Au Revoir; Viet-Nam

It's our last night in Saigon and indeed Vietnam - tomorrow we leave on a coach for Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and we remain there until about the 5th September and then it's back to Bangkok to unwind before the return flight back to London! We have two border crossings to look forward to, fingers crossed they will be uneventful and smooth. Hours and hours on coaches though; predictably I went through my book far too quickly and have had to buy a copy of an Irvine Welsh book which has been photocopied (blatantly) but is quite legible. Plus I have lots of episodes of Peep Show and films like Apocalypse Now / Full Metal Jacket, thanks to Ben. I watched about half of Apocalypse Now last night and am enjoying it so far, although in the context it's quite hard to take, as you find yourself seeing the Vietnamese as the enemies, because the US troops are essentially shooting anyone wearing a cone straw hat. Which reminds me, it's funny to see that Vietnamese people do actually wear those cone hats in every day life - it's not just a touristy gimmick! Apparently it's to protect them from the sun / keep their skin fair (a sign of wealth/beauty), and so commenting on a Vietnamese woman's "great tan" would NOT be taken well!

So, home time, nearly. I can't believe how quickly it's come around - but I am very much looking forward to it. Although we've managed to find a few home comforts here, it's still no substitute for actually being at home with all of your friends and family with you (and Radio 4..), and actually I love London too much to be away for any long period of time. I suppose it's lucky I'm pretty much tied to London through my new job! Home comforts; namely tonight's dinner, which we ate at the Chabad Centre in Saigon (mum/Sandra, I hope you're proud) - Shakshuka for me, Schnitzel for Ricky - and it was lovely and reasonably-priced, especially for Kosher food. They were really welcoming too, and it was lovely although quite strange to chat to Jewish people in Vietnam (although not as strange as finding Jewish people in Laos - who were then on my flight from Luang Prabang to Hanoi, I don't know if I mentioned that!). Other home comforts have included finding a supermarket today: those who've seen me in an overseas supermarket will know exactly how much joy this brought me, and indeed it did make my day/week.

We arrived in Saigon at 4am on a train (17 hours, I wish that the people we were sharing the berth with understood the meaning of BEDTIME), slept a couple of extra hours, and then went off in search of the War Remnants museum later on this morning. The museum shows the Vietnamese side of what we'd refer to as the Vietnam war. Although I was familiar with the casualty rate and general facts of the war, (from my degree/reading about the terrible terrible history of the region on the aforementioned train journey), I wasn't aware of the fall-out from Agent Orange, on both Vietnamese and American survivors. Of course the museum was very propagandist/biased, but even bearing that in mind, visiting the museum was an extremely harrowing, distressing experience. I feel pretty strongly that America shouldn't have been in Vietnam to start with, and the whole event was absolutely tragic, and certainly the most pointless of all the 20th century wars. Anyway, less politics, Louise. After the museum we visited the Royal Palace and saw the tank that ended the war, still in situ from when it rammed through the gates in 1975.

I owe some of you email replies and I'm sorry I've been remiss, will write back as soon as I get a while on the internet (this has been typed out at breakneck speed). In the meantime, thank you all so much for your very welcome comments/emails, which have made me smile lots.

Anyway, we've enjoyed our short visit to Saigon - it's very bustling like Hanoi, but a bit less stressful. The name "Saigon" conjures all sorts of images, and it has been all that I expected but also completely different. That makes no sense to me, either. Also, you can really see the French influence here in all the architecture and especially the delicious coffee and cinnamon buns. I like to think that all of the schlepping about (my fault entirely, I just like exploring on foot! - my navigation skills have done us well, surprisingly) has helped to burn off any excess calories from the baked goods. Sweet chilli sauce is fat-free anyway, right?

So farewell, Vietnam. It was lovely knowing you, if just for a short while. And we had just about got the hang of crossing the road.

P.S. Thanks for all the pho.

Love,

Louise xxx