Good Morning Vietnam!

Xin Chao
sup?

The past three days have been spent in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Today was spent on a bus through the mountainside.

Four days ago Jo woke up very, very early to catch a bus from Siem Riep(Cambodia) to Ho Chi Minh City. The bus was supposed to arrive at 6 in the morning, so we woke up at 5:30 to be ready. Of course the bus ended up being about forty-five minutes late, but this is something we're quickly becoming accustomed to. The rest of the bus ride was fairly un-eventful, despite it's long duration of twelve and a half heures. Jo and I are both getting a lot better at sleeping on buses and other uncomfortable modes of transport, and I was able to sleep through more than half of the trip. Joanna however was not so lucky, and we were both quite irritated and disheveled by the time we reached Saigon(Ho Chi Minh). On the bus, we met a couple of guys named Toby and Kfir and ended up spending the rest of our time hanging out with them. Toby is from south London and Kfir is from Israel. We all agreed to try and find a place together and did so when we were dropped off in Saigon. Thanks to Kfir and Toby's bartering skills, we got an air-conditioned room(I didn't want it) inexpensively, and went out for drinks and some dinner. The next day I took a walk around the district of the city we were in, and to the park across the street and watched some Vietnamese play cao cap, a game that's like badminton with your feet, without a net, and with a bigger birdie. People of all ages play this game in the park, and it looks like really good exercise. I ended up buying a cao cap birdie, but haven't gotten to use it yet/ gathered the courage to ask if I can join in a game with the locals.

I should mention that I absolutely loved Saigon. Unlike other big cities we've visited, it doesn't smell bad at all, and the people were all very accommodating. It was overcast for most of the time we were there(which was actually very comforting) and it reminded me a lot of Vancouver. But, unlike Vancouver, the traffic is the most insane, seemingly unorganized thing I've ever seen. It seems to work though, and if you want to cross the street all you have to do is step out onto the street slowly so that people can swerve around you. The streets are very wide, but it seems totally safe to cross. Everyone is looking out for themselves, so they just drive around you, without any animosity what so ever. There are no rules. Even the bus stations are just allotted parts of the bigger intersections with a little building in the middle they use as a station. It's total organized chaos. I took a walk around the park across the street and watched some Vietnamese play cao cap, a game that's like badminton with your feet, without a net, and with a bigger birdie.

I felt totally safe in the city immediately, and had a total blast just walking around. A couple of days in Jo, Toby, Kfir and I met up with an Israeli friend of Kfir's and went to this huge water/amusement park called Dam Chen. It was a total blast. There were huge slides, and even a roller coaster with some loops and stuff. There was a little circus there, and the animals were all in smaller cages except for the elephants which had a bigger clearing, but were chained by one leg. It was very very sad to see, and it's unfortunate that there aren't better regulations for the treatment of animals here.

The next day, Joanna very much wanted to sleep in, so Kfir and I rented a scooter(his idea, not mine) and weaved our way through the chaos to the war museum nearby. It was a pretty small little place, but had lots of cool exhibits displaying tanks and aircraft outside, and an assortment of pictures and descriptions of the atrocities committed by the United States during the war. Ironically, since Ho Chi Minh's(The dude, not the city) communist party is still in power, there was little or no information about what kind of atrocities the Viet Cong committed to the American P.O.W's and soldiers. In my opinion, America should never have been there in the first place, and that thousands and thousands on both sides died needlessly. I am however, not an expert on the matter, I just went to a museum that was heavily biased against the American army during the war, and had read some books etc...

After the museum, Kfir wanted to go back to a Chinese Buddhist temple he'd visited the day before to give the monks some gifts. I thought it was a great idea and we hoped on the bike and bought some chocolate and books and pens for the monks. When we arrived at the temple we met a young monk and gave him some of the gifts. He invited us into his room for tea, and we happily accepted. The monks room was off the chain, son. He had a brand new Sony laptop and a PC with Internet, and a very shiny fancy look PDA of a phone. Books and pens I thought to myself, so much for giving this monk something useful, the dude's got more electronics than any of my friends!. But it's the gesture that counts, right? He made us some green tea and we talked about where we all come from, and monkdom and the Buddhist religion. His name was Sang(pronounced Sanj, not sang or sange(which is monkey in french btw)) , he's only 25 and he's been a monk for eight years. Sang invited another monk over and over a zillion cups of green tea and fresh mandarin oranges, Sang gave us both two prayer bracelets he had made, and a Goodluck necklace. It was a really cool way to spend an afternoon, and I definitely wouldn't mind visiting more monasteries while I'm here.

That was the last day we spent in Saigon. Kfir, Jo and I all bought open bus tickets that allow us to bus to five different cities on the way up to Hanoi in the north. Toby needed to head back to Bangkok early, so he wasn't able to come with us to Dalat, the mountain town where I am right now. When we got off of the bus in the afternoon it was 15 degrees Celsius, which is FREEZING for this climate. I haven't seen a day lower than 29 degrees the entire time I've been in Asia. I think the local people make it seem a lot colder than it really is though, they all have huge parkas and gloves on as if it were negative fifteen degrees celsius. I keep on thinking I'm on a different continent, where people wear jackets, and bundle up to keep warm, it's doing my head in trying to accept that I haven't suddenly transubstansiated back to Canada.
And that's the story so far.
I miss you guys,

-Ben