The Emperors New Clothes

Yes, we continue through life without our luggage, having brought into the rotation one new outfit per person. As you can see from the picture, Olivia is actually quite pleased with the missing bags situation, having found this bee-a-uuutiful dress (emphasis Olivia's) when we went shopping. The sad fact is that no one as of yet has been able to locate our bags, so we are uncertain when (I am still ruling out "if") we will actually be wearing clean clothes again.

While I am talking about Olivia, I must say that she is enjoying her celebrity status over here. There is a never ending supply of admirers wanting to pinch her cheeks, grab her arm or touch her hair. She is handling this rock star treatment with aplomb, gladly waving and smiling through about 60% of her day. The remaining 40% has been spent admiring her dress, repeating Vietnamese words and ruminating about how great it will be to finally see her brother.

I am writing this from Ben Tre province, the region where Jonah was born. It is about 75km south of HCMC, but the journey took us well over 3 hours. It took about an hour to get out of the city itself, worming our way through the logjams of scooter traffic. The window watching was amazing, almost sensory overload as we tried to comprehend how an indivual can ride a bike while carrying a full wardrobe AND dresser on the handle bars. I just found out that there is a law going into affect on December 15th that will require everyone in Vietnam riding a scooter to don a helmet since there are so many deaths and head injuries. Apparently, they have made this law in the past and everyone just ignored it....but it sounds like this time they are serious. Olivia was most intrigued by the daughter that was STANDING on the seat in between her Father and Mother and they sped along at about 30mph. She also said to me today; "Dad, can WE get a scooter? Everyone else is." Clearly.

Once we were outside the city, we had to cross a river to get into Ben Tre Province. This meant riding on a car ferry along the river...a very cool experience. Ben Tre is part of the Mekong Delta, so there are actually nine rivers that flow through the province.

We arrived at the Ham Luong Hotel (Ben Tre's first 3 star hotel that just opened this month) at about 6pm. It was too late at that point to go to the orphanage, so we will head there bright and early tomorrow morning. It is hard to believe that we finally get to meet Jonah tomorrow. We are bringing a bunch of fruit snacks to bribe him into liking us. We plan to continue that strategy for the forseeable future...at least until he decides he likes us for who we are, not just some strangers with sugar and toys.