Last week I returned from my first trip to Vietnam, a 10-day mix of business and pleasure.
The most interesting thing I ate was lemongrass snails, which were way larger than any escargot that restaurants have served me in the U.S. and France!
The most interesting person I met was a 27-year-old Vietnamese gal from Ho Chi Minh City who celebrated her birthday two years ago by embedding a diamond in one of her front teeth — an idea she said she got idea from her American pals!
The most interesting habit I noticed was taxi drivers scattered whole, fresh pineapples throughout their cars as air fresheners. Sweet!
I documented my other interesting explorations in Ho Chi Minh City, the Mekong Delta, Hanoi, and Halong Bay with more than 1,420 photos — which you can painlessly flit through in 3 minutes and 22 seconds thanks to this rapid-fire video slideshow:
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NICOLE C. WONG 
what an interesting story !!!
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Thanks! I love exploring! And I wonder which other fresh fruits double as car fresheners in other countries…
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This is very cool. Diamonds in teeth!! You can thank Kanye for that. Did you travel by yourself or a tour operator? I’ve been looking into traveling to Vietnam and found http://www.funinvietnam.com to be informative, though I’m not sure of the cost for these types of trips. Thoughts?
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Thanks, Tim. That’s exactly what I and the two other Americans (NY college students) who met her thought: Who are her friends — Kanye West and other rappers?
I traveled alone and (since this was a last-minute trip) booked a daytrip to the Mekong Delta with Saigon Tourist a few hours before the tour picked me up at 8 a.m. (which is easy to do if you don’t have a large party to accommodate) and booked the overnight trip to Halong Bay with SinhTourist the afternoon before the tour picked me up at 7:30 a.m. My hotel in Ho Chi Minh City and my ex-pat pal in Hanoi recommended these tour operators to me. I lucked out to have fun, enthusiastic locals who spoke a fair amount of English as my guides on both tours. The 39-year-old Saigon guy — and karaoke contest winner! — sang into his microphone (http://flic.kr/p/a2sZ1f), read passengers’ palms (http://flic.kr/p/a2fLCf), and told jokes (http://flic.kr/p/a2sZPZ) on our 3-hour bus ride back from the Mekong Delta. And the mid-20s Hanoi guy played trivia and always called on us 20 tourists by our full names and countries (excellent memory!) throughout our Halong Bay trip (http://flic.kr/p/a4bK5x). My ex-pat pal cautioned me to go with a reputable tour company for the Halong Bay overnight trip because earlier this year a tour group’s boat sunk, drowning its passengers who were aboard sleeping. I recommend both tours that I went on, which should cost between $50 and $100 (varying by tour operator and in accordance with seasonal demand). Hope that helps! Have fun!
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