We're here!

Whew, has it been a long day.

We got to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) around 11:30 a.m. local time. Thao met us at the airport, and we took a van in. It's hard to describe the van trip, but I hope on the way out we'll shoot some film of it to share. Imagine you're in a minivan with other cars in heavy traffic, and there are people on scooters all around you, and by all around you I mean you look out the window and there's a family of three on a scooter inches from your window, and every few minutes you hit a new intersection, and scooters and cars cut in front of you to make left-hand turns or merge into your lane from the right. Hundreds of them.

Somehow it all works, but sometimes there are literally inches to spare. And there are also people on bikes in this fray. Tonight, we saw tossed in the mix of this crazy traffic a guy on a bike transporting an entire six-piece set of wicker furniture.

Oh, and everyone's got their hands on the horn full-time. It's not NYC horn-blowing, however. It's somehow gentle and polite.

The hotel is gorgeous. We're on the 17th floor, and there's a lounge on the 18th where we can have drinks and snacks till midnight. The service is fantastic -- I've written four paragraphs and have been asked three times if there's anything anyone can get me.

After we rested up and took much-needed showers, we took a walk around the hotel area. Yes, we crossed streets in Saigon by ourselves, which wasn't as bad as I feared. And while the humidity here is pretty brutal, it's not that much worse than DC in August.

Thao took us out to buy strollers, and then we went to dinner. The stroller shopping was a disappointment -- we got a really flimsy umbrella stroller for more than we would have paid for one in the US, making me irritated that we were advised to buy one here instead of bringing one. Oh well.

But dinner was amazing. The card is back in the room so I don't have the name of the restaurant, but if you've seen Tony Bourdain's or Andrew Zimmer's episodes on Vietnam, you've seen it featured. It's this huge open-air restaurant with essentially "streets" lining the perimeter featuring the best "street food" vendors in the city. You assemble your meal from the various chefs, who all specialize in one or two items. We had spring rolls, summer rolls, shrimp 'n pork crepes, steamed shrimp, a spicy cucumber/chicken/pork salad on rice crackers, and grilled squid. The shrimp (head-on of course) were amazing -- nothing like the farm-raised, faintly bleached-tasting ones you get at home. You dip them in a mixture of coasre salt and pepper doused with lime juice. We ate tons, had a couple rounds of beers, and it totalled less than $10 a piece.

Now we're crashing hard. Despite doing really well today energy-wise, the jet lag is catching up. And tomorrow's going to be a long day as well. Oh, with one highlight: We meet Loc.

We still don't have a Giving & Receiving Ceremony date, which is a bit nerve-wracking at this point. It won't be Monday, maybe Tuesday, maybe Wednesday. So, we'll leave the hotel tomorrow at 8, and be driven three and a half hours to the orphanage. We'll hang out with Loc for a while, then go another hour and a half to the hotel. If the G&R is not until Wednesday, we probably will go back to the orphanage on Monday for another visit, and then not get Loc until Tuesday. We just have to stay flexible and go with the flow right now. Nothing to worry about, but of course we wish things were more definitive.

It's 8:30 p.m. here now, and I've got to get some sleep so I'm in the best possible shape tomorrow to meet the little guy. It's going to be a big day.