Vietnam

I'm happy to report that I manged to get in one last trip before leaving Taipei, a 6 day visit to Saigon and the Mekong Delta, and I had a blast. I arrived the afternoon of the 29th, met my friend Dave (who I was staying with) for lunch, and spent the rest of the day wandering around Ben Thanh market and the shops on Dong Khoi street. Saigon is a great place to shop for furniture, silk, lacquerware, and purses. It's probably a good thing I don't have extra room in my bags otherwise I would have been tempted to buy all sorts of stuff... Crossing the streets is an experience though, every time I did it I felt like I was laughing in the face of death. There aren't a lot of traffic lights and people just kind of drive around each other at intersections. If you want to cross the street you have to walk out in the traffic and keep on walking in a straight line while the cars and motorcycles zoom around you. I was a little freaked out the first few times, but used to it by end of my trip.

On Friday morning I headed to a travel agency at 8 am to start a 1/2 day tour to the Cu Chi tunnels from the Vietnam War. There were about a dozen people in my group and we traveled to the tunnels via a 2 hour speed boat ride up the Saigon River (way better than sitting in a bus). The weather was hot but fantastic and the boat driver let me sit on the bow which made it even better because not only did I get a really nice breeze but all the little kids we passed would yell and wave which was fun. After arriving at the tunnels we watched a short video on the war (lots of talk about the "American devils" attacking innocent Vietnamese villagers) and then walked though an exhibit of various booby traps used by the Vietcong. Let me tell you, those traps are very simple but extremely brutal. Then it was off to a firing range where you could fire an AK-47, M30, or another big gun. I would have done this if I could have bought just one bullet, but you had to by rounds of 10 so I skipped it. At the end we got to crawl though the tunnels, either just level one, or levels one and two. Even though the tunnels have been widened for tourists, they're still tiny. I could crouch and walk through level one, but I was on my hands and knees in level two. The tunnels stretch for miles and it's pretty amazing that they were dug by hand and that Vietnamese soldiers spent several days at a time in them.

On Saturday Dave and I set off on an overnight tour of the Mekong Delta, southwest of Saigon. The Mekong Delta is an extensive network of rice paddies and canals that produces about 2/3 of rice consumed in Vietnam. During our two days we explored the area by boat and bicycle and checked out the sights including a local floating market and a brick factory. There are a ton of brick factories in the Mekong and it doesn't look like the process has changed much in the last 100 years. Clay is dropped off at the factory, mixed with some ash, then extruded to form the bricks. A woman with a wire frame cuts the bricks to the proper length and then they're stacked in a wheel barrow and moved into the sun to dry for 3 days. After 3 days they're moved into giant brick kilns where they're fired for a month using rice husk for fuel. One thing I noticed about the brick factories (and the rice paddies, and just about everything else) is that most of the workers are women. A couple of guys were mixing the clay, and I saw guys fixing boat motors or working on motorbikes in the towns, but mostly they just seemed to be sitting around. Not cool.

As I mentioned, we did an overnight tour so Saturday night we stayed in the home of a local family. Like many homes in tropical climates, the house was open to the outside and didn't really have doors or sealed windows so lizards and bugs run around everywhere. The "shower" was a small brick enclosure with a cold water tap and a bucket, and the toilet was some boards suspended above a small pond, typical of the Mekong Delta. But the family was friendly, we got some pretty good local food, and as an added treat, some liquor out a bottle containing a baby cobra. Tasty. Sunday evening we returned to Saigon and although I enjoyed the tour of the Mekong, I was happy to be back in the city.

Monday and Tuesday and I did more window shopping and spent some quality time at the spa. $6 for 90 minutes massage?! Sign me up. I got a 90 minute massage, an hour facial, a french mani and a pedi, and my armpits waxed for a grand total of $35. The facial was the most expensive part since it required the use of various products, but what a deal! I manicure alone would set you back that much at some places in the States. Vietnam, and Thailand, are great places for pampering.

Anyhow, I really like Vietnam and would like to go back and explore Ha Long Bay and some of the beaches one of these days. But for now I'm counting down my last 10 days in Taipei and plotting my next adventure.