8/20 5 Months

I've been in Saigon five months to the date.  It's so hard to believe.  Although I'm starting to pick up a little Vietnamese, I still don't feel like I know Vietnam.  Even despite trying to get lost once a week, I still have not really seen the city.  It's more evident the more I explore.  This is a very very frantic city.  It wakes up early and goes to bed late.  However, I am finding that there are sanctuaries everywhere.  These sanctuaries come in the form of stunning restaurants and cafe's - well for me at least;).  Just discovered there are least five in the Phu Nhuan district I trek out to three times a week.  Can't wait to visit them.  While I still love riding my motorbike all over the city, it is stressfull in more ways than I can explain.  Let me just say you have to be calmly assertive and hyper-alert with a hyper-sense of humor or else you will go nuts.  So these little sanctuaries are really a necessity for sanity;).