saigon surprise

the surprise about saigon (for me, anyway) was that it was actually a lovely city. i had been expecting lots of dirt, begging, pushiness and ridiculous crowds, and we got none but the begging. we arrived at the airport, and had another quintessential vietnam moment with our taxi driver. we walk up to the taxi, see it says 'meter' and get in. the taxi driver asks where we're going and pretends not to know where it is. he drives around the corner and stops the car and then tells us he's not going to use the meter and we will pay him $7. in my first assertive move since arriving in hanoi, i open the door of the taxi and startto walk out. he then turns on the meter, but tells us we have to pay him $5. i am pretty sure he drove around the city until he hit $5, but that's what it ended up costing. sneaky little bastard...

the hotel, on the other hand, was lovely, right on nguyen hue blvd, which looks a little like the champs elysees. so pretty! and the city--beautiful! they even have CROSSWALKS! despite the fact that hanoi is called the paris of asia, i think saigon was much more parisian. at least in our neighborhood. it has wide streets with trees and parks, and it's all very clean. o, clean, how i have missed you! the people seem very laid back, and the drivers aren't completely insane...

and, most importantly, they had western food. tim and i porked out in saigon, and ate only one vietnamese meal. we had some kind of western krap (sitting next to a guy wearing a team usa shirt--o gawd), a british pub meal where i got a goat cheese salad (o, glorious goat cheese, how i worship at your altar of love!), a vegetarian meal (i had a bean burrito! o, bean burrito, my not-at-all-clandestine lover!), an indian feast (which tim deemed the best food we had in all of vietnam), an italian meal, and finally, on our last night, a vietnamese meal at a beautiful little place around the corner from our hotel.

the problem with saigon is that you do see more poverty than in the other tourist hubs. we saw quite a few landmine victims (including one man in a wheelchair without any limbs at all. none.) and in the backpacker neighborhood, we saw some kids begging, but they didn't seem too aggressive about it. in all, there wasn't much begging at all in vietnam, which surprised both of us.

another problem is that there are lots of americans. saigon seemed to be the middle-aged tour bus capital of the world. i don't know if they were american soldiers returning, or what, but they were everywhere and they were LOUD. for example, i was trying to take a pic of the people's committee building, and there were some tourists standing in front of the statue of uncle ho. to be fair, they were standing there for ages and they kept swapping places to get different shots of themselves. i was patiently waiting until an american guy came up next to me and started complaining and then started YELLING at them to get out of the way. another guy came up and joined him, and when they got the two women to move, they then started in on another group of people standing in the periphery. ah, america. how proud i am to be your child! there are so many americans in saigon that the local kids speak english with american accents. "madame, ya wanna postcard?"

in other news, we went to the war remnants museum, which was an emotional experience. the museum starts out with a bunch of pictures by kids about war and peace. all i will say is this: either adults painted those pictures, or vietnam has the best elementary art program on earth. the rest of the main museum is a catalogue of atrocities committed by the americans in the war. american soldiers holding a dismembered vietnamese soldier's torso, a section on agent orange with photos of kids with down syndrome and various other physical and mental defects (including photos of a boy who looked like he was missing a spine), and the crowning glory: two jars with agent orange-infected fetuses. there were two babies in one jar (i didn't get close enough to see if they were conjoined or not) and another one that looked like it had down syndrome. in the napalm section, they had the photo of kim phuc running down the street after she had been bombed. no mention of how she was bombed by SOUTH VIETNAMESE soldiers, though. for some reason, i was really annoyed by that. yes, war is hideous. yes, american soldiers did some completely inhumane things, but don't pretend that they did things that you did, you jerks. the second half of the museum was a section called requiem, and was a collection of photos by photographers who died in the war. it was very touching, but the room was tiny and had about 2 fans, and there were about 40,000 people in there. the whole experience was pretty wrenching, and i lost it in the yard when a man with one leg asked tim to buy books.

if you are morbidly depressed by the war remnants museum, have no fear! entertainment is near! so, remember the squirty eyeball from halong bay? GET READY FOR SQUIRTY EYEBALL, PART 2! our first day in saigon, i was a little dizzy, so when we woke up in the morning, i ate breakfast and went back to sleep. that afternoon, i took another nap because i was feeling cloudy-headed. the next morning, it was even worse. what does perfect husband say? "eh, don't worry about it. you're probably fine. if you go to the doctor and say you're dizzy, he's just going to laugh at you." so i continue on, suffering in silence, and manically popping advil in the hope that i will just grow a new head. by the THIRD morning (when we were supposed to tour the cu chi tunnels), i managed to get to the bathroom, but it took me about 10 minutes to get one trouser leg on. suddenly, perfect husband sees the problem. i am walking like someone who spent 36 hours straight at the bar in gepetto's (only about 1/4 of you will understand that, but those who do will know exactly what i am talking about). so i go back to bed again, and when i wake up, tim agrees to go to the doctor (and you people STILL don't believe he's trying to kill me?). so, we get to the SOS clinic of love, and we get to see the nurse, who is this hilarious guy who's in love with nyc and whose brother lives in brooklyn. hooray! then, we get to see my one true love: the angelic dr. hieu. dr. hieu takes a look at me and diagnoses me with an inner ear infection brought on by an abusive and neglectful husband who made me swim in dirty water. (ok, only part of that is true, but you see what's happening here.) then, he gives me a prescription for DRUGS! man, i love drugs. sweet prednisone of love, how you cured my ear infection and made me walk straight again! so, we talk to the beautiful pharmacist who tells us about her childhood in hue, and gives me some pills (which were decidedly more expensive than the $1 codeine, but what the hell). and then, we go back to the hotel and watch HBO. so for now, i am alive, but stay tuned for the next violent attempt on my life!