Well, xin chao everyone! I am going to try to update you one more time since my last attempt was a failure. Most details will be left out due to the amount of time that has passed. Anyway, we are in Saigon, Vietnam now. It has been quite a journey to get here from Luang Prabang. We had another great day in Luang Prabang before heading to the capital of Laos, Vientiane. The two days in Vientiane were fun. We spent one day relaxing and had a long night out on the town to watch the US Open and the World Cup. The second day, I spent most of my time biking around the city with Katelyn and Almira. We actually attempted to bike out 25kms to the Budda Gardens in about 90 degree weather. It became just an attempt because we stopped about 15 km out at the Beer Lao factory instead. We had a quick tour a some much needed acoholic refreshments. Then back on our bike to make an even longer journey back to town. Katelyn and I kept having troubles with our bike chains coming off. By the end of the trip we were covered in bike grease, laughing the entire way, and I had to jump on a tuk tuk with my broken bike to finish the last 2 km. Our trip to Vietnam was a couple of long bus rides and an overnight stay in a small Laos village called Hin Boun. We actually spent the evening in a real local home (hut). It gave us an opportunity to really interact with the locals. As we walked into the village all the little kids came out to follow us around. Later we took a twilight cruise on the river in boats made out of old bomb shells. The family made us a fantastic Laos feast for dinner and then we headed to bed early. We arrived in Ninh Binh, Vietnam the following evening. Not the best of cities. I was a bit worried about how the rest of the country was going to turn out after seeing this ugly city, but I was pleasantly surprised. Fortunately, we only spent one evening in Ninh Binh and then headed out to the coast early the next morning. That day was spent out on Halong Bay on an overnight cruise. It was wonderful! We had some great seafood meals, saw the beautiful islands in the bay, visited a enormous cave, and got to go swimming. The guys talked me into jumping off the third deck of our boat when we docked to swim. I of course was scared to death and screamed the entire way down. The rest of the evening was a nice relaxing night that concluded with some great group conversations on the sun deck, while looking at the stars. Our next stop was Hanoi. This is the place where I experienced my first frightning motor bike ride. The city is filled with motorbikes and you actually fear for your life when crossing the street. Wew! Hanoi turned out to be another fantastic place to visit. The gardens and lakes made the city feel so welcoming. We took part in quite a few activities while staying there. We had a cyclo ride, saw a cultural water puppet show, walked around the lakes, visited Uncle Ho and his palace, and did much more. I really wanted to stay longer but we had to move on. After a long overnight train ride we arrived in Hue, Vientnam. This was a great town to see some of the ancient history of Vientnam. We visited the citadel outside of town where the kings ruled from during their monarchy. The forbidden city was also beautiful, but it was largely destroyed by bombs from the American war. My favorite adventure so far was our motorbike tour the next day. We visited so many cultural sites outside of Hue. We took a boat ride to see a beautiful pagoda. We visited some royal tombs, temples, a rather large budda stature, saw how incense is made, had our palms read out in the countryside, visited DMZ river, and had lunch with the nuns at a montasory (spelling?). Dodgie 2, you would have loved this completely vegetarian feast. It was so good. By the end, we were exhausted and covered in red dirt from the ride. We traveled to Hoi An, Vietnam next. What a beautiful place it was! There was a large amount of french influence in the architecture, so the buildings were beautiful and real colorful. The city had a bunch of cute restaurants along the riverfront and was only 3kms to the beach. Hue is the city of shopping. Alexis and Melissa, you would have died when you saw the shoes that you could have custom made. We spent three days there basically relaxing on the beach and shopping. The city is full of stores that make all of your clothing requests in a matter of hours. After another fantastic meal for lunch, we all ventured around town ordering different clothes. Each store competes for your business by meeting you in the street and doing everything in their power to drag you into their shop. Zoe and I ended up meeting a lady named Nga who treated us very well. I ordered a bunch of clothes but really restrained myself from going overboard. My favorite purchases were a nice summer business suit and this cute summer dress. By the time we left two days later, she had everything finished and I shipped it all home. Glad to lighten my load a bit. The other days, I just relaxed on the beach enjoying my nice comfortable spot on a chair under a tiki umbrella. The first day I had three ladies working on giving me a full body massage, pedicure, and manicure while I enjoyed a cold beer. It was amazing! The second day, I had my legs pampered with a massage and good foot rub. The only down side to the beach was that every few minutes (sometimes less) you were being hounded by people selling crap on the beach. Man, did they work hard to make it impossible to say no. Some of them were really annoying, while others were quite friendly and we had some fun conversations with them. The boys even kicked around a ball with some of the kids that were selling pineapple. I had another scary ride on a motorbike one night when the guys took all of us down to the beach on their rentals. Ben was laughing at me the entire way as I screamed when we had a few close calls. It is unreal, what people manage to do on these bikes. First of all they carry everything from bags of clothes, to huge sheets of glass, to a family of five on the motorbikes. Second of all, there doesn't seem to be any standard traffic rules on the road. If you come to an intersection, then you just honk your horn and hope for the best as you wizzing through. Our last night in Hai An was kinda sad because of the crap ending to the Italy vs Australia game. But we made the most of it and had fun anyway. Now, we are in Saigon. The city is a lot bigger than I had imagined. There are a lot of areas that are more upscale in nature, it doesn't resemble a second world country much at all. We had a cyclo tour of the main attractions last night, which were beautiful. Then had a great meal before heading out to watch Brazil play at a local bar. Well, I hopefully will be in touch once or twice before I head back to the states on July 10th. I am still having a wonderful time as you can see. I have genuinely been more and more surprised by the wonderful people of this country every day. Vietnam is a beautiful country.