of mice, strings, and cyclo drivers

I can't remember what my last post was (because for some reason my blog page is unaccessable) but regardless, i've been having a really good time in Vietnam (despite my utter frustration with the vietnamese today---see cyclo drivers for that rant)

I spent 2 days in the Mekong delta, 1 day and a half in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City), 2 days in Hoi An and now I'm in Hue.

So:

MICE- hoi an is the vietnamese capital of having things tailor made for you. Literally the shops line the streets and you cannot walk anywhere without someone calling you into their shop or seeing a cute dress you might want. I, like all other tourists in Hoi An, took advantage of the situation and bought a plethora of new things for myself. (I don't know if I've ever in my life bought myself so many things). But the funny part about it all is that the people in the shops are all kind of just sitting around. but you go in, pick out your fabric, tell them what you want, and they say, OK, come back in 5 hours. HOW does it get done?

and so i must conclude, that the hoianeese have had a good dose of cinderela in their lives and thus it's the mice.

STRING - I somehow got convinced by this woman in the market that I needed a pedicure. It was about 8 dollars so i said, ok, fine (My heels had grown a layer of dirt that was not removable by shower so i figured i needed it) She took me through windy streets to this little alleyway and a tiny shop where she proceeded to scrape (with a razor edge) my feet. and then paint them. and THEN when this was all done, she started to unwind a string. and then somehow wind it around her hands (a la cats cradle) and then with this piece of string she started plucking the hairs off of my foot. (Yes, don't get grossed out, everyone has them--- of course mine are really fine blond so i never even really noticed.) apparently this system takes them out to the root (a bit like waxing). It hurt like hell though so i think the string and I are over for good.

CYCLO DRIVERS/MOTOBIKE DRIVERS - are, quite simply, the worst part of vietnam. They make me angry on a daily basis. They seem not to have learned that harrasing people does not make them want your service (this applies to restaurants, shops and hotels as well) I think it all comes down to tourism in vietnam having developed really quickly and the wrong way. But for example: today I wanted to take a nice peacefull walk around Hue. One hour laterI never want to come back to hue again and have taken refuge in this internet cafe from the hoardes of motorbike/cyclo drivers who have stopped me every 5 feet asking if i want a tour around the city.

what was i thinking?

seriously WHAT was i thinking?

plush hotels are fabulous.

but i digress


yesterday i crawled through the cu chi tunnels. the whole time i was thinking of mom and how she would have a fit. see that love mom?

they were actually REALLY sweet--- despite being totally touristerized (sp?)

i also went to the war remnants museum. which, made me a little ashamed of being an american. particularly when i saw the hundreds of photos of agent orange victims... most of whom were the children of soldiers.... really, what were we thinking?

wandered around Ho Chi Minh (actually called Saigon bythe majority of inhabitants, as the cu chi tour leader (who actually refers to himself as tom cruise and asked us out to the bars))told us) Acquired a vietnam sim card although my crappy charger is giving me trouble so that might have been for nothing.


then i trained it all the way up to Danang... in a room with 7 other people, 2 of which were screaming kids, but i still got a good sleep.

met this woman who then found 5 polish people and we all rented a minibus together to take us the last leg to hoi an. the minibus dropped us in front of a hotel and i thought, eh, i'll just take a look..... somehow i got him down to 10 dollars for the night in this nice hotel with hot showers, cable tv, a swimming pool AND free internet access/breakfast.

so now i'm living in luxury as one might say.

and it's glorious... why did i not do this before? (although i don't think it would have felt AS good if i hadn't experienced 3 dollar per night/random roomates all the nights before)

vietnam is wonderful, but i'm also ready to come home! a little bummed out about missing thanksgiving i guess/excited to get into a routine (which i haven't had in... forever) and to see everyone... only 3 weeks and a lot of things to enjoy before then!

big money

sidenote.
2 days ago, on thanksgiving, i became a millionaire. i think that's something to really give thanks for.
now i'm not anymore. i think it was the train ticket for tomorrow night that took me down to the hundreds of thousands range.

oh the dong.


just did a 2 day mekong delta tour--- hung out with some veeeery freeeench guys. tonight i'm having dinner with the girl who i met on the street that i'm sharing a room with and these french girls who were on the last day of the tour that ended up in the same hotel, which you shouldn't REALLY call a hotel because it's the woman who found us on the street's house.

right. asia.


tomorrow off to pretend i'm tough and explore the cu chi tunnels/maybe fire a gun. then again maybe not.

tomorrow night on the train to hoi an. whew this trip is wild.

some random thoughts

1st random thought: Cambodian Road Rules

1) Traffic lights are a waste of money. Two is enough for the 2 major cities of cambodia.

2) if/when there are traffic lights they are a waste of a drivers time and energy. better to ignore them.

3) any driver may do anything at any time. you need only to honk your horn to signal "WATCH OUT I"M COMING THROUGH THIS INTERSECTION" and then proceed. seriously.

4) Helmets are not needed except to protect the eyes from dirt. not needed for anything like, oh, i don't know, protection from head injury. please only use them when on dirt roads. paved roads are fine w/out a helmet.

5) i have a burn. from a motorbike. which one of the french guys says won't go away. ever. shit. if you are american don't ride on motorbikes. or at least take note of where the piping hot exhaust pipe is.

2nd random thought: the Nguyens
the nguyens of the world are out of control.


there are many many many streets named nguyen

i have dated 2 guys with the last name nguyen

one of those guys brother is now dating a girl with the last name nguyen.

since when did the nguyens start taking over the world???


also, happy thanksgiving

sacredness

In 2 days I have "done" Cambodia. I guess it's true in the sense that I have seen the 5 "best" of Angkor Wat's temples including sunrise and sunset at the Angkor Wat, I've eaten the typical Khmer dishes, I have traveled on the worst of highways I've ever been on checking out the cambodian countryside, I have spent the nights at 2 dollar hotels drinking Angkor beer, I've gone to the killing fields and the S-21 detention center, and i've been whizzed through the two biggest cities in cambodia on motor bike.

But how do you even start to digest so many things? I mean imagine it. One day I was watching the sunrise at Angkor Wat, the largest religious structure in the world and one which at times like that sunrise felt very sacred, and the next I was standing in front of the entrance to the Killing Fields in Phnom Penh, outside of which stood a sign which read 'please respect this sacred ground.' So here I was caught in between two very different sacreds, trying to digest what the last two days have meant for me.

Austin asked me the other day how much money it would take for me to kill someone. Besides being completely caught off guard, it started me thinking about how far I would go to protect the people that I care about. I responded that I could never envision killing someone to which he questioned, what if they were threatening someone in your family? Aha, so now they were definitely evil (as defined by anyone wanting to ever kill my fantastic family), well.. to that I responded, yeah, maybe I would.

So is that it? Can we define evil as someone who would kill families for no reason and then combat that by killing them?

But what if, in order to save my family I had to kill people who were innocent?

That was the question which weighed most heavily on my mind today when I stood in front of a tower of 9,000 skulls and walked through classrooms which had been converted into tiny brick cells.

What made people join the Khmer Rouge? Was it a desire to save themselves and their families? or did they really believe that the Khmer Rouge was in the right?

what would you do in that situation? If you had the choice between murdering a little child or someone else murdering you and your child?


I lit a candle in front of the sacred memorial and entered inside to see the skulls, aware that had I been who I am now, coming from an educated family full of professions, in Cambodia at that time, I and everyone I loved, probably would be dead.