Long Xuyen

We headed to Long Xuyen today. My cousin's wedding is in a couple of days so we have to be there by Sunday.

My dad sends a driver for us at 8am, so we don't have to rent a car or take a bus there. It's only ~170KM away, but with the slow speed limits and crappy roads, the usual travel time is 4 hours. The 6 of us pile into the Isuzu SUV and head off, with luggage being crammed into any space that is not being occupied by a human body. The trip is not the most comfortable of trips.

We arrive around noon after taking a ferry across one of the Mekong's estuaries. It's still early, so we grab a lunch and head off to Nui Sam (Sam Mountain). It's a rather tall mountain but we decide to work our way up the rocky stairs. About 1/3 of the way up, Ho's stomach starts to act up gain and he and Amanda have to sit it out. That leaves me, Anny, Joe, and Tit to work ourselves the rest of the way up. We take a water break and sit on some hammocks and enjoy the mountain breeze and a gorgeous view. We finally make it up to the top and are breathing heavy and sweating pretty hard. We thought we were bad off, until we saw a guy that was wet from head to toe and looked like he was having a heart attack. We took some pictures to prove we made it up and decided to hire some moped guys to take us down the mountain for 10K dongs (67¢) each. It was worth every penny.

We get back and have some dinner in front of my parents house. They bring over beef hotpot and we enjoy it by the canal with a few friends. Our friends being a swarm of mosquitoes. We all run back in pretty quickly to get our mosquito repellent. It seems to work pretty well and we finish dinner with them over our heads.

There are 2 rooms with AC. Sleeping anywhere else would require the person to use the fans and open the windows. No way in hell anyone is doing that with all the mosquitoes at dinner. We trade rooms with my parents, who have the bigger master bed room and all pile in there, 3 in the bed and 3 on the floor. Getting ready in the morning should be easier with 4 available bathrooms.