Phostache

Wow, the past three days have been an incredible blur of awe. I have so much to tell and unfortunately not too much brain power to tell it at this juncture, we have been going non stop by foot for two long days straight after a longer day of travel and currently it is 10:51 pm here. Tomorrow morning we also have to gather our things and check out to catch a bus to Phnom Phen at 8:30. That being said, you'll have to excuse my inability to wield the English language; I guess we'll see how I do...

Getting to Saigon was a feat of endurance. I left my front door at 5 am in Issaquah and after 27 hours and 3 layovers, we arrived at our hotel in Vietnam which was about 10pm local time. We decided to rest well and save exploring for when we could keep our eyes open. The next morning we arose around 6 to a very alive Ho Chi Minh City. It is truly an incredible town, bustling with almost every extreme of life. When we stepped out of our hotel, it took about 10 seconds to learn several lessons. As we opened our guide book to get our bearings, one by one people started to come to us for various stated reasons, but ultimitely for money. One man wanted to bike us to wherever we wanted to go on his modified rickshaw, a woman wanted to sell us some maps, and a little girl just came with her hands cupped in front of her with a look of sadness that could only have been sincere... or finely crafted. Nearly every interaction we have had in this city has been driven by the desire for our money in one way or another, and these people are great at it. Some people guilt you, some bully, some beg, and some just nice it out of you. Whatever the tactic, you definitely get the impression that they know what they are doing and they know exactly how much they can get. I want to make it clear though, that I don't hold this against anyone at all, it's just the way of life here which is new and challenging and fun. And it's not only just the citizens, it's the museums and restaurants and everything in between. We stopped at one museum which sold is tickets for 15,000 dong (17000 dong = 1 usd) which was stated clearly on the ticket, and right behind us came in a couple locals who chatted with the clerk and slid across 1000 each for theirs. In one restaurant we stepped into the waiter must have mistaken us for locals when he brought us menus because the door man who had spoken into us in english rushed in and reprimanded him. Then as we were looking through the menus the staff came and switched them out for basically the same menus with higher prices! =) there's not much you can do about it but laugh it off. In the end our meal for two, at a sit down joint with beers, was about 10 dollars. You can find food cheap here though, in fact we just finished a big bowl of Pho from a street vendor for 20,000 dong a piece; and it was amazing! Now those of you who have eaten with me before know how sometimes I can be a bit particular with eating cleanly (2 fingers, not 4 Travis) which, with my newly sprouted mustache, has had to go out the window. There is just no possible way not to wolf down these massive bowls of Pho at a blistering pace. Of the many times we've eaten pho in the short time we've been here, two were very notable. The First was Pho 2000 which is proudly commemorated with plenty of photos as the Pho restaurant which was visited by Bill Clinton 8 years ago. Another is Pho Hoa on Pasteur street which is listed in the book "1000 places to see before you die" as possibly the best Pho on the planet, and I am not arguing one bit. So getting used to a Phostache has been one of a few things that I have been dealing with. There are some other things that I have learned about myself in the short time that I have been here. First, I am pretty self concious about being invasive, and when I start snapping pictures of people during their daily lives, I feel like I am making a spectacle of them. At the same time, I am a tourist here (and being a tourist bugs me also) and in the end I'll really want to have captured this trip. I am also not very big on doing touristy activities. One shocking fact about this city is that there are 9 million people here and 5 million scooters/motorcycles. Watching the traffic here is almost identicle to schools of fish swarming the streets. They are everywhere. There are also friendly citizens selling rides on them (our cabby from the airport told us that in Ho Chi Minh City there are 40 deaths a day in traffic accidents), so when I heard my dad negotiating with someone for a ride, I was nervous and excited at the same time; I was ready for an awesome HCMC experience. To my dismay, he was talking to a couple of the dillapidated rickshaw guys whose only clientel are fat whiteys who probably whistle that stupid tune in their head the whole way (dee-dee-dee-dee dee-dee dee-dee dee). This was exactly one of the stupid touristy things that I hate doing, but in the end, it turned out to be a pretty cool thing. Not for the fact that sitting in a seat while a guy behind you pedals at a snails pace while you sit like a gomer for all to see (because that definitely happened), but because these rickshaw deals turned out to be even more dangerous than the motorcycles. These guys peddled us at 8mph, tops, right into the middle of death traffic central! Motorcycles and cars where whizzing by and honking while we cut through them all to meander in the general direction we were headed. We even made a wrong turn and the guys jumped off and pulled the rickshaws backwards into one way traffic to the correct the mistake. I think I got some good pictures and tested my quick drying underwear. Our destination was the HCMC Vietnam War Reminents museum, which was an stunning, moving, and shocking display of awful humanity. The presentation was made further incredible in that the presentation of events was from an entirely different political bias. It really was poignant to have heard both sides of the political picture, yet the pictures don't change. The war was still an absolute disregard for human life no matter what spin was put on it. When I get a chance, I'll post some of the pictures I took, but beware as some are not for the feint of heart. Right now we are at the end of our full second day dedicated to exploring this city. We have seen so much and become so familiar that we have started to feel like part of the neighborhood. When we got here, crossing the street was absolutely literally risking our lives, and now we step into the middle of a fleet of motorcycles with the confidence and fluidity you have to have to survive. We've started to get the hang of bargaining, which you can and should do with nearly everyone and everything. Dad is still pretty horrible, but we've got a sort of good cop, bad cop thing going on =) I ventured solo and bought a pho (faux) Diesel messanger bag as a day pack. I talked the vendor down from 250,000 dong to 190,000 and 10,000 for a pack of gum from her daughter who was tugging at my shirt. Not a huge victory, but a ego boost at least (I still got robbed at only around 12$). So one thing outside of our control has been the weather, and we got the whole gammit. The first day it hit about 90 with almost no clouds, then about 4 hours ago the lightning cracked open a flood from the sky. I've never seen so much water falling through the air at one time in my life. We were driven back to the hotel and nearly drown on our way in the door. You could easily fill a cup with rain in as much time as it would take to do something that didn't take very long. Yea, I guess that means it's time for me to go to bed. I apologize if this post has lacked structure and is riddled with spelling errors, this particular computer hasn't hit the red squiggly line technology era yet. Anyhoo, I promise these'll get better =) Goodnight America, I'll see you in Cambodia
Much love,
-Jon