noodle quest 2006

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh! it has been so difficult to get online lately and i think i have to come to terms withthe fact that i will probably not be able to post any pictures until bangkok. i have tried to upload my photos from about 25 different un-functional computers at this point. i think i will just burn cd’s and hope to god that they don’t break in my bag. ugh.
okay…. here’s what’s been happening as of late. on the 25th, we said goodbye to dani as she was flying to delhi that morning. jess and i walked around and checked out some new hotels. we had breakfast in some prostitute stomping ground cafe in our neighborhood (pham ngu lao… or something) and then i felt weird and sick. i passed out on some laquer “couch” in a “hotel” lobby and jess scouted out a new hotel for us. it was this super cute little place on a side street with a alcony and it was very clean. then we napped for a while and i recovered enough to eat sushi! it was our most expensive meal yet (about 10 bucks for the two of us) but it was worth it. MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM sushi tastes so good! it was only japanese people there- businessmen upstairs and dates downstairs. then we walked around the dong hai neighborhood for a while popping in and out of bars but realizing that the best entertainment we could have was some snickers bars and vietnamese music video television (not mtv, actually, although they do have that). the next day we had breakfast at a cute cafe and then took a cyclo (bike with a cart) to the fine arts museum. the whole dowstairs was devoted to pierre cardin, some self-obsessed french fashionista who’s photos were mediocre cool. upstairs was the cool vietnamese art with many paintings depicting war stuff but also earlier works. next we went to china town by way of a local bus which was very fun. it was really the winds of sheer luck that blew us to the bus station-correct bus-the right stop-the market. we walked around for a bit and then jess started to feel sick so we decided on some massages at the institute for the blind. that was a total trip. jess was into her massage, mine was bearable but nothing more than that. my masseuse was a young girl with one blond eye and one fake eye that kept juicing out some weird stuff. whenever she would touch me and her hands were a bit wet my stomach would flip. that mixed with the loud radio soap opera they were blasting and some man’s voice that kept appearing in the room in addition to her repetitive pinches of my face made for an interesting way to pass some time but in no way a nice massage experience. ew, vietnamese eye juice on my arms. we were hungry then (obviously, wouldn’t an eye juice massage make your stomach rumble?) and we ate some fried rice patties on the street. mine was stuffed with what i hoped was cabbage but i feared was something else. whatever, ignorance is delicious bliss. for dinner we went to a swiss owned restaurant that trains street children in hispitatlity skills, so the students cook and serve the food in the restauarnt. teh highlights of the meal included some delicious sweet green drink with smoshed peas at the bottom and a japanese man in a full on white elvis suit and sunglasses who was on a very serious date even though he was pretty drunk. his date did not seem to mind too much. after dinner we went home and chilled for a while until we got in touch with Linh (from Mui Ne) and his friend Nom. we went to some very ft. lauderdale-esque bar (they were playing shania twain and there were turquise lights highkighting light pink trees). then we picked up some flowers for LInh’s mom and went to Linh’s house to visit her. his paremts are divorced but she is staying at the husband’s place b/c she needed to go to the hospital in the morning for some complications with her diabetes. i haven’t heard from Linh and i am pretty concerned. Linh’s mom’s place was about 4 meters by 8 meters, she was sleeping on the floor but her apt. had a tv and a door that locked with a clean bathroom which is probably equivalent to US middle class in terms of where that situates her econmoically with other people in Saigon. Vy (Linh’s mom) cut up some delicious mangos for us and then we went to a bar back near our neighborhood after saying goodnight to Vy. Nom and Linh made me eat “blood shells” (ew isn’t that a gross name) at the bar. ugh they were goss, but bearable with some garlic cloves in the same bite. after beer jess was exhaysted and went to bed so Linh and I went for a late night cruise around town which was really nice and fun. it was very sad saying goodbye to Linh. I feel like i learned a lot from him and i find him to be a very special human. I so hope that he gets what he wants out of his life. Early the next morning (the 27th) we went to see the Cu Chi tunnels, which were the vietcongs secret tunnels that they used during the vietnam (here, American) war. However these tunnels were actually built in the 1950’s during the french occupation. during the tour we were shown a communist propoganda film about the tunnels and the plight of the cu chi rebels. this film was distributed to communist countries during the war (Bulgaria, Russia, Cuba, etc) to try and get funding from them. You were allowed to go into the tunnels. i went down in to one of the wells but stopped at that. i really felt uncomfortable with the idea that people died down there and did not want to be underneath the ground in that space. what was most interesting about the day was talkng with our tour guide Thao (pronounced Tow). who fought with the south vietnamese army. it was crazy that he was a tour guide for the cuc chi tunnels. Thao told jess and i a lot about his life on the 2 hour bus ride to the tunnels. after the war, he was sent to a re-education camp for 8 years along with his father and younger brother. this was like a concentration camp and it seems wild and unbelievable that he and his family members came out alive due to random executions, starvation, brutal working conditions, and everything else associated with a spcae dsignated for torture and punishment. he tried to escape on a boat after the war but he was captured. his family was sent home and he was sent to the camp. Thao’s family is still bein gpunished for their involvement with America and anti-communist forces. by communist law, any person involved in anti-communist activities wil be punished along with the followng three generations of that individuals family which in effect means that his children and grandchildren are totally fucked in terms of being able to escape the poverty that they live as they will never be able to hold a gpvernment position which is th eonly stable employment in the country. Thao spoke very fondly of the American’s he worked with during the war and he asked my help in locating some men he worked with which i am going to try and assist him in. It’s really crazy how divided the north and south are, obviously there is uniformity imposed by the government but it doesn’t do anything. Linh, and every other male was required to serve for 2 years in the army. he told me that every day he was just told about who he should hate and why and all of thsi other bullshit. the thing that is the most fucked is that there are no benefits to communism in vietnam. there is no free education, healthcare, food services. The communism practised in vietnam is painfully hypocritcal whereby “workers are paid communist wages to produce products that are then sold at high market prices for a profit to the government” (thao). the market economy that trhives in vietnam is mind boggling when juxtaposed with the ideology that the government preaches. the people in the south are regularly devasted by it and cite the ignorant masses of the north as stupidly propgating this horrible system of hypocrosy and poverty. it is really so messed up and sad. After we got back to saigon we went to the war remnants museum which was startling- many really horrible pictures and some two-headed fetuses in jars derived from agent orange. jess and i went for along walk. there were som many motos out it was unbelievable but somehow the city still seemed kind of peaceful and calm. on the way home we ran into 3 small nearly naked cambodian children on the street. in vietnam, mnay children sell bracelets and jewelery and such on the street. as we can’t buy everything but we want to help we always offer food to them. the vietnamese children have wlays refused food but would take a soda or ice-cream. these cambodian refugee children however wer etruly starving. we took them to a street stall restaurant and sat down at a little plastic table. they ate eggs and snails and were thrilled. within 5 minutes every single poor hungry perso non the street was hovering around. it was really overwhelming and we did not know what to do. i wish so badly that every traveler here would just do a little bit. if everyone could by a few kids some food every day (this would seriously cost no more than 3 dollars) then these poor kids could eat. i really fucking hate some of these self-obsessed travelers who get annoyed at these children. who the hell do they think they are to go to someone else’s country and condemn and critisize these people for the terrible conditions that they live in through no fault of their own. it makes me sick to my stomach. later we sat at an outdoor market and drank our last vietnamse beers until dinne where we ate really delicious lemongrass tofu at a vegetarian restaurant. the next two dys were filled with traveling. we took a boat to a series of changing on and off 3 small boats with all of our stuff until another couple hour bus to some random restuarant that looked like an abandones wharehouse. then back on the bus for another 3 hours to th eborder town of Chao Doc wheer we passed out. in the morning we got on a nother small boat to a fishing village and then got back on th eboat for 3 hours on the delta past wild scenery (tiny bark and leaf houses, swimming children, water buffalo) to the viet border where we had lunch and got our visas without any problem (thank god). we then got on a cambodian boat which took us to cambodia immigration where they processed our visas. then back on the boat for a few hours. jess and i sat in the front of the boat on the outside and read for a while and waved at the hundreds of children along the meking who were waving at us. we wer edropped off at some muddy wharehouse. oh yes, also these past two days every time we got on and off the boats we walked along narrow wooden bridges that felt that it could probaboy not hold us at all. very scary. sometimes we had our backpacks on which made it much worse. so then we walk to this little minibus and take the bumpiest 3 hour ride to phnom penh past wild jungles, stilt houses and ridiuclously elaborate wats (temples) litt\erally sprouting out of the jungle. once at the hotel we run downstairs before we pass out to a restaurant called “Friends” which supports street children in Cambodia and teaches them a range of skills outside of the hospitality sector. we then walked to the palace and saw a strange comedy musical show that was being performed to a seated crowd at the park in honor of the king’s birthday. the king’s birthday celebration started yesterday and goes until tomorrow, lucky for us. after this we took a tuk tuk tour around the city for an hour (moto attached to carriage) then went home. for some reason we were still alive and motivated to move around. well we had been sitting for the past 2 days… any way we went to a crazy supermarket, bought some vodka and mixed drinks in our room. then we went to a cambodian disco which was very fun. we met a group of 10 boys including our first set of cambodian boyfriends, Nasi and Peo, and drove around with all of them for a whil seeing th esight sof pnom penh. at around 4am we came home and slept until 2pm today. then we went to a thai restauarnt in an old khmer house. next i took a moto to internet and jess went for a walk. a met some nice cambodia girls and bough tthem snacks and walked aroun dthe river with them and then tried DESPERATELY to upload some photos. not happening. WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEW! i think i am alllllllllll caught up for now. if you have read until this point you get a prize. tonight we are having dinner at herb’s happy pizza…. hmmm should make the rest of the night rather interesting… then off to the festival/carnival/hammock party by the palace. too bad we never get to have any fun.

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