saigon

edit: here's some text to go along with the pictures:

So before I forget everything... We arrived in Saigon on Tuesday evening with some members of the party still realing a bit from the previous night's festivities. Not missing a beat however, we went hunting for food after dropping off our stuff at the hotel. Since we were staying in the backpackers district, there was plenty to chose from, but we settled on another bowl of pho from a street vendor. It would end up being our last bowl of pho in Viet Nam, which is really quite sad now that I come to think of it.

The next day, we were quite set on actually doing some sight-seeing, but needed a good meal to start us off. So we stopped in for a bowl of Bun Bo Hue, the spicy beef soup from Hue. Following the Lonely Planet's advice, from there we made our way to the fine arts museum, which was a nice french colonial building (don't worry, we didn't actually go in!). Unfortunately, it started raining slightly soon thereafter, so we stopped for a cup of coffee which unfortunately did not really seem to make the rain go away. In any event, we continued on towards the reunification palace - headquarters of the south vietnamese government during the Vietnam/American war. Though the building itself was really quite hideous - straight out of the 50's/60's, the interior was quite interesting to visit, with everything from stately meeting rooms to a movie theatre and game room with billiards and a bar (fortunately for us not operational). It's also always fascinating to see buildings that were so central to the war.

From there we continued on to the War Remnants Musuem, which offered a fascinating, if slightly biased, view of the American (as it's called here) War. One exhibit in particular, which contained many photographs taken by reporters and photographers was particularly captivating. Other parts of the exhibit which showed the effects of napalm bombing and the use of agent orange were downright deppressing. Definitely worth seeing however. We finished the day at a fancy hotel, drinking Tigers beers on the rooftop with a nice view of the city all around us. That night Haskell started feeling slightly under the weather, with all the streetfood finally catchin up to him a bit. So after dinner we joined Trinh, whom I had met last time in Saigon, for a quick drink near our hotel. She had another American friend in town, and took us all up to a nice balcony on the 5th floor of a bar. Quite relaxing.

The next day, Haskell headed off to the Cu-Chi tunnels on his own. I had visited the tunnels last time I'd been in Saigon and instead took care of financial aid and health care stuff for school - oh the joy! The Cu-Chi tunnels are a set of tunnels that the north Vietnamese resistance foces used to hide from the Americans and get very close (and under) some of their bases. You really get a sense of their determination when you realize that they lived in these tunnels for weeks and months at a time. It's well worth a visit if you're in town.

Friday was our last day in town, so we were both somewhat unmotivated to do a whole lot with the travelling we'd be doing later in the evening looming. So we headed on a leisurely walk towards Saigon's Chinatown. There wasn't much to see there because in the end it was all quite similar to the rest of Saigon. So after one last meal at a random little restaurant, we hopped on two motorbike taxis and made our way back towards the hotel were we seperated ways after another coffee. I was off to Malaysia while Haskell had a nearly 3-flight, 40 hour trip back to
Boston ahead of him.

My flight was rather uneventful other than the fact that when I arrived in Kuala Lumpur, Bank of America decided that an ATM withdrawal at the airport constituted a suspicious activity and decided to lock my account, leaving me without any cash. Of course not realizing this had happened, I tried every single ATM in the whole airport. Luckily I had 20 US dollars in my wallet and was able to make it to my hotel and make a $10 call to BoA to tell them what idiots they are. Needless to say, this all put me in quite the good mood. So anyway, now I'm in Penang staying with Ravi's family. Penang is a small but very developed island in northern Malaysia renowned for its good food. So far I've already eaten some Chinese and Indian specialties and will undoubtedly try more in the next couple days. Speaking of which, I'm starving so enough babbling, I'm off.