I haven’t updated in a few days on account of general business. But yesterday I took a tour that travelled outside of Ho Chi Minh City, and I filled up a data card with images and video, so the majority of this post is going to be photos. And since I’m uploading these photos over a connection that tops out at 10Kb/s, I’m going to break this up onto multiple posts over the next day or two.

First, I’ll introduce John and Jane. (They’re on the right left, sheesh).

They are from Australia, and travelling through a number of countries on a whirlwind tour of South East Asia. Yonna met them last year in Hoi An. Very nice people; they remind me a lot of my parents.

Yonna was fighting off a cold yesterday, so I took a day-tour with John and Jean. Our first destination was the Cao Dai temple near the Cambodian border, about 90km north and west of Ho Chi Minh.

This first set of photos focuses on the drive itself: the traffic, houses, shops, towns and of course, people. I was particulary taken by the private homes that are being built in these rural regions. Their ostentatiousness is a striking indicator of the wealth pouring into Vietnam. Another indicator are the large hotels suddenly springing up in what I would have to call the middle of nowhere. Notice that nearly all buildings are the same width (about 30 feet, by my inexpert estimate) but shoot up vertically, having up to four floors and at least one terrace.

The photos are chronological, starting near the Ho Chi Minh airport all the way to the town outside the Cao Dai compound.