Day 1 & 2

After 5 full meals in 24 hours, including a 3 course meal of air plane food, we arrived in Vietnam on Monday, June 19th at 9:30am!

We were greeted at the airport by our Peace Works Travel host in Hanoi, Quan. We immediately felt the heat and humidity when we first stepped outside. We then got on a bus for 45 minutes that took us to our first stop in Hanoi, a local Pho restaurant.

After lunch, we headed over to the Skylark Hotel where we will be staying for the next four days. We had a couple hours to settle in and get ready. Some of us decided to go to the pool on the top floor of the hotel, while others went and had their first cup of coffee in Vietnam at the coffee shop across the street. At 4pm, Quan picked us up in the lobby of our hotel and we walked around and got a tour of the "Old Quarter". It was very hard to walk without stopping every other minute because there was so much to film and take photos of.

The only thing that was able to stop us from constantly taking photos was the sudden rain storm we encountered. (Get ready for 12 different edits of slow mo rain). We took shelter under a random store awning. While waiting for the storm to pass, a couple of us got haggled into buying some traditional Vietnamese straw hats.

We waited for the rain to calm down, then walked over to a small local fruit shop. We got a bowl of various fruits mixed with condensed milk and ice.

After our fruit stop, we headed back for the hotel. Of course, it started to pour again, even worse than the first rain storm. We tried waiting it out again, but time was running out and we had to get back to the hotel. So, we purchased 13 plastic rain ponchos (RIP Macy "My pants got so wet") and took a group shower in the streets of Hanoi. It was actually very fun.

After trying to dry off at the hotel, we headed out for dinner in the bus. After many detours because of the flooded streets and broken down cars/mopeds, we decided to not risk our bus flooding and walked the rest of the way. Basically, we ended up swimming to the restaurant. (Knee high water we had to walk through).

Dinner was a blur. There was a lot of delicious food but we were really exhausted so no one really documented it. We all freaked out over the lightning as well. #SoCalKids

And that concludes the first and second day of our Vietnam adventure. BTW, Nathan's new name is Olga as well.