A lazy day

First before we get into what this whole is really about, THE REDSKINS WON!! Go figure. They can't stop the bad teams, but when it comes to the highest scoring offense in the league, they smack 'em right in the kisser. I'll never understand this team. They play their best football for nothing...sigh.

Anyway, today is my last day in Saigon, and I'm taking it very easy. I got out of bed around 9am and watched the first half of the Colts game before wandering outside for some breakfast. Found a great place, La Cantina, which serves a mean western style breakfast. I have to catch a train tomorrow at the ungodly time of 6:15 am, so I'll probably be in bed fairly early.

Yesterday was spent on a one-day tour of the Mekong Delta. It was pretty interesting, in that we saw a coconut candy factory (oddly situated in the middle of what appeared to be a cemetary). The tour also touted it's honey bee farm, which turned out to be one dilapidated hive next to the candy factory. They also had a boa constrictor for people to hold and take pictures with. It's really amusing to watch how squeamish people are around snakes. Two girls in my tour group wouldn't take pictures wit the snake unless I held it. It was quite funny. The last part of the tour was taking small canoe-like boats up a channel through the bamboo groves to another little tourist hideaway (trap) to eat local fruit and be serenaded with traditional Vietnamese music, which included a two-string banjo rendition of Jingle Bells...sigh).

After that, we hopped on our main boat and headed back to the bus to take us back to HCMC proper. I would've enjoyed this trip more if they had skipped the touristy parts and just stayed on the river. For one, it's much cooler on the river, second, I would've rather floated around in the bush. But that's just me. The other problem with this tour was the 4 hours spent on the bus (2 hours each way up and back), but again, for $6, who am I to complain.

Well, I'm off to find a place in the shade to drink a few beers and watch the traffic. For those of you who haven't been here, traffic in HCMC is...is...intense? No...mind blowing might suffice. I'm amazed by the simple fact that I've seen no accidents. Crossing the streets is an exercise in calm. It's almost zen-like. If you hurry, you're gonna get creamed. You have to move at a moderate, patient pace, with motorbikes and cars whizzing by you on all sides and from literally all directions. The key is not to stop. You keep moving and the drivers adjust (most of the time anyway) to your direction. And I thought Bangkok was crazy. Ha!

See y'all on the flipside!