Hello Friends and Family

In a word... WOW! Vietnam is definitely a feast for all 5 senses! We are starting our third day here (I've lost all track of time and days). It's 10:45 in the morning (about 7:50 pm US time) and I am in my hotel room working on my PowerPoint presentation for Tuesday. Randy and Jimmy are working on theirs for tomorrow at the dental school.

My hotel room in Bien Hoa (~40 minutes outside Saigon) is nice. It is clean and has a TV and internet access. Rooms are sparsely furnished but I have all the basic necessities. The mattress on the bed is foam and is pretty hard and there are no boxsprings. I have a view directly down onto the car port and lobby and it can be a bit noisy. November and December are popular wedding months in Vietnam and in 2 days we have seen 3 wedding receptions going at our hotel. Besides the restaurant area, the reception spills out over into the car port. All have been decorated with lots of pink bows and balloons. There are also live bands of various vocal talents, which is quite entertaining. Yesterday, after a trip to the market, we all came back to my room and sampled local fruit including: passion fruit which I loved, baked plantains, dragon fruit, cherimoya, some type of "milky fruit" (no one could remember the name), and durian. Those of you who may not be familiar with durian, it is a foul smelling fruit (think garbage) and I'm told it tastes like blue-cheese?? Are you kidding me, of course I DID NOT try it; especially after Randy threw up after trying it first. Poor Randy, we laughed so hard, not nice but so funny.

Yesterday I also sampled coconut milk. Cococnuts are peeled with a knife and the top is cut off. A straw is put inside and you dring the milk straight from it. You can find these in all of the street markets and some restaurants. The milk is more watery in consistency than I thought it would be and it is just slightly sweet. I really liked it. The food has been interesting- I have no idea what most of it is. Jimmy, Mike and My are much more adventurous than Randy and me. Most everthing looks really appetizing, but we know we shouldn't eat it for fear of...well, you know. I am eating a lot of rice and basically anything fried or cooked really well. We are all drinking bottled water and Mike, Randy and I are drinking beer and Coke. Unfortunately we can't have ice in our drinks and refrigeration here is not quite as good as home. So far, none of us has been sick though. Thank you Pepto-Bismol!!

In a few minutes we will be taking a taxi to My's brothers home. He has a projector and we will rehearse our PowerPoint presentations with our interpreter, My. Her sister-in-law will be preparing lunch for us (beef curry with baguettes). She is an amazing cook; the food at their house is much better than anything else I've eaten so far. She had such a feast prepared for us when we arrived. We are very spoiled.

As I write this to you I am sitting at the desk in my room listening to Christmas music from the hotel. American Christmas songs played by a saxaphone (Jingle Bells, Let It Snow, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Silent Night,etc) are playing. They must have all of them on one track because I have heard each of them at least 3 times :). I don't think the Christian religion is very prominent here but every city is decorated for Christmas anyway (lights, trees, Santa Clauses, etc). It is very funny to see a statue of Mary next to Buddha everywhere.

The weather is perfect! 85 degress and sunny. There is a fair amount of humidity in the air but I'm glad to be wearing shorts and tank tops everyday.

As "interesting" as it sounds so far, I am having an amazing time. I cannot believe that we are here and I'm taking it all in with sincere awe and appreciation.

I will write more later. Take care everyone.