"Goodbye, Vietnam."

Since water still flows, though we cut it with swords And sorrow returns, though we drown it with wine, Since the world can in no way answer to our cravings, I will loosen my hair tomorrow and take to a fishing boat. - Li Po. Let's get through another one quick as we can. After Hoi An, I bussed down to Nha Trang and spent a few days relaxing on the beach and exploring the areas and towns around there. Nha Trang really was just a beach town, much like many others I have been to, and for times sake, I will skip most things. I ended up in Saigon early one morning and with my bag walked the next three hours from the bus station looking for a hotel. Hotels were a bit pricier in Saigon, but I did find a room for $8 a night and after climbing with my bag still on my shoulders up five flights of stairs to view the room, I was too tired to walk back down and continue looking. The cheapest rooms are always on the top floor, and often my room was the only room on the top level. Of course, high up you have better views and often more privacy, but with no elevators and steep, tall staircases, high up also means a climb and a bit more heat. I walked that city a lot, visiting the various museums in the city, though some were closed for the big holiday celebrations of the liberation of Saigon. I watched some of the celebrations until I tired out. The streets and squares and parks were swarms of people and scooters buzzing like an angry hive of bees. Large bouquets of flowers decorated the city and parades and processions added to the energy of the bustling city. I walked around in the celebrations and at night sat in the throngs of people at a public square with live music, videos, dancers, speakers, and all kinds of revelry. I walked back to my hotel and and from my room watched a fireworks show as I stood out on the balcony perfectly looking over the city and the popping fireworks. I spent a few days there in Saigon, mostly walking the city day and night, feeling the pulsing energy. I visited the Cu Chi tunnels, a series of underground tunnels used during the Vietnam War. I climbed inside a tank, saw various booby traps used in the war, and crawled on all fours through the immense blackness of a suffocating and cramped tunnel, feeling my way 100 feet across the dirt, unable to see, struggling for breath, my over-sized body squeezing through the tunnel walls with drop offs completely unable to see until my hands felt the sudden drop, unsure how deep the drop went until I moved myself slowly down. Saigon was a crowded and crazy city, much like Hanoi, and I was both glad I visited and not sad I left. I enjoyed much of Vietnam. I loved Sapa and Halong Bay, the rice terraces, and crumbling colonial buildings. I like the craziness, and loved seeing people still dressed in traditional clothes and living traditional lives. Old women hauled heavy loads strapped to sticks across their shoulders. Young women in silk robes and pants rode around on bicycles, and there is a charm to the country, part of their old lives they have not yet given up. From Saigon, I began a journey through the Mekong Delta, a few hours bus ride from the city. The Mekong Delta is the rice basket of Vietnam. It is miles of waterways and swamp land and an omnipresent green. I started by visiting a few islets in the river where they make coconut candy, honey, have fish farms, make rice paper noodles, or have tropical fruit orchards with colorful flowers and small villages and plump fruit hanging ripe on drooping trees painted in the wet of soft rain and morning dew. I rode a bicycle around one of the islets through the local villages and the dirt paths and narrow, bumpy roads. There were small ponds and streams leading through clusters of thick trees, hidden waterways of soft silver in a dense forest of jungle. I traveled on boats both big and small to get through the waterways of the Delta, up streams too narrow for two skinny canoes to pass without squeezing against each others' sides. Trees drooped down and over the water of small channels as a woman squatted at the front furiously rowing up stream. We passed the large floating markets where each day hundreds of boats load produce and various goods onto their decks and roofs and anchor or drift in the river and sell their gods to boats passing by. Large barges and canoes, heavy with loads of vegetables, rice bags, clay pots and more, or simply a father and son tandem out selling bottles of cold water and coke to shoppers on boats all floated around waving you in or chasing you down. I spent a few days there in the Mekong Delta, sleeping in cozy hotel rooms. I climbed the steps of a small mountain to a Buddhist temple with a series of tunneled caved leading to prayer and offering rooms. The front of the temple stood out above the valley overlooking miles of green rice fields and the hillside was lightly speckled with trees showing deep red leaves, the color of a vibrant Autumn. When I left Vietnam I took a four hour boat ride up the Mekong River to the border of Cambodia, waited for 90 minutes, and then switched to a more uncomfortable boat for another five hours up the river. It seemed every small village on the river, the kids furiously waved their hands and screamed hello and many villages were complete with happy and giggling children playing and splashing in the river. The boat was long and hard on the butt, but relaxing and pleasant with Vietnam's and Cambodia's countrysides floating slowly beyond. At the end of the boat ride there was a 90 minute van ride in to the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Pehn. We lazily passed more countryside with endless grasses and farms shining bright and golden in the slowly sinking sun. It was simple countryside, beautiful in its lushness, scatters of trees through farms and small villages. It is amazing how beautiful a simple field can be and when masked by the rays of a soft sun, it can be extraordinary. I passed through such scenes into a large and crowded city, dirty and shattered, polluted and hectic, but with a pleasant series of squares and parks downtown with monuments and temples on near every block. Locals gathered in mass to all parks, power walking, socializing, eating, and playing games with friends and family. It was one of the more enjoyable things in the city, people watching in the city. The city had many areas where there was no real effort at maintaining cleanliness and the city became a scattered hoard of crumbling buildings, people, and garbage. I shared a room the first few nights with a Dutch guy I met on the Mekong River. He took a hooker to the room, had sex with her, and when it came time to pay, he refused and said he doesn't pay for sex. Needless to say she was pissed and spent much of the night complaining to me because she thought I was his friend. It is pretty low to cheat a hooker out of her "fee" after the service has been performed. I'll write more of Phnom Pehn and its main sites soon. Now, time for me to sleep and rise again early for another day in the desert.