I am writing from a sleeper bus on the way to Nha Trang, a beach town eight hours north of Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City). It is, by far, the most comfortable bus I have ever ridden, despite the eighties quality Vietnamese music playing full blast. Sara is lying in her separate bed next to me, legs splayed lazily in front of her, looking out the window at the rice fields and roadside vendors that pass by. Our shoes were collected before we got on. We are eating the bananas we bought in our alley this morning.

Arriving in Vietnam from Barcelona was an adventure. I sat next to a drunk man from Kuwait on the flight from Qatar to Bangkok – I had a couple of layovers – whose only English (or Dutch?) seemed to be “Heineken.” When our plane stopped in Bangkok, the people continuing onto Saigon stayed on. Some Vietnamese men saw that I was staying and laughed at me, marveling, “You? Saigon?” I laughed, replying, “I’ll fit right in, no?”

Saigon is a beautiful mess. It is a labyrinth of colorful alleyways, covered markets, and motorcycles. Crossing the street is an endeavor about which I will not write in immense detail, if only for my mother’s sake. Let’s just say that Sara and I cheered and high-fived more than once after touching our feet to the relative safety of a sidewalk.

The Vietnamese people are incredibly gracious and welcoming. The slight young man in charge of tickets on our bus just came and looked at what I was doing. He asked me my name, and told me that his is Lee. Lee says hi.

The hostel owners with whom we stayed, the Anhs, were infinitely helpful and kind; they told Sara and me that we could come back anytime and “stay one month free.” We hugged goodbye and felt genuinely sad to leave our first Vietnamese family.

The prices here are unfathomable. In the three days that we have been here, we have spent around eighty dollars each (or 1,600,000 Vietnamese dong), which include: the nights at our hostel, all of our food (I’ll get to that later), our bus tickets, admission to the Cu Chi tunnels, and an hour-long foot massage ($3.50). We are already becoming stingy; if a beer is more than fifty cents, there’s a problem. Sara and I have been saying, in a somewhat uncouth manner, that you get a lot of bang for your dong here.

There have been a couple of moments during which I have wondered how I will ever go back to the United States, and during each moment I was eating. The food here is the epitome of flavorful.

Hints of pho linger on my clothes. Smells waft from sidewalk hot pot (soup), chicken, beef, beer, and noodle vendors. The tiny alleyway in which our hostel was located was filled with older women with low plastic tables and chairs, cooking pho and spring rolls. Our first day, we went to the Kitchen Lady, a staple on Anthony Bourdain’s “No Reservations” show in Vietnam. The first thing Sara did upon receiving our pho was ask for the spiciest sauce available.  Some things never change.

I’ve been enjoying more experiences with taxi drivers; I find myself wanting to write about them especially because of my Mom’s book idea. My taxi driver in Saigon was Minh, who drove me to the airport in the middle of the night to pick up Sara. Her flight arrived at 2 AM; it was absolutely incredible to see this tiny, smiling blonde charge into the humid Vietnamese heat with a thirty pound backpack that was trying, in vain, to weigh her down. Minh taught me Vietnamese the entire way to the airport while I furiously took notes in the backseat. His English was incredibly limited, but we communicated beautifully. I can now say hello, how are you, fine, thank you, I love you, right, left, straight, go back, and smoothie. Everything else can just be communicated through smiles, I guess.

We are now heading to Jungle Beach for three days, where we are staying in a bamboo cabana on the beach. I am hoping to get some scuba diving in! From there, we are staying at a farmstay at Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park for another few days, after which we will travel to Hanoi and spend a night on a boat in Halong Bay. We initially planned to take trains everywhere; unfortunately, when we went to buy train tickets, we were told that every single train heading north from now until February 10th is completely booked due to Tet, or Vietnamese New Year. We figured it out, booking a series of buses and trains, and we are excited to be here for the largest festival of the year in Vietnam!

By the way, rubber trees are called “condom trees” here. Awesome.