Extending Summer - water park!

Today we took advantage of another wonderful sunshiny day in the low 30 degrees Celsius to go to the Dam Sen Water Park here in Ho Chi Minh City.  There are several in and around the city and Logan found this one early in the week and he and the other kids have been asking to go.  We had a wonderful time.  It is basically across the city so it took about 35 minutes by cab to get there this morning (nearly an hour coming back in rush hour).  It was a good choice by the kids!

When we got there, there were literally hundreds of school aged children eating lunch at tables in a large common area.  By the time we came down to head to the water area, they were done their lunch, the common area was basically empty, and the kids were mostly in the splash area.  It was crazy busy!  They all left around 1:00, at which point the splash area became almost a private pool party area for Li Lin (and sometimes Hudson)!  We're guessing it was a large school field trip.

This water park had a zip-line where you drop into the water, a wave pool, regular pool, hot tub, large splash area/wading pool for the younger ones with a dozen small slides, a lazy river, and about 15 or so various large water slides.  It was a blast!  The grounds were well kept with lots of trees to provide shade.  We all played around for a while, then had lunch.  Sara then took Jadon to an outdoor lounge area (only for foreigners... handy but feels kind of awkward to be treated that way) to try to get him to nap.  No luck.  The rest of us splashed around for a while longer then we headed home, cooled and refreshed.
[disclaimer, we did not bring our cameras so these picture are from google images to give a small impression of the water park]

View from the top of the Kamikazee slide

Kids splash area

Exit area for many of the slides

We have been taking taxis a LOT here in Vietnam.  Luckily, they are relatively inexpensive.  To go to the nearest grocery store or market, we pay about 30,000 dong, which works out to about $1.50.  The rides downtown are around 150,000 dong ($7.00).  The most expensive ride we had was today, about 250,000 dong ($12.00) to drive across town.  There are many different taxi companies; however, we have been warned by several sources to only use one of the official companies.  Mailinh actually has a bit of a base here at Riverside so we always take them on our way out.  The other cab company with a good reputation is VinaSun.  Apparently many other cabs try to fleece riders and overcharge.  According to a traveler's handbook we have, VinaTaxi is the third reputable company to travel with.  We have walked right by other cabs to go flag down a Mailinh or VinaSun.

On the way home today from the waterpark, we were in a VinaSun taxi.  I'm not sure where this comes from, but suddenly our driver turns up some music.  It is in Vietnamese, but we hear them singing in the chorus "Vina, Vina, VinaSun is number one!".  Shocked, we listen to the next few songs, all of which seem to be a combo pop song/VinaSun advertisement!  Eventually our driver noticed our surprise and our chuckles, laughed along with us and changed the channel!