Friday, March 16, 2007

Sigh, Yawn.

Saigon! The city so nice, they named it twice. Ho Chi Minh City, as labeled only by public officials and postmen, is honking, sprawling, madness of a town. Unfortunately, we've been through more than a few of those already this trip and they all tend to blend together after a month of traveling. We're tired. Tired of trudging around town, fending off touts, tired of breathing dust and exhaust, tired of dodging scooters left and right. Sorry Saigon, you got the short end of the stick. I'm sure if we had come here first, all of your history and culture would have been novel.

Walking around last night, a few things stood out. Gosh, everything is double the price from last week and man, there are a lot of hookers. I don't know if thinking 'man, there are a lot of hookers' is something that they can reprint on their tourist brochure, but it probably isn't an aspect to hang your hat on. In all honesty, it could have been my misunderstanding of how friendly the heavily made-up and scantily-clad young women sitting outside of bar / discos were acting. Take Philly, the city of 'brotherly love'... perhaps first-timers there think that it is a gay mecca. One just gets the sense that the integration / exploitation of middle aged American men with the Vietnamese is much more ingrained here. I didn't get the same vibe from Hanoi. There are many bars by the big hotels that look straight from outta the movies, with bad lighting and young women keeping shop, waiting to console their sullen G.I.s, just back from tour and missing their girls back home. Think Paris Hilton, as opposed to Hanoi Hilton. Hanoi had a sense of class that Saigon lacks. Saigon seems to be more brazen, aggressive, sluttier.

There are no young children anywhere to be found in Saigon this week, for fear that Angelina Jolie is going to come and kidnap them. It is like when King Herod wreaking havoc, killing young children all across the land in attempts to vanquish Jesus. We've found that in every third-world country we've visited. Mitsubishi even has a brand of people mover named the Jolie (pictured), with enough cargo space to store a half-dozen orphans. Every mother, every young child fears abduction by Angelina Jolie. They usually run screaming at the sight of a brunette American woman (like Peggy) approaching them on the street. One woman did a total double take when standing next to us on the corner. Maybe we will see Angelina and B-rad on the flight home tonight... how much do you think we could get for a first-born Canadian / American baby?

Today also marks the 39th anniversary of the My Lai massacre, which happened up the coast near the town of Hoi An, where we just were. As such, this afternoon we visited the American War Crimes museum, recently renamed the more approachable War Renimants Museum. It was a very humble but powerful chronology of the effects of all the bombing, battles, chemicals and destruction. Much was made of the international protesting (at the time) against U.S. military action here. It was certainly worth a look around and very appropriate given the date as well as current events.

posted by ncawthon at 7:59 PM