Whelmed

So it has kicked in. As I was sitting at my breakfast table on the eleventh floor of my hotel it kicked in. The buildings are incredible. The houses are all four to five stories high, but so narrow! They look ridiculous. Every building is built either with a brick or concrete frame (depending on when it was originally built) and the front and back walls are gutted and rebuilt whenever. So I can see through many houses. It is a strange thing, but kind of cool. The buildings are so colorful. Lots of blues and yellows. Yesterday on my drive from the airport we passed rice paddies and I saw only one or two people per giant field. The growing of rice is all done by hand! They grow the tiny seeds to about two inches before hand planting them in neat rows in the field. In about 3 1/2 months they are full grown and picked to sell. Vietnam exports an enormous amount of rice. And the rice they don't export is sold in country or fed to cows and water buffalo. These people are amazing. Farming to us is combines and tractors and huge herds of cows, here it is backbreaking labour that women and children do and maybe a handful of cows. The animals here are skinny and strange. Nothing like our overfed world! The weather is gorgeous. A brief storm in the early hours of the day meant humidity like you can't imagine. The rain is hot and falls in huge drops on the street. It doesn't stop anyone from their day though. All the motorbikers wear ponchos to keep them and their parcels dry. Yesterday I saw a girl riding a motorbike, her father sitting in the sidecar with a wicker chair on wheels contraption in front of him. He had twenty foot rebar curled around him. Must be building something somewhere. It is amazing what people carry on the back of their bikes. Thousands of bottles, five AC units, three kids. Streets are a little crazy. Lots of honking as people drive on the road, sidewalks, and the wrong side of the road. Today on one of my rides, we went the wrong way down a one way street and my motor taxi driver was the one honking at everybody. Truly amazing that nobody gets hurt. My hotel is a modern building built five years ago, it is stunning. I can't believe I can afford the beautiful hotel room I am staying in! I will have to thank my travel agent when I get back! The fruit has been the best part of my eating experience so far. Dragon fruit, watermelon, and some strange citrus fruit. All so sweet and juicy. Nothing like the fruit we have at home. I was talking to a lady from Queensland at breakfast and she laughed that there was still snow on the ground at home. This weather is quite the difference from Edmonton and my hair is so happy! I don't think it will be happy to go back to dry Albertan air so I am eating up the great body while it lasts. Humidity is heaven in a weather pattern.