Saigon...

Officially known as Ho Chi Minh City, is a very cool place to visit. It has flavors of China, Southern Asia (similarities to what I saw in Bangkok), France, America, and of course Vietnam. Population 8 million people, 4 million motor bikes. Very few cars, motorbikes seem more practical here. And many, many tourists in District 1, where I am, which is the center city. There are a few streets that make up a backpacker ghetto for young travellers. A more run down party area where my hostel is located, and the city does not sleep. When I arrived at 2 am the airport was still crowded, the streets were busy and still swarming with people and the pubs and bars were flowing with crowds. While overwhelming, it also has this excited action-packed adventure feeling. But, it does not feel unsafe. It feels warm and welcoming. The local people are extremely gracious and friendly, with big smiles and polite interested questions about who you are and what your story is. This was not my impression of Bangkok or any of the cities I travelled to in Thailand other than Chiang Mai. You do have to be careful about theft and getting cheated out of your money though, which I was with my first taxi ride, before I was fully familiar with the bills here. (My taxi driver insisted on recieving 200,000 dong from me instead of 20,000 and then insisted that he had no change for me. A fair mistake on my part, since they put the decimal point in the wrong place here and the cab meter said 170.64 or something like that...and at 2:30 am I was not going to argue.)
Regardless, $14 in the hole on a $2 cab ride and I now know how to count.

The place I am staying is run by this kind vietnamese woman who has gone out of her way to be helpful and friendly to me. She runs a clean and orderly business which she has told me she works at 24 hours each day all year long. She is awake when customers need her at night, staying up to let young partying guests in the heavy locked front door panel at all hours. Then she is up working the front desk in the morning bright and early. She said she has been doing this for seven years now, and that it is a very tiring lifestyle sometimes. But she seems happy and smiling all day long. Amazing.

Yesterday I spent the entire day walking all over the city. There is so much to see. Actually, it is very overstimulating, like playing 10 hours of a highspeed video game. It is loud and hot and motorbikes speed around everywhere very fast. The number of people here is dense and people watching seems to be not a choice, but something you can't help. Thankfully, the people watching is so interesting as it seems like every type of human in existence is walking around here. There is a lot of art and the local craft work for sale on the streets is nice too, there is a type of laquer painting over crushed mosaic style eggshells that I like. The painting I have seen that is original seems to reflect the many cultural influences that have shaped the city.

The people are celebrating the new year here as well, and there have been events for the holiday. I went to a really amazing horticultural festival that was slightly off the beaten track. I saw very few tourists there. Mostly vietnamese families out to enjoy the ner year festivities. There were orchid exhibits, amazing Bonsai tree exhibits, one exhibit that was giant fruit sculptures of dragons and pigs and other new year iconology. Awards were pinned to some of them. Vietnamese version of the Boonville fair? In a clearing, a number of different singers were performing traditional vietnamese songs, and I was attracting my own attention as children nervously approached me to practice their english and then giggle with delight when I appeared friendly. Later last night there was a parade in the streets with 20 foot paper mache dolls on poles and long red paper dragons on many poles. Also, there was a cake that broke the guiness book of world records in size and weight that was brought in on a big truck. The local people were very excited about it and all restaurants got a little bit to serve for breakfast this morning. I was excited too, but less so when I discovered that the "cake" was a traditional one filled with pork and green beans and wrapped in seaweed. Hmmm...

Today, I went on a tour to the extensive viet cong tunnel system just north of the city that was used in the vietnam war. I saw a movie, saw exampled of the weapons that were used against the enemy (Americans) during the vietnam war. What a bizarre experience! It was the Vietnamese version of the war. What a good experience to see and hear the flip side of the story to be reminded of how brutal and pointless war can be. How weird to be hearing stories about the "enemy" and realize that that means me! My country. But, oh wait, that's right, I hear that in many countries I travel to these days. I do so deeply respect that when people talk to me about American involvement in war, it seems to be acknowledged by most that decisions made by leaders of a country do not necessarily reflect the beliefs and feelings of the people living in that country. A lesson-a reminder- for all of us, I think. Anyway, I crawled in the viet cong tunnels and it was the strangest experience. They widened one tunnel so tourists could fit in it, because we are far too big to fit in the original ones.

The feeling of what must have occurred on this land a mere 35-40 years ago was there, but over the top was laid the emotional energy of thousands and thousands of tourist hands, feet, and thoughts moving in that space. The path through the Jungle is now a cement walkway. The souvenir booths and shooting gallery where you can pay a dollar to shoot an AK47 or some other rifle. A friend I have made here remarked that every time we heard a shot go off it was an american dollar earned. And boy were they doing well. Then she remarked that when you heard 20 or so shots in rapid succession, it was some tourist who dropped a twenty dollar bill just to get a thrill, and a feel for what all that killing might have felt like. Scary. It seemed so bizarre and unreal.The emotional tenor of the place seemed flat. Seemed not to exist. Like when you go outside after a fierce thunderstorm and the air is still and without temperature, but you can just feel the energy that recently passed through.

So tomorrow, I am going to take a three day river rafting tour of the Mekong Delta with two interesting girls I met from Switzerland. I will see floating boat markets, an insense factory and a noodle making factory, some local villages, raft through a mangrove, and climb a mountain to a pagoda on the top where I can look across the border into Cambodia. On the third day I will visit a local muslim tribe of people and visit a school where children are learning arabic and visit a mosque.

See you later! Happy New Year! P.S. It is hot hot hot here, so for those of you buried under snow, roll in it once for me, OK?

Zai Jian! Becky