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Other entries in Saigon

the good and the bad

first off, check out photos below. yip, that's me shootin an M16. I mean c'mon...when will I ever get that chance again?? I'm doing my part in wasting military surplus for good, not evil (depending on your morals).

my last day in HCM city was immersed in stories about war crimes, birth defects, hard-to-look-at photos, all stuff that we and the french have imposed on the viet nam people over the past50 some years. first a visit to the cu chi tunnels the VC used to avoid US troops. then the war museum full of amazing photos I've never seen before.

it was pretty eye opening. for one, becuase I pretty much slept through high-school history, and for two, what history I caught was produced by the US propoganda machine. so this was highly educational and little surprising some of the similarities between here and now iraq. obviously "we've" learned little....

but enough politics....I had my first meal that was so bad I couldn't finish it. and it *wasn't* the crab chowder that actually had no bits of crab in in, lots of minced meat sausage (scary cause you never know what it WAS before it got minced) and - the tasty surprise floating in the bottom - congealed blood. nah, this soup was actually pretty good. it was the burrito I ordered for dinner later - blech! there's very few places that get mexican food right outside the US...I gotta stop ordering it!

and a footnote: something thats become so common place, especially being female, blond, traveling alone, is getting stared at. maybe it bugged me a little a while ago, but it hardly phases me at all now. I walk into a shop and have a sales girl walk 1 step behind me the ENTIRE TIME. looking at a map on the sidewalk brings on a minimum of 5 moto bike guys hovering, hoping you'll need a ride. my favorite staring moment of any, tho, is being the only person in a restaurant.

since restuarant staff is cheap (or family), most places have 6-7 people working at any time. and since I just can't get myself on local food schedules, I'm usually eating at odd times (yeah, odd as in 6 or 7 pm...that's SO not odd.). the other night was the best. 6 guys all waiting on me, watching my every move. when I walked in, they switched the music from bad 80s rock to even worse 80s ballads - I'm guessing they thought that was more my speed?! sandwiched in between was the perfect trasition piece - "who let the dogs out" - who knew. (and think about it - with all the bootleg music around, you'd think they'd stay a little more current....)

so my cheap meal was like fine dining - drink some water, get it refilled. drop a chop stick, get a new one. it took no effort to make eye contact and get the bill - they were staring at me the whole time (I know becuase I saw their reflections in the window ;). god help me if I had a rice crumb on my chin - now that would be embarrasing. I left by saying "goodnight, thanks, it was delicious" to no less than 5 people (2 were already in back cleaning up).

so stare at me all you want, as long as I dont have rice on my chin, I'm OK with it.

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