Goooodbyeee Vietnam

That was supposed to be a play on the movie ''Good Morning Vietnam" starring Robin Williams, hope you got it. We left the beautiful beach town of Nha Trang on another overnight bus for the bustling city of Saigon, or Ho Chi Minh City. Saigon is a very impressive city, and I prefer it to the capital of Vietnam, Hanoi. It is westernized, there's a great backpacker's hangout with excellent restaurants and bars, and, there's so many ghetto Africans living there. Saigon seems to be overall more relaxed; this may sound selfish, but I felt as if everyone's livelihood and well-being in Hanoi depended on me and other tourists taking their motorbike rides, eating in their restaurants, or buying their stupid merchandise. Saigon was a city for itself. Vietnamese people went about in their own business, without hassling tourists at every opportunity that presented itself. For the first time in Vietnam, I saw Vietnamese people eating at an upscale restaurant; and it was lunch, and it was absolutely packed. It's the South Vietnamese yuppie community, I loved it.
While I find Saigon to be a better city than Hanoi, honestly, there's not much to do there. It's the kind of city I'd love to live in, but from a tourist's aspect, it's destinations are sub-par compared to Hanoi. Saigon does have the famous War Remnants Museum and the CooChi tunnels, both of which we visited. They were very informative and mildly disturbing, however, I sort of got sick of the whole Uncle Ho bullshit propaganda campaign. It was funny at first; at the museum's movie they showed clips of American Killer Heros, and referred to the Americans as the devils. I didn't mind that, however, throughout my whole experience in Vietnam, it has seemed like the people here have a blind acceptance for Uncle Ho Chi Minh as their hero because they are striving to find some national hero to cling on to. Uncle Ho does represent resistance to the external influence of the French and the Americans, selfless sacrifice for his country, a life long career of national service, as well as good health, however, the way the people look up to him, it's as if they're not looking at what he did as a leader or what his policies were, they're looking
at him as a savior and national symbol. He was leader for 20 years, and also did some pretty shitty stuff. I think it's dangerous when a country disregards policy for image, and it sort of disturbs me that a lot of young people are embracing Obama in this same way. Not that people don't agree with Obama's policies, it's just that a lot of people don't know his policies, they just know he represents change, whatever that means.
That might've been a little to controversial and heavy to put in a travel blog, so let me tell you about something else- soccer in Saigon. I further applied my learning that anywhere in the country, at 5 pm, people were playing soccer. I had asked around the city about a game, and everyone said that people do not play in the park. I'm not taking my chances, I thought, so I went to a nearby park at 5 to 5, and started looking for a game. And sure enough, it was there. There were a group of tourist policeman, sort of like security guards employed by the government, playing 3 v 3 on a small, narrow patch of patio in the middle of the park. Half the field was underwater, and the other half was covered in a thick mud. The guys were playing with what looked like a mini soccer ball, however, it was really several pieces of bamboo weaved together in a perfect sphere, with screws at several intersections. The guards took my hint of standing next to their game in the "put me in coach I'm ready to play stance"and quickly assigned me to a team. The game was very hard, the refraining from slipping and falling, the type of ball we used, however, the most difficult factor was by far, without sounding like an ass hole, distinguishing who was on my team. They all wore the same uniforms, and sort of looked the same, and I repeatedly would pass the ball to the wrong team ate, only to apologize by putting my arm in the air. I wondered if the guards thought I was not such a great player, of if they really knew what was going on. As the game progressed, guards started taking off their shirts or rolling up their pant legs, which made it much easier to see my teammates. My play improved drastically, I was playing in the middle, and was distributing passes and making connections that made me proud. We played for about an hour, and by the end, I was glad it was over. I was dripping in sweat, my legs were shot. One of the guards rolled up to the game with several iced green teas, and several players insisted on sharing sips with me. We stood there together, juggling the ball in a circle as the final moments of sunlight yielded to darkness, and the bright lights of the city surrounded the park in the distance. All the while, motorbikes and other commuters walking home from work cut through our game, nearly hitting several of us on several occasions. However, our game felt like our own world, and I was sad to leave that night. I returned the next day at the same time, and had an equally amazing experience, this time with a completely new group of players, mostly students. Soccer in Saigon will now be permanently impressed in my mind alongside certain games I've played throughout my career. Not because of the type of play, but like the others, of the people I played it with. I miss my soccer guys in Saigon, as well as my soccer guys back home.
We left Saigon and spent 3 days in the Mekong Delta, which is a massive river system with world famous floating villages and floating markets. It was great, however, I've had a small stomach ailment that won't cease to go away. I don't want to go into details, but it yielded great pain at times as well as hysterical stories which can now be added to my other bathroom follies. Sam, and the other's who I'm traveling with, ate a fish called escolar fish, or "white tuna", and suffered from a different ailment. You can read about that on wikipedia, what's funny is they had the EXACT same symptoms as described, read about it and you'll see why that's funny (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escolar).
Well folks, I've left Vietnam and now in Cambodia. Initial reactions to Cambodia, it's a cool place, very different from Vietnam. I'm getting ready for what will probably be the most depressing day of my trip, a visit to the Killing Fields museum as well as an actual Killing Field. Go wikipedia the Khmer Rouge.
I loved my time in Vietnam, and while I stayed longer than expected and will now not be able to go to Laos or Northern Thailand, I loved every minute I spent in the country. Sometimes things don't go the way they're expected to, and that's what makes life exciting. Still having the time of my life, hope you are to.