The last day(s) – Goodbye Vietnam

Well, this is it. The final post about our adventures in Vietnam….

Last day in Dalat

The last day in Dalat was pretty much just about making sure we had all our things packed and gathered. We also needed to pick up the video footage that was taped at the photoshoot and our wedding. Hoai was kind enough to accompany us most of the day. Firstly, we needed to get some food to make sure we were set for the first half of the day:

Haoi on her scooter

FUCK YEAH!

Here’s a sample of the breakfast we had:

Some...THING..and cantonese fried rice, you prick

Sasuage, super-overfried egg and a beef with some gunk on top of it

Now we headed on over to a store to pick up our video. We DID get the DVDs etc earlier, but Na was not happy with the result, so she scolded the poor guy and returned it, demanding it be re-edited.
We got 2 copies on DVD and 2 on DV tapes.

Best movie ever?!

Then Na picked up some more clothes and stuff that she wanted to bring back home. The remainder of the day was basically spent packing all our stuff. At most there were 4 people assisting with the packing. I’m still very concerned about the luggage because i’m sure its at least 30+kg over the allowed limit Na says it’ll be fine. I hope she is right!

Remember i told you about that 5 hour bus drive in the last post? Yeah, i didn’t get any sleep at all and i actually felt car sick after 30 minutes. I tried as hard as i could to not pay attention to the incredibly bumpy, dusty and narrow roads. Luckily i had Nas iPhone handy, so i tried to close my eyes while i listened to music. Thanks, Lady Gaga and Amon Amarth.

Ho Chi Minh City – A new phone and a last goodbye

Arriving in Ho Chi Minh City at 0500 in the morning, i was ready to get some much needed sleep. A taxi took us to a hotel in the city. I crashed into the bed, hard, when we entered our room. Think we slept ’til about 1100 or so. Today we wanted to get some last minute shopping done, and i certainly needed a new phone. First off, we went to Diamond Plaza for some breakfast and a little bit of shopping. I just needed to have that Pepperoni Pizza again! Na also had a pizza this time. Good stuff.

Diamond Plaza is a shopping mall with 4 floors. It’s mostly full of designer brand goods and merchandise. There was a video store on the 4th floor, and since i’m a huge movie buff i wanted to check out the selection. Let’s just say the video store probably ain’t legal by any stretch of the imagination. I browsed a bunch of Blu-ray discs (with paper cover, lols). The cost pr Blu-ray disc was 10NKR (that’s $1.50)…yeah..ok. Just for the hell of it, and to check the quality of the video, i bought 2 discs:

Seems totally legal, right???

Also, alarms should be ringing when you find the Star Wars Trilogy and Indiana Jones Trilogy there on Blu-ray . I got a good laugh when i checked the back of the covers for Star Wars….the lines “Commentary by director Paul W.S Anderson” just cracked me up. Hey, maybe people usually won’t notice stuff like that!

When we came back from shopping i wanted to try the two erm…”Blu-ray” discs. The laptop has a BD-rom so shouldn’t be a problem! I inserted the “Leon” disc into the drive..and just as i had thought…it was a regular DVD-9 disc with the DVD version of the movie..i.e total crap. I told Na that the “Blu-rays” were crap and were just regular DVDs. She said “Yeah, that’s what she told me..the lady at the store said they were sold as Blu-rays because they could be played in BD players”…OOOOOOOOOOH OK! Now i see! Totally understandable! Genius marketing.

Back at our hotel room, we just chilled out a bit. I was waiting for Nas brother-in-law to pick me up so we could head out and grab me a new phone. Na had other business to attend to. He showed up a bit over 1600, and hooked us up with a taxi. We arrived at this store called Muabandienthoai. They were mostly pushing HTC, Apple, Samsung and Nokia products. Seemed like a very pro setup and the sellers knew their stuff. They had all phones on display. The prices were relatively cheap compared to what you would have to pay in Norway for an iPhone without subscription. An iPhone 3GS 16GB cost 4500NKR, 32GB at 5100kr. I was thinking about the 16GB version since i couldn’t even make use of 10GB on my recently CRUSHED 32GB.

But before deciding, i wanted to just try the Google Nexus One phone that was staring me in the face from the display panel. That phone runs at about 4100kr (costs roughly 6000NKR in Norway). I tried it for over 10 minutes, checking browser speed, connectivity, specs etc. I didn’t think the choice would be hard, cause i was so used to my iPhone. But this bastard made me think!

Anyways…the result after over an hour in that store was this:

Sorry Steve Jobs..maybe next time

I’m probably get some crap for some of my friends for this choice, but i’ll live with that

Later that night we all went out to eat together..Me, Na, her two sisters, her mother and her brother-in-law. At 2300 we went back to the hotel to get some sleep.

The day of departure

Right now i’m sitting here writing this last post about our trip to Vietnam. Na is lying beside me, talking on the phone while taking care of her sisters baby, Sofia. We’re pretty much done with luggage etc. All that remains are getting some food before our flight, and saying goodbye. The plane from Vietnam leaves at 1900′ish tonight. I like flying, so i look forward to it getting some air time!

I’d like to take this opportunity  to thank everyone who had read the posts, commented and congratulated us on our wedding down here. It was a pure joy to write about all of this, and i hope you found it interesting and exciting to read. And i hope you’ll keep reading in the future, cause like i mentioned before, i will make more out of this website very soon. I also want to thank my parents, Nas parents and my friends and especially my wife for making all this possible, and for giving me and everyone involved a memorable adventure here in Vietnam.

See you soon!