk around with her so we can eat. That was definitely strange at first but Anelise has no problem with it and it gives us chance to eat quickly.
We plan on hitting the War Remnant Museum either later today or tomorrow. All is well otherwise. Thank you all for your well wishes.

Post your own travel photos for friends and family Pictures & Videos

Splasing in the tub	fresh from the grime of the city	Innards anyone?	Home from a shopping trip-shes a hat girl
Peel and eat chom chom - like logans but not	Small short video	Small short video number 2

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