Gooood Morning Vietnam!

"It's hot, damn hot! So hot my plants are on fire...about to do some crotch pot cookin'" Never before have those words rung so true. It's about 10:30 in the morning and as I sit at this computer in the lobby of my hotel I can feel the sweat trickling down the backs of my legs and my chest. Mmmm delicous!

Besides being hot it has also been very exciting and wild. After Ray picked me up from the aiport yesterday we just sort of wandered around the city trying to avoid a misfortunate accident with a moped. We walked around a lake in the Old City and tried to soak up what little breeze there was. Afraid to be too overwhelmed with the newness of everything we opted to save all touristy outings and real exploration for today.

Today is strange fruit testing day. There are women everywhere who sell some of the weirdest fruit I've ever seen out of a baskets that swing from their shoulders. Of particular interest are the giant leechee fruit looking things. They have a spiny pinkish brown outer shell and they are quite literally the size of basketballs. Something else to try are the green things that at first glance look like avocados but on the inside are clearly some kind of citrus fruit. The other one that I'm dying to try is the thing tat looks like huge pink cactus flower. Ray tells me it's called a dragon fruit, but he can't always be trusted. In addition to the weird looking stuff there is also a plethora of bananas and succulent looking mini-pineapples that are cruisin' for a bruisin'.

Throughout strange fruit testing day we will be visiting some of Hanoi's more political and cultural areas. The Ho Chi Minh museum and perhaps the mausoleum are on the list of to do's, but realistically, once you've seen on embalmed communist dictator's body you've seen them all, thanks Mao. Later tonight we have tickets to go see a performance of Hanoi's famous water puppets and I've been told that if I want to go to the women's museum that I will most likely be going solo. Apparently a museum partially dedicated to the women's costumes through the ages of Vietnamese history isn't a bi-gendered interest.

Anyway I had better sign off because the puddle of sweat that has accumulated under my feet and chair is slowly inching its way towards the power chords and it would be a real tragedy to get electricuted and be forced to miss out on strange fruit testing day.