Good Morning Vietnam! (and Cambodia)

I am starting to get lazy about posting because I only have two days between going from country to country. And about 5% of the boat contracted some sort of infectious diareah from Cambodia so I have been in bed sweating it out and running to and from the bathroom and desperatly trying to cure myself before we get to Thailand tomorrow. Ahhh! So this post will be mostly pictures, but I am sure you will all get the jist of it! Thanks again for all the letters and cards and comments they all make me feel so much closer to home!

So heres what you have all been waiting for.....



Our greeting while geting off the ship



The streets of Vietnam





this just gives you an idea of the motorbike traffic there is! And I rode on one!!!



Woman selling fruit in the Market



Chicken feet!

Next we went to a school for the deaf which was really neat for me because I speak sign language, they had prepared an amazing dance for us (extremely difficult I am sure because they cant hear the music.....









Then the little boys did this adorable hip hop dance which was hillarious!





They even included break dancing!



Then we got to hang out with the kids which was so much fun. They loved taking pictures with our digital cameras and seeing pictures of themselves.





An aspiring artist



My favorite little boy, he was a riot.









Then from going from our extremely happy go lucky visit to the school for the deaf, we went to an orphanage for disabled children. It was one of the saddest things I have ever seen in my entire life. Most of them could not comunicate with you or even make facial expressions, most could just lay there and struggle to breath, even little babies and older children were tied to their beds so they couldnt hurt themselves. I am glad I saw it, because it brings a new meaning to living life to the fullest for those who cant or who never got the chance. I didnt want to take many pictures, because it just didnt seem right, but I took two.....



A child with his arms and legs tied to his bed



A girl from my group holding the hand of one of the children....look at how skinny his legs are, its unbelievable. Some of the children when we picked them up to hold them had their faces formed like the pillows they werre on because they had been laing there for so long. It was horrible. Anyways those were the only pictures I felt comfortable taking.

Then after that me, Malia, Lauren and Emily went out to dinner where we were laughed at the whole time! I am pretty such we did/ate everything wrong, every once and a while they would come over and tell us we were doing something wrong....their tips were very helpful and it was a good first meal in vietnam.



Emily and Lauren with our waiter



Emily practicing her chopsticks skills, we are all getting really good!

Then the next day all of my close friends had semester at sea trips so I decided to go out in Vietnam by myself, I had a good time shopping, eating ice cream, and riding on a motorbike in the pouring rain! You can see in these photos how soaked the bottom of my skirt is, thats because thats where my rain poncho ended! My motorbike driver took me to a random Pagoda....



Then the next day I was off to Cambodia.....we flew to Phnom Phen and I got to feed monkeys that were running wild around our hotel, WAY too much fun! I could have stayed there for hours!












Attack Monkey!

Then we went on a little boat ride down the Mekong (it started raining of course) the weather in vietnam and camboaid is so funny because its 100 degrees and muggy all day until it pours rain at around 3 pm everyday....I guess thats typhoon season for you haha



Our boat



the view from the boat





Me on the boat!

The next day we went to a prison where they kept prisoners from the Cambodian genocide. It was very sad and I also did not take many pictures....but here are the ones that I did take.....





I dont know if you guys will be able to read this or not but it is an english translation of the rules for the prison, they would take people to torture them, if they got the information they wanted out of them they would be taken to the killing feilds, and if they didnt they would die of starvation or the torturing. They were mostlykilling intellectuals and their families, including children and women.



No smiling



The killing feilds where they would take mass amounts of people and blow them up together.



This is a shrine at the killing fields that is filled to the top with the skulls found in the feilds.



skulls in the shrine



Some children that we met at the killing feilds

Next we drove to the Empirial Palace...and along the way I shot some pics of the scenery....





now thats a skinny cow! (get it, like the ice cream brand haha)



The Empirial Palace














A band playing at the Empirial Palace

The entire next day we spent at Ankor Wat and Ankor Thom it was hard for me to decided which pics to post but here they are:



Ankor Wat



















notice me all the way up there, i had to climb in a skirt it was very difficult!



Ankor Thom.....













My friend alex being a tree hugger (she is from Colorado)







My new friend Alex playing her wooden instrament that she bought for a 25 cents that made a briiiiing sound when you flick it and its in your mouth



Me and the Leper King

Overall I absolutely loved Vietnam and Cambodia and I would love to go back someday! Maybe when its not Typhoon season! lol. It had such an amazing vibe and I felt like there was too much to see and way too little time! Thanks for reading! Leave some comments.....I miss you all!