The Road Warriors: Ho Chi Minh City

I awoke in the midst of the swampy mess that was Phnom Penh. No! What had happened? I was back in the belly of the beast and the traffic had ramped up it's level of insanity to welcome me back. Cars and motorbikes going in both directions in both lanes. Intersections with perpendicular vehicles forming a thatch, no regard for rules. Like I said before, 'if you can fit, you can go' seemed to be the only rule. We rolled into the bus station and they began tossing the bags out of the bottom. No no no!

I disembarked ready to uncork some blind rage when I was directed to a second bus with 'Ho Chi Minh City' written across the top. Oh yes! I played Red Rover with the usual cluster of touts and hopped on. It was big and beautiful inside, the likes of which I hadn't seen since Malaysia. I hoped that this foreshadowed my time in Vietnam.

I slept some more. I think at one point the bus boarded a ferry, but I don't remember. Border crossing was great. Vietnamese nationals kept wedging in front of tourists only to get culled into their own separate line. This glimmer of fairness filled me with hope.

I rolled into tha HCMC just after sundown. A modern city spread out around me in all directions. Traffic seemed sane. It was clean. There were sidewalks. Touts greeted the bus just like anywhere in Southeast Asia, but I didn't feel any of the dishonesty and blatant harassment I received in Cambodia.

I told one driver I wanted a $4 room and he set out dilligently to find me one. And did he ever find me one. See, rooms in HCMC go for around $10 a night on average. What I got for $4 was actually more of an overhead storage compartment. hard to describe, but it was basically a 5-foot tall room nestled in a bulkhead that overlooked the main lobby. A squat little Alice in Wonderland style door marked the entrance. Below the door, but before the floor, was a window that overlooked the front desk area. It was kind of a crummy room, but so damn interesting and cheap, I couldn't refuse. It had a bed and fan anyways, so yeah.

Before I set out to explore the streets, I sat down for some birthday cake with the family who owned the guesthouse. It was the son's 27th birthday and I told him that it was a good age. Nice folk.

Big surprise, I was in the backpacker district once again. Lots of neon signs. Lots of peddlers. Book stores were everywhere selling photocopied books; a first in Southeast Asia so far. $8 for the fatty that is Lonely Planet's guide to China. Good savings. I tried to withdraw some of the local currency but was brisky declined by every ATM I went to requiring yet another email back to dad to help sort stuff out from the home front. A credit card advance prorogued the problem.

I slept in a lot. Goddamn I have been so lazy. What ended up waking me was the cleaning lady barging into my room to get some bedsheets. Only $4 I told myself. Really, at this point in the trip, I've had so many people barge in on me that unless I'm stark naked, I'll just disregard and head back to sleep.

All day I walked around a well-groomed Ho Chi Minh City. I visited the Reunification Palace, the last allied stronghold during the war, and got some good insight into the national psyche. The War Remanants Museum offered even more insight. A war like the Vietnam War, which is already pretty unpopular amongst Americans, is downright maligned by the Vietnamese. Halls upon halls spotlighted the numerous atrocities perpetrated by the Americans during the war followed by a display celebrating the triumph of reunification. As you can imagine, the war is seen as a successfully repelled invasion chock full of tragedy. Vietnamese pride has swelled since, but really, you'd have no idea who won in the end. Although technically a socialist republic, capitalism occasionally pulls strings behind the curtain. Foreign investment, local corporations, skyscrapers. Country seems to be doing rather well, which casts the war, and the utter pointlessness of it in a whole new light.

The next day I booked a tour starting early at 8. I grabbed a cheap baguette for breakfast, a welcome carry-over from the French colonial days. My first destination was the Cao Dai temple in the town of Tay Ninh, about three hours outside of the city. I would have skipped this tour of yet another temple had I not known of Caodaism and it's unique mashup of other religions to form something different from your usual stupa and spire boilerplate. The town of Tay Ninh is the Holy See of Caodaism, like it's very own Vatican, so as you can imagine, it was the prime location to experience it. I wanted to see this unusual creation in action, and I certainly got to as the bus rolled in, just in time for midday mass.

The tourists were ushered onto a balcony inside the massive temple. Bright colours assaulted the senses, and the imagery of an all-seeing eye featured prominently. Practitioners in white garb filed in amidst chants. I had no idea what was happening, but it was hypnotizing. Couldn't really get a hold of the whole religious mashup though. Seemed like your typical cultish behaviour that all religions seem to exhibit. But yeah, hypnotizing.

Back on the bus, the next stop was the Cu Chi Tunnels, a vast network of underground corridors built by guerrilla Vietcong. A stop for lunch gave me time to chat with an apprehensive British fellow. Nothing about the conversation comes to mind. The bus stustered past rubber trees and into the compound a short while later. The tourists filed out and bought their tickets. Our guide kept us tightly corralled. This is generally what I hate about tours. Yes, they're very efficient ways to see places, but being part of a daffy herd strips all of the romance out of visiting any attraction. Less adventure, more field trip. It didn't matter though. The Cu Chi Tunnels were all field trip.

Anamatronic Vietcong guerrilla fighters carved pikes and dismantled Allied bombs. A row of recreated pit traps made everyone wince; some just the men. The guide had a voice that was gargley and sincere yet keen and playful, and he narrated the trip excellently. I got down in a pothole and played Charlie for a bit. There was barely anywhere to move, even for my skeletal frame. Later the whole lot of us crawled through a tunnel that had thoughtfully been widened for us. It went a total of 100 meters, but had people bailing through the escape hatches every 20 meters until only a handful of us trickled out of the other side. I shined my camera tracer down a hidden corridor to reveal a large cluster of bats hanging from the ceiling. Everyone was squeezing through these horribly narrow tunnels, god only knows what kind of havok stirring up a nest of bats would have wreaked.

The tour passed a shooting range that offered guests a chance to try various firearms starting with a handgun and working up to the big bad M60 Rambo cannon. Bullets were expensive so many opted out. The racket was deafening.

After a short film, we all piled back onto the bus and headed back to Ho Chi Minh City. I enjoyed the tour. That night, I would eat a hamburger and drink a beer; reward for my full day of activity. At night I met two fairly innocuous gentlemenand joined their quest to find a happening bar. Nothing materialized unfortunately. We parted without knowing each others' names.

In the morning, I booked an open ticket across Vietnam. $37 covered my transpotation all the way up to Hanoi on overnight sleeper buses, so I rested easy knowing that I had that covered. My last day in HCMC was spent at the Natural History Museum. I ogled tiny dioramas before heading out on an unintentional walkaround of the downtown core. I saw sidewalks cluttered with vendors and parked motorbikes. The notion of a sidewalk has gone completely in the toilet in Southeast Asia. Buildings grew taller and more stately in what appeared to be a financial district. A very tall building under construction peeked out over the others; visible from all parts of the city. I passed a bustling market before ducking under the awning of a pharmacy to escape a sudden downpour. Motorbikes roamed the streets in swarms forming the most abundant and viscous fluid in the traffic formula. I learned how to cross the road on day one, so by then I was a pro. Walk slowly, make sure they see you and don't make any sudden moves, like dealing with animals. I got back to the guesthouse and collected my bag.

That night I loaded into my first sleeper bus and started my long journey up the curved spine of Vietnam