Vietnam (day 4)

Our trusty Lonely Planet guide assured us that the walking tour of downtown HCMC would be well worth it, so we set out this morning to explore, loosely following the suggested route. First stop was the Ben Thanh market. I have been told that this is the most expensive real estate anywhere in the world, per square meter or whatever. I cannot verify this factoid, but I can tell you that the salespeople there are particularly pushy. They not only try to lure you in with their verbal appeals, but they grab your arms and follow you. The t-shirt people are the worst, and so we had some fun by asking how much the shirts were and did our best to act alarmed and offended that they had the audacity to suggest a price as high as two dollars. The next stop was the fine art museum, housed in an old yellow colonial building with a tennis court in the courtyard. The lady at the desk told me the house used to belong to a wealthy Chinese businessman who lived there with his and two other families, for a total of 30 people. I got some pistachios at a street market and I sprinkled the shells throughout the city. It was a hot and humid day so we ducked inside a frigidly air-conditioned mall and sat beside a fake waterfall for a while, discussing how it would be great to have a moto back home in the States. We looked around at a few other old buildings of local significance and we took photos of posters and statues of Ho Chi Minh, or Uncle Ho as the communists affectionately say. After lunch we visited the Reunification Palace, where tanks rolled up and a soldier ran inside and up to the top to change the flags in 1975 when the North Vietnamese took over the country. The War Remnants museum was next, documenting the American War, as they call it, in a way that makes you feel like they're talking about the holocaust. Jon and I then discussed what it means to pledge allegiance when kingdoms collide, and how these things are all a lot more complex than American or Vietnamese big wigs would have you believe. The last stop we squeezed in was to visit the Notre Dame cathedral, a big brick church that lost its stained glass windows in the second world war. It felt more like Italy than Vietnam, except for the altar. At the altar of the church, below the crucifix, was a statue of Mary, with a neon Ave Maria sign. I'm telling you, Asians love their neon in places of worship, but seeing it in an ancient cathedral was a first for me. Mass was starting so we stuck around. I made faces at the little guy sitting ahead of me but I must say his facial contortions proved far greater creativity on his part than on my end. We ate dinner at a Vietnamese-Italian-Mexican place down an alley and then walked back to our street, stopping at a place called Propaganda, which sells posters with communist slogans and pictures of doves and machine guns and other things that go well together, using a lot of yellows and reds. We chatted with the guy at the store about the governments of our country and his. It was cordial, we thanked him, and then headed back toward the hostel, kindly declining offers from people on the street with stacks of travel guides for sale, who whisper in your ear offers of substances that might be smoked in order to obtain sensations not experienced by law-abiding citizens.

Vietnam (day 3)

After a breakfast of bread and strong coffee, we hopped on a bus and headed across town and then got in a motorboat in order to navigate the floating market out on the Mekong river. As advertising for what was for sale on each boat, fruits and vegetables were stuck on poles like shishkabobs (pardon the spelling). We went up and down some side tributaries and water ways, under low bridges, through a lot of green. We stopped at one point and got out to admire the flora and then again later on for the fauna. One place had water snakes, turtles and monkeys. I sat in a hammock there for quite a while, eating a plate full of longas, which are mucus-like fruits that taste just wonderful. From there we took the boat back to the bus. For lunch I had sauteed frog with curry. On the road once again, we picked up 21 other tourists, mostly Vietnamese from Ho Chi Minh City. I chatted with the guy next to me, a 23-year-old named Dien (minus a few jots and tittles). He recently graduated with a degree in information technology. He asked what I was doing and I told him about World Relief and the things I am doing and when I told him part of it had to do with a website, his face lit up and he repeated the word and tacked an exclamation point at the end. At a rest stop he bought me ice cream. Good guy, Dien. He said if I come back he will show me around. We arrived in Ho Chi Minh City at about 6.30pm. Hustle and bustle are descriptive of the city, and particularly the backpackers area. I have definitely detected a little something in the locals I will call the Saigon Swagger. I ignored a woman offering us accomodation and she shoved me from behind. Disheartening at first, but no hard feelings. An employee at a hotel we had found on the internet showed us a room with a double bed and told us that there were no rooms with two twin beds available, so we said we would look elsewhere, at which point a room with two twin beds suddenly became a lot less scarce. We will be staying here for three nights. Dinner at Kim Cafe was satisfactory. A map on the wall showed Vietnam in the middle and the USA small and off to the side. Fanmail lined the walls: letters of appreciation from people all around the world, some offering for Kim to come stay with them in Ohio or Japan or wherever they were from. We checked out some shops with $1 CDs and $2 t-shirts. I am now in an internet cafe with a subpar keyboard that won't let me capitalize the letter t, and doesn't recognize the question mark.

Vietnam (days 1 & 2)

I was just going to wait to put anything up here until I returned from Vietnam, but then I thought to myself that it would just be too much all at once, like eating a ten pound bag of candy in one sitting. Therefore I'll serve it up to you in bite-sized doses. The photos, however, will have to wait.

 DAY ONE. Rode in a minivan from the tour office in PP to some dock in the middle of nowhere. Dock actually consisted on a board propped up at a gradual angle against our long, yellow, rusty vessel. Passengers included, in addition to a couple other Americans and the Khmer guide, Japanese, Korean, Australian, Irish, German, Israeli, British, and South African. Had some nice talks with a few of these, namely an American guy named Peter and the two Irish guys. The Irish guys are taking the better part of a year to travel the world, and in India, met up with the Israeli and invited him along. Took most of the day to get to our destination just across the border, Chau Doc. It began pouring the minute we docked. We're talking monsoon. After dinner Jon and I walked up and down the semi-lit streets in the rain, soaked and getting wetter, and just having a good chat.

DAY TWO. Met up with the rest of our group, though they were doing the tour in reverse and therefore were on their way to Cambodia today. We got in these little canoes and were paddled through a floating village by women with cone shaped hats. People live in these floating houses their entire lives, although they sometimes pick up and head downstream. They harvest fish in cages between the houses. Kids learn to swim at young ages. Stopped for a visit in a Cham village, one of many small pockets of this Muslim minority people group, scattered throughout Vietnam and Cambodia. "Friendly Muslim," our tour guide told us. "Not suicide bomber." The rest of the group headed off in the opposite direction and Jon and I, along with two guides, got in a minivan and went to visit Sam Mountain, which allows for a great view of the Cambodia border. At the base of this mountain is a statue of Lady Xua something. I don't know the correct spelling off hand. The guide says he prays to her for a Mercedes. "Who else do you pray to?" Jon asked. Tour guide said, "I believe in myself. I believe in hard work." He paused, then added, "My god is tourism." Money, and the insatiable desire for more, is the driving force behind everything in Vietnam, I had been told earlier. Later, on the road, we went over a bridge where everyone was standing around. Suicide. Sobering. We stopped at a crocodile farm where I enjoyed throwing cashews at full grown crocs. Hit a couple of them on the head. Body tingled as we walked away, imagining my arm in a crocodile's mouth. Ate lunch at a roadside stand next door to croc farm. Fish soup that tastes like spicy fruity pebbles. Checked in at hotel in Cantho. Explored. Bought ice cream in a mall. Bowled a game. Started off with three gutter balls but then pulled myself together and finished with a 105. Free massages in leather chairs in the department store. Saw no other foreigners in this city of half a million for two hours. Then saw some tall people with white skin and cameras. I correctly guessed they were Dutch. Followed them into a temple. A friendly monk missing teeth showed Jon and I the ashes of good Buddhists. He asked if we were Buddhist. "No, Christian," we said. He took us around to the front and took two dragon fruits off the altar and gave them to us. "Gift," he said. We then tried to think to the book of Acts to remember if we are allowed to eat food sacrificed to idols after all. My recollection was yes. Jon ate his. Mine sits in front of me in the internet cafe, for later consumption.

Time to go.