From Beach to Brothel

“Are you alive?” “Yes, I am are you?” “Is she satteling you too?” “Yes, can you please just check every 15 minutes to make sure I’m not taken?”Literally the conversation between my friend Jeremy and I this afternoon. Only in Vietnam do you go from flying in from Ha Long Bay back to Saigon to find yourself in an environment that is a massage parlor by day and a brothel by night. The place looked so nice downstairs and was only 4 dollars for an hour long massage so we went for it. The upstairs though… literally was a scene out of the movie Taken. The scummy bathroom, separate rooms, men in uniform yelling something in Vietnamese. Please don’t ask me why we stayed but we did and I am still alive! Ah never again!!!

This past weekend a friend and I took a trip up North to an Island called, Ha Long Bay. Do you see the background of this blog? Yep, that is it. We flew up North Friday night and spent all day on the bay Saturday. Hạ Long Bay,  is known for its emerald waters and thousands of towering limestone islands  (I will let the pictures speak for themselves). The craziest part of this adventure was the picture taking. The Vietnamese and other Asian travelers were obsessed with taking pictures of my friend Kayleigh and I. On our cruise boat, without asking, Mothers  would just plop there children on top of us and start taking pictures. Others would straight up ask if they could take their picture with me, and some would from a distance picture us. It was like they have never seen white people in their lives before. I had a couple people come up from behind while I was laying out and they would pose beside me while having  their friend take the picture from afar. As this would probably annoy most Westerners, lets just say I didn’t completely hate it…   Does Katie not like attention?” HAHA I loved it. I started posing for them with my American peace sign and huge smile. Lets just say, I made a lot of friends this weekend. It’s nice to be back in Ho Chi Minh city now. This place has become such a home for me. When I said, I was ready to go back home my friend thought I was talking about Philadelphia. Nope, It was Da-Blend in Ho Chi Minh that I was referring to.

Namaste.