Made it to HCMC

Made it from Long Xuyen to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) just in time for the 35th anniversary of "reunification" (end of the "American" war) tomorrow. Can't tell if anything is planned, but there are lots of commemortive posters up all about town and all the taxis are flying the national flag, just like we would at home if the Canucks ever won a game. Well, OK, it's not really the same!

After two weeks of mostly local food I decided to splurge and go to the big Sheraton Hotel here for lunch buffet. Amazing. AC, table cloths with no stains, courteous staff, western food, no rice, clean silver ware, no bugs, indoors. Massive buffet. Took lots of time and gorged. To put things in to perspective, my hotel room in Long Xuyen for 3 nights was just over 1,000,000 Vietnamese Dong. So was lunch. About $27 US. Amazing. Bought dinner the other night for the local team. 6 of us at a local restaurant. Good food and lots of it. Came to about $20 for all of us, including the beers.