We arrived in Vietnam a few days ago, and our first days in Saigon have been great. I think I hit a wall in Cambodia – overwhelmed, exhausted, a little homesick – and while I really enjoyed hanging out in Phnom Penh with our American friend Sam, I don’t think I gave Cambodia the chance it deserved. With only a couple more weeks left in Southeast Asia, I’m trying to jump over that wall and take in as much as I can before this lifestyle comes to an end (at least for now).

On our first day in Saigon, Kelsey and I booked a full-day, 12-hour tour of the Mekong River, with candy/tea/fruit tastings and lunch included… for only $7. We took a bus to a boat to an island where they made coconut candy, and then we ate lunch at Unicorn Island (but we didn’t see any unicorns L). We hopped over to some other little islands and had a tea party with honey bee tea, and then we ended the day with some fresh fruit, Vietnamese singers serenading us, and a quick little ride in a tiny boat through some of the canals, similar to where they set up the morning floating markets.

Mekong River tour

While sipping tea and eating some dragon fruit and lychees, Kelsey and I started talking to an older couple from Western Australia. Every time we meet some Australians, we can’t help but strike up a conversation – since we were there for so long, saw so much, and can’t get enough of that Aussie accent. Mark and Karry were really cool people to talk to though. Now that their kids are grown up and they’ve retired, they’ve been traveling everywhere for months and months at a time. They made it sound like they pick out a country (or even a continent) every year, book a one-way ticket and go, making it back home just in time to spend a couple months with their kids for Christmas, before heading off to the next place. I loved hearing all their stories and they loved hearing ours. Before we parted ways, Karry gave us her and her husband’s email address – something involving their “bucket list.” I guess that’s all you need in life – someone to share your email account and help you check off everything you want to see and do in this life!

“If you ever decide to come to Perth, send me an email. Just let me know what year you’re coming and I’ll give you our kids’ Facebooks so you can chat before coming and staying at our house with them!” What funny, weird, wonderful people you meet sometimes!

We met even more today. My mom has a Vietnamese friend she’s been wanting me to get in touch with, since she is back in Saigon this week, and today she acted as our tour guide. Lien is the sweetest – 25 years old, very pregnant, and very excited to show us her city. We met her for lunch and she took us to her favorite little eatery where we tried Pho for the first time – a traditional Vietnamese soup with noodles and beef. She showed us the best types of beef to order, mixed up our spices and herbs and sauces for us, and showed us the right way to eat this delicious lunch. We wandered around the city, and ended the day in the market where Lien was on a mission to find us the best Vietnamese dessert – a glass filled with fruit and beans and coconut milk, and who knows what else. At the end of the day, we got giant hugs and agreed that we’d have to meet up back in America to have Pho with my mom.

Me, Lien, and Kelsey in Saigon City

Before Lien left, she told us about how a lot of young Vietnamese people hang out in the park, and they love talking to Westerners because they all want to practice English. On our walk back to our hostel, two boys in university stopped us and asked if they could chat with us, so they could practice. It was so funny chatting with them because they asked such rehearsed, textbook questions. “Where do you come from?” “What are your hobbies?” “What do you do to stay healthy?”

The boy I was talking to ended by asking me, “Do you have a dream?” Like a sleeping dream? “No, a dream for the future.” Talk about a hard question. I have no idea what I want to be doing in two months, let alone the far off Future. I didn’t want to leave him hanging, so I told him my dream was to have enough money to travel everywhere in the world. And hopefully move back to Australia. “Do you think this dream will come true?” I don’t know. “I think it will for you. If you try, it will happen!”