Prelude to My Trip to Vietnam

In 1974 I was born in Saigon, Vietnam, before the city was renamed to Ho Chi Minh. Seven months later my family fled to the Philippines to a refugee camp then on to US to settle outside of Washington, DC. My father was a retired Colonel of the US Army, born in Puerto Rico with Basque parents, and an employee of the US embassy in Saigon. This made him able to relatively easily evacuate our family and relatives from the Cong. My mother was working at the Embassy where she met my father. Her family was from North Vietnam. She went to school in Saigon at the only "Finishing School", which was closed by the Communist in 1975.

When I was 2 years old, my father was diagnosed with ALS or better known as Lou Gehrig's Disease, and the disease of which Stephen Hawking suffers. Two years later he passed away, leaving me and his adopted four children to my mother. The four kids are my mothers children from her first marriage, and to me they are my three brothers and my sister. We grew up Vietnamese but spoke broken English at home. Leaving me looking ever so slightly different than my Vietnamese family. My other Vietnamese relatives and family friends would say strange things to me over the years like:

"Oh, you so big!" - referring to by bone structure, height, and perhaps booty (depending on what age we are talking about here folks).
"Diep Waaaaaaaah!" - That's phonetic Vietnamese. Which I always thought meant, "Jesus Christ!" or something of the like, since every time I heard it there were big eyes and a loud "Waaaaaaaah!" at the end. I'll tell you the true meaning in a couple of paragraphs :)
"You not Vietnamese!" - Um, yeah. Just because I don't speak your language doesn't mean my heritage isn't Vietnamese. I just can't wait to meet more Basque people and see what they have to say.
"You no speak Vietnamese? Ooooooh." - Oh boy.

At any rate, this trip to Vietnam was my first return to the Mother Land. So why not go with my mother? I did. That is, with her and my good old friend TRoam from DC. Lucky for me, TRoam is super laid-back, friendly, fun, and fluent in Vietnamese. Yippee! More cheers for more friends, Yippee! Cause DingDong & Cakes came too! Hurray! Dinger & Cakes were only there for the first 4 days but it was hellah fun. Did I say, "hella"? Oi. It's Team Vietnam, The Mental Midget Parade (definition comes later).

I cheer for the Team as they helped me cope with my mother on the trip. She's Asian and a Mom, that makes her special and especially hard to cope with for 2 weeks. Those that have an Asian Mom know what I'm talking about, everyone else either have read Joy Luck Club or should.

Moving on... We toured Hanoi, Halong Bay, Saigon, Nga Trang, and Dalat. I'll have an entry for each and the 'interesting' Saigon Tourist tour bus ride. Interesting... Diep Waaaaaaaaaah!
Ok, "Diep Waaaaaaah!" does not mean "Oh good Lordee". It means "She so cute!" Really I'm not narcissistic.