Motorbike? Motorbike Man?

So tomorrow I end my journey in Vietnam and venture to Cambodia to see Angkor Wat as well as the atrocities that took place in the S-21 prison and the killing fields. Before I get there though I want to sum up Vietnam and what I've been doing for the past few days.

Last we spoke I was in the beautiful Hoi An. Got a wicked coat made and could have really bought so much more custom made clothes but I held back in the interest of my wallet. The food in Hoi An was really good, I had an unreal black bean soup with bacon and sour cream (I know not very Vietnamese, but it was delicious!) and spent a few nights in a really nice bar/pub. When I was in Hoi An I was getting the 6th week travel blahs (much like the 5th week camp blahs) so instead of more touring and sightseeing in Dalat, I headed to the beach town of Nha Trang. I made the right decision. While I'm sure Dalat would have been great, the beach was awesome. I really didn't do much, just sat on the beach during the day, and sat in the pubs at night. I was exactly what I needed.

Nha Trang reminded me alot of Tel Aviv, everything centered around the beach with a large beach front boardwalk and boulevard. The sand was soft and white and the water blue-green and so warm. On the beach there are several upper scale restaurants and one great micro brew. I spent most of my days renting a chair and a towel at one of these places. It was great, reading in the sun, going for a swim and eating some great food. In Nha Trang there is an overabundance of Italian restaurants. I'm not exactly sure why, maybe the Veitnamese think that all Westerners like Italian food (they're probably right). So I had some great pizzas a few nights and a great vodka cream penne, my first real Italian meal on the trip. The one Vietnamese dinner I had actually wasn't even all that great, I've certainly had better in other cities around this country. I of course had Pho for breakfast one morning, also not as good as Hanoi. I wanted to leave Nha Trang on the 24th, but apparently the bus was full so I obliged and spent another day on the beach and then came to Saigon yesterday the 25th.

Saigon. I'm disappointed that I didn't get to spend more time here. The city is crazy busy with 3 million motorbikes and counting on the roads. You actually see so many more motorbikes than cars on the roads. Because of this people have to transport all sorts of things on bikes that we would normally put in cars or trucks. When I was in Hanoi I saw a book that was just a collection of pictures of huge things on the backs of motorbikes. Since then I've wanted to make an album that was just that, but I never had my camera out in time or even with me at all when I would see some funny things on bikes. In Hanoi I saw two different bikes carrying refrigerators. My plan was to sit on a corner once I got to Saigon and see what would come about. Today that is what I did, but its not like I spent alot of time doing it. All the museums close here between 12-130 so I had to leave the War Remnants museum (more on that later) so after walking around for a bit I figured now's my chance to see what pics I can get. Honestly I sat at one corner for just 20 minutes and took about 24 pics. There are a few more that I got along the way to this one corner. Its important to note that the intersection I was standing at was busy, but I wasn't really on one of the major routes. This was two one way streets with probably 3 lanes each. The real major streets here probably have 6 lanes each way. You can check them out here.

The rest of my day consisted of eating some great street stall pho this morning for breakfast and then I headed to the War Remnants museum. This was one of the best museums that I've been to in Vietnam. Once I realized the order that I'm supposed to be viewing this museum I headed for the top floor and was moved by the exhibit there. So this museum is really a wars of Vietnam museum and really just a Vietnam war museum. The first exhibit was a tribute to the war photographers, many who lost their lives for their craft on the battlefield. The pictures in this exhibit showed the suffering of the Vietnamese at the hands of the Americans and South Vietnamese army but also the realities of war from the American side as well. The photos on display are from Life magazine as well as other such as Newsweek. I really found this part to be quite moving and partly horrifying also. To think that these journalists lost their lives just doing their jobs makes them so much braver than I could ever be. And thats not to mention all of the soldiers on both sides that died or were wounded at the hands of the war machine. I had to leave in the middle of looking around this museum because they were closing for lunch so I actually found a Yogun Fruz and munched down (too bad its not next to the theater in Grant Park anymore). Then I returned to the museum to keep looking around. The other exhibits were more along the lines of some of the other museums that I saw in Hanoi. Lots of Ho Chi Minh, lots of photos without much explanation. There were some interesting things though, like a comparison of the casualties and ammunition used in WWII, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. On the main floor was an exhibit of actual guns and ammunition used by the Americans on the Vietnamese as well as an exhibit about the effects of Agent Orange and other chemical weapons on the Vietnamese population during and after the war. This part was really sad and was punctuated by pictures of people suffering the effects from this horrible chemical.

After that I walked over to the Independence Palace. This was a big 60s palace where you could see places that the current government uses to receive guests, but I think it is more of a shrine to the South Vietnamese government pre-1975 when they fled after losing the war. You can see the decadence that the president lived and worked in while so many people were dying outside his door. One of the most interesting parts was the underground network of rooms that was used for various things during the war. Big radios and tons of maps lined the rooms. There was supposed to be a war room but I couldn't find it. On the top floor you can see a replica of the helicopter that was used by the president when he went out to survey the damage from the war around Saigon.

And then because its just so hot here, I had to come back to my room to sit under the fan and cool off a bit.

So now that I'm leaving Vietnam I want to reflect on a few things. Vietnam has been great and definitely a place that I would come back to. The things to see are beautiful and the people are great. The food is the best I've had on this trip and am not yet sick of Vietnamese food.

There is a bad side though, people here are quite aggressive when they're trying to get something from you. On absolutely every street corner and in the middle of the block too, guys on motorbikes are trying to get you to get on their motorbikes so that they can give you a ride somewhere, where they want to take you is still a mystery to me. These guys apparently sell you any number of illegal drugs and are constantly trying to get you some 'lady boom-boom'. Its hard to be nice to these guys all the time because you know that if you stop and talk they're just trying to get you on their bike, so I've started ignoring them but then I feel like I'm being rude. But they must realize how many motorbike guys are badgering you in a day. When I was standing on that street corner taking pics, I had two different guys drive over to me to see if I needed a motorbike. Another downside of the aggressiveness is when you're eating at a restaurant and peddlers come in trying to sell you photocopied books, toys and cigarettes. These guys are on the street too badgering you to buy something. At this point after almost three weeks of being in Vietnam, it is getting very annoying to walk around. I'm trying hard not to make this taint my views of Vietnam and I still think this place is great. If anyone is planning a trip to South-East Asia I would saw Vietnam is a must.

Cambodia tomorrow - Talk to you soon!