Ho Chi Minh City

We're now in Ho Chi Minh City (or Saigon as everyone still refers to it as), among the bedlam and cacophany of legions of mopeds buzzing to and fro, their drivers donning plastic hats shaped like batters' helmets and who are subservient to no road rule, since they don't really exist, but perfectly in synch with the chaotic flow and rythm of the streets and alleyways.  Crossing the road here, like the harried frog in the game of "Frogger," might be the riskiest adventure we've undertaken since we started our trip 3 months ago.

Today we visted the War Remnants Museum where the horrors and attrocities of the Vietnam War are on photographic display.  As we walked through the rows and rows of photographs -- which felt more like demonstrative evidence of our crimes --  I have to admit I felt vicariously liable to the hordes of Vietnamese surrounding us, pausing every so often to gain my composure (and to assure myself that I'm not personnally responsible) when overcome with a pang of guilt.  While the museum as a whole had a definite air of propaganda, photos don't lie.

Since my last blog from Siem Reap we've traveled to Phnom Penh and Kampot (in Cambodia) then on to Ha Tien (in southern Vietnam Island) and Phu Quoc Island.  Cloaked in a veneer of respectability, Phnom Penh was surprisingly more pleasant than we expected, the sordid underbelly apparently hidden from view.  Kampot, in southern Cambodia, was delightful.  We stayed in a quiet bungalow on the Kampot river and spent one day on a moped exploring a nearby town called Kep, a pleasant beach town on the Gulf of Thailand.  We had a delicious lunch of fresh crab drowned in a lemongrass and curry sauce.  We were happy to find the Cambodian people in the south, far away from the torrents of tourists stampeding up and down the beaten trail between Siem Reap and Phnom Penh, as friendly as their Lao neighbors.

We crossed the Cambodian/Vietnam border on dusty dirt roads on the backs of mopeds.  We stayed a night in a small town on the Vietnam side called Ha Tien (and, to our disappointment, came up really short in our first bid to eat tasty Vietnamese cuisine) and then took a boat out to Phu Quoc Island for the Christmas holidays.  It is a lovely island with plenty of seafood to nosh on (though for some reason -- my guess is laziness on the chef's part -- the seafood was always served "as is/was," meaning fully intact, which meant we invariably had to work for our meat, something neither one of us is particularly good at).  Our two days on Phu Quoc was the first time since we began our travels that we swam in the ocean and stared out over the sea, sipping cold cocktails (and listening with amusement to bad karaokeed renditions of the christmas carols).  We hope to have more beach time on the tail end of our trip.

We'll be in Saigon for another day then we fly back to Bangkok to prepare for the remainder of our trip. 

Hope all is well.