Vung Tau - Wednesday

We left HMC Wednesday morning, packing up as much as possible and storing it at the hotel. We took a taxi to the waterfront and met Loan to board the express boat to Vung Tau. When we were here last time, the weather was too bad and we had to drive, since the boat can't go in big waves. It is similar to the hydrofoil I sometimes took to the island I lived on in Japan. Since Vung Tau is on a penninsula, the boat is able to go down the river and cut across the bay, which makes for a 90 minute boat ride rather than a 5 hour drive in slow traffic! It was really interesting to see the tanker ships alongside small fishing boats and to view the city from the river too.

As we got off at the ferry terminal in Vung Tau to hot sun, blue skies and palm trees, Maiya sighed and said "Ahhh, it's good to be back where I was born." It was the start of an emotional day!

We had lunch at the hotel we are staying at - the Lan Rung Resort - and then checked into our room. It was then time for the big event - visiting Maiya's orphanage. When we went to Vung Tau to adopt Maiya everything was a bit of a blur. Driving through the streets yesterday brought back alot of those memories, but we were amazed at how much things had been developed in the last 5 years. The street in front of the orphanage was just a rutted dirt road then, and is now paved and has sidewalks. We took a picture of a photo that shows it then and took a picture of it now to show the contrast.

The vice director now is a former nanny and she was there to meet us and give us a tour. The infants are no longer cared for there as it has merged with another site, and this site has older children now. The room where Maiya was is now a classroom, but we were able to go in and see it, and also saw where they bathed the babies, which we didn't see last time. Standing there in the same spot we were in 5 years ago was really emotional for me, especially watching Maiya process it all. The toughest but best part came near the end of the visit. The vice director checked the registry and let us see the record of Maiya entering the orphanage and of our adoption of her. We got to see her file, which included a picture taken of the 3 of us the day we met her, as well as some other pictures that we had not seen before. I won't go into detail as the details are Maiya's story to share if she chooses when she is older, but needless to say I couldn't stop crying from the emotions of it all. Although she doesn't really understand right now, having even a few more photos and seeing the registry are very important parts of her history, and having that opportunity was beyond priceless.

After our visit we were ready for some emotional unwinding so we headed back to the hotel and hit the beautiful pool. Vung Tau's waterfront is beautiful but also filled with shipping tankers and oil rigs on the horizon so a bit of a unique contrast! We had our next adventure when we headed out for supper and ended up not where we had planned! We managed to eat some good food although Brett liked it more than the rest of us! Lost one of Lucas's contacts when we got back and had another miracle finding it with a flashlight on the bed after!

Will post more about our Vung Tau adventures tomorrow!