Finally back to blogging! So sorry about that long pause between blogs but I found myself, yet again, spending more time than planned on a small tropical island sans Internet. But, more about that later. First, I have an engaging installment on the South China Sea and Saigon.
My last full day on the back of the moto was Sunday May 13th driving from the mountain city of DaLat to the seaside coast of Mui Ne. The drive yet again was spectacular! Mountains, mountains, and more mountains opening up onto a bright golden desert further leading to crystal blue water. Naturally, it rained the entire day, but I was undaunted as it allowed for one of the more ghostly rides I have ever taken. We passed perhaps no more than a handful of other drivers for the entire day and at one point we were so high in the mountains and the clouds were so low and heavy with rain that we were actually driving through the clouds! Sure, I've flown through clouds before but to feel them on your face and pass your hand through them while speeding along was quite magical. I, who always has something to say, was rendered speechless by the experience (for a few moments anyway!). We then coasted down the mountains into the desert (yes, Vietnam has a desert) and stopped at a Champa village located at the bottom of the mountain. There was no electricity in the village and no one even spoke Vietnamese, but they were most charming people and never asked for anything except for to touch my arms. In many parts of the world, this poverty would lead straight to begging, but I have found that in these traditional villages one never encounters this aspect of poverty, but instead finds the ability these people have to appreciate what they have and to approach strangers only with offers of tea and a smile. We then proceeded along the coastal road with the South China Sea sparkling on our left, ochre colored sand dunes to our right, and with the green mountains behind us to end our journey at Mui Ne. It poured buckets for the first two days there which was fine by me as I had just picked up some light reading, "Anna Karenina" by Tolstoy, and was looking forward to resting my bum while reading on my balcony. I stayed an extra two days to enjoy the sunshine, but didn't swim as the water was unfortunately quite dirty holding everything from jellyfish to lost flip flops to fishnets etc. My bungalow was wonderfully clean though not bug free as I had to get my manly neighbour to extract a few palm-sized winged creatures from my room. I also saw no fewer than 6 rats scurrying along, one which was promptly killed by some dogs right in front of me while dining. I did manage to find a lovely local joint serving fresh (raw) squid salad served with lots of green chilies and limes which I ate twice a day for four days. I then booked a tourist bus ticket to Saigon for Thursday May 17th, a mere 5 hours on proper seats from Mui Ne.
I arrived in Saigon at dusk and was instantly confronted by the modernity and spaciousness of the city, the excessive motorbike traffic, and overall intensity of the city. I hadn't been in a proper city since Bangkok 6 weeks earlier and so Saigon proved a welcome refreshment to my senses. I found a great room right in the center of the backpacker zone chock full of little cafes, restaurants, and bars that actually stayed open past 10pm. I went straight out and had a big bowl of seafood fried rice and continued sampling the plethora of Vietnamese beers into the wee hours of the night watching the traffic from my vantage point at a street side cafe. Unlike other places I have to in Vietnam, Saigon is filled with street vendors that roam the city selling any and everything one could possibly want. My favorites were the women who walked around with a tower of copied books sporting only the latest English language titles and selling for under $2. Copyright laws have yet to make it to this part of the world which makes photocopying of entire books a very lucrative business. Also, one notices the amount of prostitution there is Vietnam. It seemed that everywhere I saw beautiful, young girls with sweaty, fat, old Western men. One man I met, an American seated next to me at a bar, actually told me that he had just arrived that morning from Philly and that this was his "new girlfriend". Why he thought that I would admire this act is beyond me so I politely excused myself from the conversation while I was mentally cursing him. Another fact of life in Saigon is the motorbike traffic which is truly astonishing. Kudos go out to all those who manage to navigate their way through that mess. No one wears a helmet, even though there are over 13,000 traffic related accidents a year (13 per day) and people drive like absolute maniacs! Of course I didn't risk my precious little head and took car taxis instead. The persistent honking and beep-beeping of the motos got a little irksome after awhile, but what can ya' do? The only way to cross the street in Saigon is to just go right out and cross, pretending that there are not in all actuality no less than 500 scooters aimed directly at you barely managing to zip past you without a nipping you. At one intersection it took me more than 5 minutes before I managed to get across due to the throng of bikes!
I woke up the following day feeling a bit queasy and so didn't really make it out till noon where I nursed a Vietnamese iced tea and politely turned away street vendors until I felt ready for the War Remnants Museum which commemorates the Vietnamese War (or the American War as it is referred to here). It is a pretty well organized affair filled mostly with extremely graphic photos of the vestiges of the American-Vietnam War including the mass murder and torture of entire villages, the devastating effects of napalm and agent orange (which still affects a large number of newborns today), and the overall physical and mental trauma war offers. I, as an American, was quite humbled to see the horrendous ways in which we participated in this war and the amount of international sovereignty there was for the Vietnamese. However awfully we treated the Vietnamese during the war I have yet to find negativity amongst them when I say that I am American. Rather than antagonistic behavior I am always greeted with a smile and with curiosity and awe that I traveled so far to see their country. Perhaps because of this fear, I have met only 2 other Americans traveling in Vietnam in the entire 25 days of my time here, yet have met many Australians and Western Europeans traveling throughout Indochina. After the museum I walked around a lovely green park filled with exercising locals where I met a 75 year old Vietnamese gentleman who claimed to have been in the Vietnam War fighting with the Americans and was jailed for several years when the North won power. He then had me take multiple photos of him so I could prove that people like him still existed. Yet another lovely cultural encounter one only seems to get when traveling alone. I filled up the rest of my afternoon walking around and eating random street food. I was heading out at 4.30 the next morning to catch a flight to the island of Phu Quoc for a few days and so didn't get too much nighttime action in. Even though I was only in Saigon for such a short time I feel that I was able to get a good sense of the city and its inhabitants and left with a very positive feeling overall. I would like to go back at some time for a longer stay, but this will have to be saved for another journey.
PS: I posted new photos on Picasa.
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