A Two-wheeled Rocket

Forgive me if this posting seems a bit ineloquent or meandering. Despite my best intentions I again did not get any sleep last night and am starting to suffer from the effects. I tried dozing for a couple hours this afternoon but with the AC off I was soaking through my clothes and couldn’t sleep. As I got out of bed I felt drunk–this despite not having touched a drink since the previous night. I just ate and want to catch everyone up before my next adventure (Phnom Penh–tomorrow!) I’m not even going to bother proof reading this article.

I missed the morning bus ride to Cu Chi; the location of the war-era VC tunnels. But a friendly motorcycle driver (aren’t they all friendly!) told me he’d drive me anywhere I wanted to go. We settled on 300K dong (about $20) for five hours to Cu Chi back and a mysterious massage place with “very pretty girl.”

The ride to Cu Chi was unbelievable. First, the swarming action of motorbikes here is much like a school of fish. There are hundreds of them to a thousand or more circling and honking at the largest intersections. Automobiles and pedestrians are supposed to bacically ignore them and walk at a steady pace and, like a school of fish, allow them to swarm around and past you. It is a highly unnerving experience from the pedestrian standpoint and entirely terrifying from the back of one of the bikes. The pedestrians aren’t the problem (fuck ’em!) but the busses and cars moving through this swarm requires the constant attention and evasive maneuvering of the drivers.

Like other major cities of devoloping natioins, Saigon exhudes scents of industrial progress. Exhaust being the first–although the air of Saigon is better than Rome!–and decaying trash often makes itself known. Street vendors are pushing by a wide variety of food but the pressed/dried squid reeks the most. Indistriguishable from the scent of roadkill.

But Cu chi is out in the country and as the cement and asphalt gave way to the fields and jungle, the scent of vegetation, living and dead, was thick in the air. Fires burning rice harvest waste left an incense-sweet leaf smoke in the air. Water buffalo in fields contributed a familiar cattle manure smell of rural America.

The tunnels themselves were a clostrophobic nightmare and an engineering wonder. Just moving through 80m of them in 95 degree temparature made possible with an active ventilation system left me dripping sweat like a wet sponge. I was showed a wide variety of mangling traps constructed from steel, barbed rods created from the ordinance we dropped on the VC. I was fed the same anana leaf tea and tapioca root that their children soldiers survived on for years. And I fired a real AK47. Five bullets for about $7. My ears rang for five minutes.

The ride back was a wonder again but the pain inflicted on my well-cushioned ass became unbearable. You know how your ass gets sore from a few minutes on a horse? Try three hours on a tiny scooter rolling over washboard roads. Jesus, it hurt. But Son (my driver) assured me everything would be fixed as he pulled up to the massage building. It was in the usual market lined neighborhood but on a major road. The windows were all blacked out and front had symbols of hearts and music notes. I stepped off the bike, took a look at it, and told Son to bring me back to the hotel. “You no like massage?” he asked. “Not today, Son.”

I purchased my tickets to Phnom Penh this morning and will head out via bus tomorrow at 9:00 from my hotel (the An An Hotel) in Ho Chi Minh City. It’s a many-hour ride and I’m without reservation at my destination. It shouldn’t be a problem, though, as this doesn’t seem to be “tourist season”. More to come from my next internet connection.