..20.. ho chi minh city

arrived in ho chi minh city (saigon) yesterday, and found a home to stay at, which rents out the 2 upstairs bedrooms. it's crazy to walk into a tiny alley, past families having dinner in their homes, into a vietnamese home (where the kids are watching simpsons!?!), and go up to my room. this is a good place.

explored the city today. seas of motorcycles flow in unlikely directions, easily navigating around the occasional bus, random-walk pedestrians, or mid-road food stands. with all the transit chaos, one might expect to see accidents constantly, but that's not the case: everyone is fully aware of their surroundings - people are actually paying attention instead of blindly following rules! because almost all people in transit are aboard motos rather than cars, there's a certain intimacy with the strangers of the city in a similar, but faster-paced, manner to a crowded subway. we took a 30-minute ride out to Dam Sen amusement park, which was filled wth families and dates. our driver was a fun lady about our age, and we sat 3 on the moto. we contrasted the park with a visit to the War Remnants Museum (vietnam war). it was hard to look at all the combat and aftermath pictures and to realize how far off-base we had gotten. there were photos of terrified, huddling families, with a caption from the photographer reading "I asked the GIs to wait, took a picture of these people, and heard them shot as I walked away" I'm reading 'Understanding Vietnam' (Neil Jamieson) to get a better idea of how things got this bad.