First of all, I realize I haven’t been posting too much this month – don’t worry, stories from Vietnam are soon to come! I’ve been working on the vlogging challenge (see “The Bucket Hat Chronicles” videos) and well, Vietnam was a weird month.
By “weird,” I mean that it didn’t feel much like the Race (more on that later), but don’t worry – it was still full of those crazy, hilarious moments we’ve come to expect from life on the field!
-We flew into Ho Chi Minh City, but our location for the month was a 22-hour drive away in Da Nang. Thankfully, Asia has a delightful thing called the sleeper bus – instead of seats, you’re in what I can only describe as bunk beds. You can stretch your legs out and lie down almost flat. But we discovered some rules when we first encountered the sleeper bus. 1. You can’t wear your shoes on the bus – instead you must put them in a plastic bag. 2. You can’t put your own shoes back on when you leave the bus for bathroom breaks – you have to put on gross community flip flops instead.
-We went to a market one afternoon and there was fruit galore – apples, oranges, dragonfruit (a personal favorite of mine) – you name it, it was probably there. Well, Racquel decided she wanted a mango, and I went with her. Now when you’re trying to buy something from someone who speaks no English whatsoever, it’s pretty entertaining. The first challenge Racquel faced was trying to get the woman to understand “Mango,” and then the woman tried to give her three. Not sure why. Also hilarious was the pantomime it took to get her to slice the mango. You had to be there, and I’m so glad I was.
-At some point during the first week in Da Nang, Lyndi and Gretchen discovered that they both had head lice. We couldn’t find any sort of lice shampoo at the time, so they went with the home remedy of olive oil and vinegar, massaged into their hair whilst standing over the sink. Then they had to wear shower caps to sleep that night, over their hair that smelled like salad dressing
