And I thought I was supposed to be backpacking!

Chào buổi sáng (Good morning),

I thought I was supposed to stay in hostels and "rough it" on this trip, but right now I am sitting on a chaise lounge at a 4 star hotel 


with an ocean view. I promised myself when I took this trip that I would take every opportunity (as long as it's safe) that presents itself.
So when Jen (the operations manager of Global Volunteer Network) invited me to travel back with her and 3 Vietnamese guys to map


the route for a charity bike ride they took last year, I jumped at the chance. One doesn't have many opportunities to see a country by
private car very often. When we arrived at our first destination, it turned out to be a 4 star resort that has only had a "soft" opening. 


Because they're trying to drum up business, they provide free rooms to tour guides. One of the guys is a tour guide who booked our
trip of the Mekong Delta and is Jen's Vietnamese "brother". So Jen and I have a beautiful "bungalow" with a view of the ocean, a


HUGE bathtub and a gorgeous pool. This is definitely the life.

In other news, I'm feeling very lucky because jet lag never really hit me. I think this is a good omen for my trip :-). It's quite warm here,


I think about 90 with high humidity right now, but many places have a/c and fans. I'm wearing a lot of sunscreen and a lot of bug spray!
One of the other volunteers who went on the Mekong Delta trip visited a city called Dalat in January and ended up getting Dengue


Fever from a mosquito. It was a fairly mild case but she was sick for several days. 

Let's see, the food is quite different than back home. If I see another MSG-flavored mushroom, I'm going to hurl. On my Mekong Delta

trip I was the only vegetarian and they made 10 or so dishes just for me each meal. SO MUCH FOOD! A lot more fried food than I 
anticipated so I'm trying to limit that. I think I'm really going to be craving some American (!) food pretty soon. There was a ham and

cheese sandwich on the menu last night and I was really thinking about getting one without the ham. I'm drinking a lot of bia (beer) and 
enjoyed several great cocktails. At one restaurant, margaritas were $2.50 each and buy two get one free. We all had a lot of fun that night.


Today at 9:00 we are headed to Nha Trang to check out another resort for the bike ride. While there, we will be enjoying "massage beauties",
the English translation for massage (but definitely not that kind of massage). I'll upload photos soon. Hope everyone is doing well.


Mot, Hai, Ba, Yo! (1, 2, 3, cheers!)
Erika