Heretofore Unshared Observations

Well folks, I'm back in Saigon. I felt bad that I'd be "wasting" a day in Saigon and thought it would be better to go straight to Phnom Penh. Now that I'm here, though, I'm glad. It feel so nice to be back in Saigon with a better attitude than when I first got here. It's also interesting to feel the very stark contrast between Hanoi and here. People here are so nice! In the north I started to feel like "charge you for the lice, extra for the mice, two percent for looking in the mirror twice" (I hope you all have that song in your heads for the rest of the day, just like George Costanza!). People here are nice and helpful. I sat down at a street cafe and the cafe lady sat down and tried to talk to me, even though she speaks no English and I no Vietnamese. Then I got my toenails painted on the street. They quoted one price and then charged LESS, because they thought I was so nice. NIGHT AND DAY COMPARED TO HANOI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! People here want to take you on their motorbikes, but it's like a polite suggestion. They don't drive into you, cut you off and then get mad when you say no.

Anyhoo, I forgot to tell you all that the guide in Sapa read all our palms after getting a little tipsy and taking some hits off his bamboo water pipe (it was tobacco, friends, tobacco). Here is what he told me about my future....(play new-agey music now):
1. I will have one son, one daughter
2. I will be married before I'm 30
3. When I'm 57 I will have something disasterous happen, from which Iwill recover. I will live to be 85. This will really help me plan myretirement savings.
4. I will have many, many boyfriends. They only have 5 years to showup, because they haven't done so yet.
5. I will get lots o' education.
6. I'm very handy, but my friends at Habitat already knew that.

Here are my heretofore unshared observations:
1. The kitchen and the bathroom in many small eateries are the samething. This prompted Krystyna and I to compose a song.
Sung to the tune of "Farmer in the Dell":
"The kitchen is the sameThe bathroom is the same
The kitchen and the bathroom are the same damn thing"
Allow me to explain. The bathroom and the food prep area are separated by an accordion-like door. You squat to do your business and realize that you have just eaten off of the now "clean" dishes sitting in the corner of the bathroom. You try not think about it. Ever.

2. I've seen all manner of things carried on the back of mopeds:
-live chickens, dead chickens
-baskets of live puppies :(
-an entire, unbutchered, dead water buffalo
-refrigerator
-door
-pane of glass
-families of 4 or 5

3. Moving a group of people from one spot to another is mass chaos. It's every man for himself, which confuses me in a communist country. When emptying a bus, there's no polite waiting for the person(comrade?) in the seat in front to get up before you go down the aisle. No sir. No waiting for old ladies either. You have to assert yourself, or you'll never get anywhere. Getting on the plane today, no one even attempted to form a queue to get on the plane. Instead, a mob just pushed itself towards the lady taking boarding passes and everyone hoped they got there first.

4. We have a lot in common culturally with the Canadians, British, Australians and New Zealanders. Call me Captain Obvious, but I'd never hung out with this many people from the Commonwealth before (actually, I didn't even know there was a Commonwealth before...), soI didn't know.

5. I was really freaked out about leaving home. I got here and kept asking myself what the hell I was doing here (why am I here? whathave I done? here? I came here?). Anyhoo, for those of you who think I'm so brave and yada yada, I'm actually just stubborn. I decided to do it, and I couldn't let myself back down, despite being scared,because I'm stubborn. I'm here because I played a game of chicken with myself. I'm pretty sure I won.

6. I've been thinking a lot about how we live in what one could call a post-industrial society. I'm sure someone else has already thought up a better name, but work with me. It's interesting to be in a place where people want the kind of lifestyle we live, to some extent--cars,tvs, money, freedom of movement, stuff--when they have things that we've lost and are now working hard to get back. For example, local markets/fresh, locally grown food, sense of community, etc.

7. Meeting people who are traveling is unbelievably easy when you're open to it. I met some girl who was having her toenails painted next to me and we're going to get a beer later. Everyone's open to making new friends.

8. I noticed this morning in Hanoi, when I was telling people I wa sflying to Saigon, they corrected me: you mean Ho Chi Minh City?
In Saigon, no one calls it Ho Chi Minh City. They correct you: you mean Saigon?
I think the name change must have been a mandate from the north.

9. The cabbie who took me to the airport this morning's cell phone had the same ring as my cell phone.

Two blogs in one day. Holy crap. Consider yourselves lucky. These were the things that were on my mind and I wanted to write them down before they were gone.The next time you hear from me I'll be in the Kingdom of Cambodia.