The Global Guy

It’s been a very strange day. I started by listening to Bush’s very weak speech to Hussein giving him 48 hours to leave the country. I think Bush is a poor leader for our country, and don’t have any respect for him at all. I support the troops who are doing their job in fulfilling his mission however. My brother is one of those who could end up in the middle of the action, and I hope things will work out great for him.

Before I knew about Bush’s speech, I’d already booked a tour to some old Vietnam-war era tunnels and the Vietnam war museum. It was interesting to see a different version of the war from the "enemy"s side. It really shows the true human cost of any conflict…I can’t believe that whatever Bush hopes to gain will be worth it.

Anyway, tomorrow I’m off to the beach resort of Na Trang. Some people have suggested I should head home due to the upcoming war, but I can’t see how that would do any good. I’m not going to let a single person’s misguided decisions, however far reaching, affect my life and/or my leisure time.

Getting to Saigon was an interesting adventure. I took a local mini-bus from Chau Doc, and found myself crowded with six people in a row of seats built for three. It wouldn’t have been so bad except that there was an older Vietnamese guy who kept stroking the hairs on my leg. I kept giving him dirty looks, and physically moved his hand a couple of times, but eventually gave up and tried to sleep.

When I got to the bus station, I hailed a motorcycle taxi for the ride across town to where I was staying. I’d never seen such insane traffic! The ride was a blast, with the feeling that either we’d be killed in a collision, or that I’d be pulled off the back of the bike by the weight of my pack every time he accelerated. Eventually we got to the backpacker section of town and I found a decent guest house to stay at. I wandered around for a while and found a stall selling pirated lonely planet guidebooks. I was surprised to see that they had one for Mongolia, so I picked it up and settled down at an Italian restaurant for some food and reading. The next table over had a couple of British girls, and eventually I ended up chatting with them. We ended up going out for drinks at a bar later that evening, and it turns out that Steph and I really got along well. They were leaving the following day, but we made plans to meet up in Nha Trang in a few days.

The next day I went out to see the Chu Chi tunnels nearby where the Viet-Cong would hide from American soldiers during the war. It was amazing to see how they’d built a complete city underground. Even more amazing was the small size of the access points to the tunnels. No wonder the Americans couldn’t follow them very well! They did have a special set of "enlarged" tunnels that westerners could fit into (barely!), but anyone with the slightest bit of claustrophobia would never be able to try them. After we experienced the tunnels themselves, we were able to head over to a firing range and play with some machine guns. For a dollar a bullet I got to fire an AK-47 on both regular and full auto. I’d never shot a gun with that kind of power before, and I really liked it. I bet my brother is having a blast with his M-16 in Iraq!

Later on I went to see the War Remnants museum (formerly the Museum of American war crimes). This presented the Vietnam war from the other side, and the image of the west was one of complete brutality. I’d never think that either side was innocent, but it was interesting to see how the current government presented their version.

After a completely enjoyable week on the beach, it was time to head down to Vietnam. I booked a combination bus/boat taxi service down to the town of Chao Doc and then on to Saigon. All together it would take two days to make the trip, which I wasn’t aware of until we’d stopped for the first night. My first impressions of Vietnam are that it is one of the friendliest places I’ve ever seen. Kids are everywhere, and they just want to keep talking and talking to all the round-eyes. The really nice thing is that they’re not asking for money or pens, or anything at all, which is quite a contrast to the Cambodian kids. At one rest stop, I pulled out my camera and the kids just went wild. They all insisted on being in a picture with me and the other tourists…eventually I had to just pretend to take pictures or I’d have run out of film!

The Delta itself was beautiful…warm muddy water with tropical tree lined villages all along the banks. Every time we passed a village kids would come running out of the houses waving and yelling at us “Hi Mister!” over and over again. It was amazing to see how happy the kids were even though the places that they were living in were nothing but shacks to western standards.

River life is incredible…you see everything happening…people washing, buffalo swimming, and even entire market places are operating. We visited one of these floating markets for a while just to see how they operated. Vendors would pile their boats with as much produce as they could, and they’d tie one of each type of fruit they were selling to a tall bamboo pole. Buyers would row around looking for the masts with what they wanted to buy, and an intense discussion would follow until they arrived at a mutually acceptable price and both parties left more or less happy.