Saigon

It's GRITTY here, makes Bangkok feel like we were just at kindergarten. Aspects of the chaos remind me of Delhi, there are almost no traffic lights. You can sense a lot of people are in survival mode, and it's way busier, dirty, hot, crowded. Yet you have all these remnants of colonial french architecture, elegant buildings, French-style cafes. Some people are very kind, but there is definitely a higher crime rate and Lonely Planet book advises to be very aware for bag snatching and pickpocketing, even from children. A lot of the smiles come with the attempt to swindle the most possible cash out of you. I can't say I blame them. We are both open minded about the traveling that lies ahead but feel that our first impression is that there is more hardness, toughness, to the urban Vietnamese than the urban Thais.

There is plenty of physical evidence of the war in the people...I've already seen lots of birth defects in limbs, similar to thalidomide, which I presume is result of fetal chemical exposure. There are also many amputees, people with no feet or legs panhandling, more than I've ever seen before in one place. To this day there remains unexploded land mines in rural areas, some of the people are too young to have been in the war, so I wonder if it was land mines.

I've heard Vietnamese cities are a bit hard...that the joyful traveling really happens in more rural areas. We've been here three days, done some really interesting sightseeing, and head north to a city called Dalat tomorrow. After that, the coastal city of Nha Trang for the beach.

I've been rather forlorn all eveing because I lost my ipod today. I left it in a cafe and didn't realize until our tour bus was well on the way back to Saigon. Impossible to retrieve off a tiny rural island in the Mekong Delta. The bus rides will be way less pleasant from now on. :-( Stupid, stupid girl.

I've been cut off -this internet cafe is closing. I don't have my camera cord with me, so no photos today... more soon.