So what have you been up to?

It seems necessary to throw in a few travelogue-type posts every now and then. As we walk/ride around and see/experience all these new things, we make comments to each other like, "that man alone could be a post on our blog" or "did he really just say that? I could write for pages on that opinion of the USA. I wonder what other people think about that." But it seems as if those posts need some context. So this is a context-driven update, I suppose! [Also, now you can check the weather of our current location and see that it is 28C and scattered thunderstorms (as opposed to the 30C and scattered thunderstorms of last week...). In fact, if you look it up on weather.com, you will notice the perfect monsoon symbol for tomorrow- half a sun showing behind a dark grey cloud with rain pouring from it and perhaps even a lightning bolt.]

So where exactly are we? Well, what time are you reading this? We are right now in the middle of Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), awaiting an overnight train to DaNang. Vietnam is a very, very long and narrow country and DaNang is near the middle (and near the lovely town of Hoi An), so we decided to splurge on a sleeper train rather than try to sleep on a bus.

(briefly?) where we've been and some comments on Cambodia...

As you may have noticed, we made a fairly speedy trip through Cambodia. We made that crazy border crossing and then spent a few days in Siem Reap, the city close to Ankor Wat. Ankor was, of course, amazing. The ruins are impressive, even and especially after 900 years. Some are covered with moss and trees, while others have been carefully cleared. We wandered our way through them... it feels strange to be allowed to climb up and around and over without fences or signs. We also enjoyed a nice hike up through the jungle to a beautifully carved river bed- the Kmers created beautiful patterns right in the rock under the water! One thing we learned in particular that day was to always check a tuk-tuk for rain screens. We knew the journey out to that particular site was a bit further away, so we were too busy checking the bike out to notice the missing rain screens and impending clouds. The road there was extremely bumpy. The road back was extremely muddy... and wet! We were soaked... but it was kinda fun in a way (or so we told ourselves). The rain is welcome when it's so warm.

We then took a bus from Siem Reap to Pnom Penh, the capitol of Cambodia. We spent a lovely day walking around, strolling along the river, visiting the national palace and national museum and the disturbing Tuol Sleng (S-21) prison museum. It was a bit sad to see these two extremely important museums in a bit of disrepair because the country offers little if no public funding, compounded by a lack of qualified historians/restorers/administrators. I don't know about Cambodia, but in Vietnam some moto drivers make a higher salary than teachers. Tuol Sleng is an old high school the oppressive Kmer Rouge regime turned into a detention and torture center in the 60s and 70s. It was a horrible place- amazing to us that such atrocities occurred so recently. It means the people we saw on the street, met and talked to, bought fruit from, had been forced to evacuate the city and move to rural work camps, had lost many relatives, had practically starved, had perhaps been tortured themselves... We found a childrens book in Kmer about a little boy running into a field after a stray soccer ball. A land mine went off, and he lost his leg. It told how he recovered and still plays soccer with his crutches. Moral of the story: obey the signs and stay where it's safe. Can you believe that? A regular children's picture book...

We had a few conversations with Cambodians about being american and how lucky we are. I cannot begin to get into it now, but lets just say they are right- we are so fortunate!

That brings me to today, actually, as we visited the CuChi tunnels and the War Remnants museum in Saigon. Full of horrible pictures and US military equipment, the museum made us a bit hesitant to admit that we were americans. The text was noticeably biased, of course... again, another conversation. The CuChi tunnels were amazing- the VietCong spent weeks in these tiny, hot, humid underground networks. I cannot imagine being a foreign soldier fighting in this climate/landscape.

The last few days, we've been in the Mekong Delta, visiting floating markets, rice, rice paper, and coconut candy factories, and enjoying being on a breezy boat. It's been fun here in the south, but we've heard such great things about the North that we are looking forward to moving on!