8/8/00 -- Vietnam

I am starting to pack and prepare for the move to my new home. As I was cleaning out my trunk I found an old journal. This is the journal I used as I traveled around South East Asia in 2000. I thought I would share one of my entries.


I'm on a plane to Denang. I'm thinking of the vignettes of Ho Chi Mihn City -- Saigon. The street food vendors outside of our hotel who changed every hours. You'd walk out the door and see breakfast - Pho (a delicious broth of beef and noodles) or baguettes. Go out for a walk, return and see another vendor in their place selling something which smelled equally delicious. Go upstairs, nap, shower or change and he or she'd be replaced by someone else -- it was a constantly evolving, but repetitive cycle. It seemed like the sidewalk was a kaleidoscope.

I will also remember the children on the streets. "Would you like some chewing gum, madam?" I'll remember the little girl who gratefully kissed my hand after I bought a 3000 dong pack of gum from her and gave 1000 dong to her friend. It meant so little to me. I feel bad begrudging the children, old women, crippled men begging for some charity when I run out of stores clutching bags of fine silk. I spend hundreds of dollars and don't want to give 14 cents to someone who's hungry. The problem is that there are so many who are hungry. Buying from one does not make the others go away. Rather more come crowding around, crying louder "some chewing gum, Madame?" "Some postcards?"

At first it felt like they were pirahnas who'd first tasted blood. They sensed a full foreign wallet, a sucker waiting to be bled dry. Now I'm more sympathetic. They're just responding to hope. There's always a chance you'll buy more.

I still can't give to everyone. I should give more. My lesson for this trip should be charity -- generosity for a land my country helped devastate.

Anyway, I have more vignettes from Saigon. There were so many sights. The city is a hodgepodge, a blast of sights, sounds, and experiences -- cyclos, conical hats, noise, pollution, energy. I wouldn't want to live there, but I feel like a better person for having seen it.



Statue of Ho Chi Mihn


Saigon View


Don't I look Vietnamese?