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As one of my sanity-promoting measures, I've been trying to meditate on the train ride home  I try to relax and focus on my breathing.  On the inhale, I say to myself, "just," "breathe" on the exhale.  I try to be aware of the air going into and out of my lungs.  But one thing I've discovered in the last few weeks is that it's become a lot harder for me to concentrate.  My mind is constantly scatting about like a water bug on the surface of glassy water and I can't ignore the thoughts bombarding me.  Worse, my thoughts and feelings are unbelievably volatile.  I see-saw back and forth between hysterical gaiety and tears of anguish. I get caught of up in a jag of feeling helplessly giggly about the ridiculousness of it all: the lawyer who asked a witness in court ‘who is under the direction and control of the dog,’ the yoga instructor who urged us to ‘rotate our hearts,’ etc. I feel frantically creative. I think of things I will paint and how I will finally finish the book I’ve been working on.

Then something demoralizing happens – I realize the approach I was using for something at my job won’t work, or that I’m out of pretzels and my mind throws itself into furious despair. Tears prick my eyes. I think of the enormous unfairness and callousness of the world. Of how, when you’re suffering, there is always some self-righteous prick (in fact, probably the majority) who says it must be your fault. You’re not being positive enough or working hard enough. You’re too difficult to be around. The people who have been unkind or unfair to me parade through my mind. I find myself getting angrier and angrier. Then I think about how many things are my fault and all my failures and I feel helpless self-hatred. Finally despair. It’s unsupportable. I wish I could crawl out of my head.

My mind feels like a wrecking ball – battering and battering at me. I don’t think this anger and despair is only a temporary state that comes and goes like a tide. These negative thoughts do lasting damage. My mind slams into neutral memories, even happy thoughts and taints them with angry suppositions. Later, when I think about what, say, my boss said to me earlier that day, instead of just remembering what she said objectively and neutrally, I also remember what sad and suspicious imprecation I imposed on that statement from my last bout of despair. Then I have to work through those feelings, struggling not to fall back into my turmoil and to separate realities.

If it really gets bad, I look at the white white skin of my wrist and think how there is a spring of red blood under there. I remember how the whites of my eyeballs are so improbably rushing with red blood. I can see the network of capillaries spring out of nowhere when my eyes are bloodshot. The blood is there, even under the smooth, white surface. I imagine falling onto huge blades that would neatly slice me and all my internal complications apart. I think about the top of the skyscraper next door that is always reflecting at me at work from the glass surface of my desk. Just seeing that reflection sometimes brings me relief.

It’s so hard to control, so hard to reclaim a balanced frame of mind. In my little meditation sessions, for example, I try to push my thoughts away and avoid being sucked up by that hurtling train. I imagine a fire in my chest being fanned by each breath I take. I visualize in meticulous detail how it grows, gradually filling my chest with flames, until my thorax glows like a furnace. The warmth slowly illuminates my body, lighting up my abdomen and my head. Finally, even the tips of my fingers and toes glow so that someone watching my train pass could see me even through the steel of the train blazing like an angel.

It is so hard to get there though. Often I can’t do it. But I know when I have managed to focus my mind and get some relief, because within minutes I’m overcome with exhaustion and I fall asleep.

I've been such a basketcase recently.  People at the gym must think I’m insane (well, anyone who’s observed me more than once).  Just for starters, I walk maniacally fast on the treadmill while watching stupid sitcoms (e.g. Scrubs) on my little mini-screen and laughing uproariously at the jokes.  On Sunday, I got to the gym half an hour early for yoga class (supposedly all the chanting in kundalini yoga is supposed to do wonders for depression).  I got an employee to let me into the studio (to ‘warm up’), then shut the door behind me and fell asleep on a yoga mat.  I was awakened by the other class members gently knocking on the glass door.  After they got in, they all wondered if I was ‘OK.’  I said rather curtly that I was just ‘resting.’  Then, I cried all the way through the 10 minute meditation session at the end of the yoga class.  It was quiet crying, so I don’t know if anyone besides the yoga instructor noticed.  She brought me a box of hankerchiefs and told me to ‘let it out.’  I certainly did.  There were huge tears running down my cheeks and pooling up on the mat.  I finally got a hold of myself by the end of the class when I rushed out so that nobody could see my swollen eyes.

My ‘good cry’ really helped my mood though.  Afterwards I felt all light and cheerful for the first time in days.  Crying doesn’t always do that for me.  Usually after crying I feel hicuppy, shaky and fragile as an egg shell.  I considered that having a child is really a wonderful thing.  It’s been one of the big goals in my life, after all.  Most likely everything will work out OK.  Perhaps by the time I’m a mother, I’ll actually be sane enough to be a decent mother.  Somehow I landed a great husband.  I have a good job and I’ve accomplished a lot to be proud of.  So, I walked home with a bounce in my step.

Well, this is the 4^th blessed day in a row that I haven’t been nauseous.  It is so wonderful!  I can’t even properly describe how demoralizing it is to spend the whole, the WHOLE day, feeling queasy.  Those cold sweats and sickening lump in the back of the throat.  The sudden realization that I’d better get near a trash can quickly.  Forcing myself to eat because I know I’ll feel worse if I don’t, but finding the thought of almost any type of food sickening.  The hourly struggle to think of some food that seems a little less unappealing than everything else.  The struggle to think and try to work on tricky little legal issues when I feel sick as a dog.  I hung onto all my little remedies in the hopes that even if they didn’t cure me (because obviously they weren’t curing me), maybe I’d feel worse without them – saltine crackers, popcorn, licking a lemon, biting off a chunk of raw ginger every 4 hours, maintaining hydration, the acupressure bands around my wrists (which made me look either sporty, circa 1983, or that I was hiding a suicide attempt), fresh air, sour popsicles, …

The knowledge that tomorrow will be the same and that I might feel this was for 8 more months.  It is really miraculous to be feeling better.

Of course, now I’ve suddenly become aware of all my other little discomforts which I didn’t notice while nauseous!

I know no one reads this so it’s perfectly safe to talk about my ‘big secret’ – i.e. the pregnancy that may or may not be viable, but in the meantime is very real and VERY uncomfortable.  Of course, all this will be better once we get past the first trimester and we get tests showing there’s (apparently) nothing wrong with the fetus (I hesitate to call it a baby yet).  Then, we can tell everybody.  We can start believing this baby is real.  We can celebrate and think: We’re going to have a family.  The baby will have 10 fingers and 10 toes and from the very beginning we will see that it has its own features and its personality.  And, yes, we will have miraculously created a new human being. 

But, being me and being a worrier, I suspect that I won’t relax into pure joy once we finally hit the 2^nd trimester.  In addition to many other mind-boggling realizations, pregnancy has made me acutely aware of my vulnerability.  So many things can go wrong, so very very wrong in ways that would really really hurt both physically and emotionally.  I could, realistically, still lose the baby at any point.  The baby could die inside me and then bleed out slowly until the doctors induced labor and my body forcibly expelled the remaining chunks.  Jeff and I would both go through mourning for a child we never met.  The risk never disappears entirely. 

Meanwhile, pregnancy is HARD.  It is painful.  I don’t know how bad it will be.  I could have hemorrhoids, gestational diabetes, eclampsia, incompetent cervix, premature labor.  I could be put on bed-rest for the last month or so (which is like a cross between solitary confinement and house arrest).  The delivery might be very bad.  I might push for hours and hours and throw-up and scream and after all that, the doctors still might have to slice me open like a pig to get the baby out.

The baby could be born with problems.  It might not survive.  In fact, every moment for the rest of this child’s life, I will be worried about him or her. 

I am tied to this tenuous little life-form by a lot more than an umbilical cord.  This is quite a scary realization.

A partial list of things on the pregnancy no-no list:

Margaritas

Exercising past the point where I can ‘converse comfortably’ – i.e. exercise

Unwashed fruit or vegetables

Sam Adams

Eating anything that’s been sitting out for more than 2 hours

Lunch meat in any form, which, of course, means giving up sandwiches

Hot baths

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale

Lying on my back

Hot tubs

Soft-boiled eggs

Wine

Feta cheese

Sushi

Farmed salmon

Rare meat in any form

Cranberry martinis (OK, any alcohol, but practically speaking, that means a lot of specific drinks that I really want.  I’ve never craved a beer as badly as I do when coming home after a long day of pregnancy-related discomfort and crankiness)

Ibuprofen

Saunas

Real ceasar salad (because of the raw eggs)

Lemongrass

Pot

Camembert

Second-hand marijuana smoke permeating our apartment through the vents from the neighbors downstairs

Brie

Tuna, except albacore

Really, most fish

Taco Bell (too many e-coli break-outs)

Fumes from most cleaning agents (I guess this gets me off the hook on cleaning)

Nail polish

I caused an airplane commotion on the flight from Hanoi to Saigon.  I pressed a button on the side of my street which I thought would recline my chair.  Instead, it caused a section behind my lower back to rise dramatically, a sort of lumbar support.  It was really uncomfortable, as though the chair were having an erection into my lower back.  Of course, then I couldn't figure out how to flatten the chair back again.  Realizing that spending the rest of the flight with a lump in my back would be agony, I called the flight attendant. She got increasingly frustrated as she tried to explain to me, first, that all the seats were the same - ergo, there could be no lump in my seat and, secondly, that that button didn't work.  Of course, the language barrier didn't help.  Finally, to prove it to me, she pressed the button on my neighbor's seat.  To her surprise, his lumbar support popped up.  Various flight attendants buzzed round to investigate, but no one could figure out how to unlumbar our seats. So, both my neighbor and I were stuck with seat erections in our backs.  Good for me.  We both squirmed uncomfortably the entire flight.

Today I went on my hike up to the mountains.  A day-long hike was kind of a disappointment for me.  I had really wanted to go on a hike for several days in the mountains, but I was just too worried about my health.  I’ve been feeling run down ever since the vertigo I had during the bar.  I still feel dizzy sometimes and I can’t imagine what I’d do if I started to get really sick in the middle of the jungle somewhere. 

Anyway, some Canadian girls had organized a day trip into the mountains to see some villages, so I joined in with them.  But, the day of, the Canadians dropped out because they were sick, so, once again, it was just me and the guide.  As luck would have it, once we started walking, I discovered I was also sick - with traveler's diarrhea.  I really have amazingly bad luck with sicknesses!  Fortunately, it didn't ruin my trip.

The guide was a really fun, easy-going guy - 25 years old, studying for his masters in finance and making money for school over his summer vacation by leading hikes.  He was Hmong.  Laos basically has 3 ethnic groups.  The majority of Laotions are Lao.  They traditionally live on the big rivers and in towns.  The Khamu live on smaller rivers in the hills in stilt houses.  The Hmong live at the highest elevations in dirt-floor houses.  The three have completely different languages, traditions and religions, but their villages are often within sight of each other.  It seemed very weird to me!

khamu baby in a hanging basket

Khamu village

Hmong girls in their house

Chua (the guide) pretty much talked nonstop the entire trip, so I learned a lot about Laos (well, what I understood.  His English left a lot to be desired).  It was really interesting to learn about the Hmong religion.  The most charming thing to me was the 'soul-calling ceremony'.  On the first day of the New Year, you put an egg on the doorstep of your house and then sing for 3 hours to 3 days to entice your soul to come back.  Your soul isn't completely gone, but over the year parts of it have flown away.  Soul parts leave any time you are scared, injured, very worried, or you fight.  I told Chua that we actually believe something a little similar - that when you get stressed, you get sick.  He nodded enthusiastically, which I think meant that he was humoring me.

Otherwise, the basic rule seems to be that when you want something you sacrifice a chicken.  When you really want something you sacrifice a pig.  And when you're rich and you want something, you sacrifice a water buffalo.  Fortunately, the spirits only eat the spirit of the sacrificed animal; you and your family get to eat what's left. If you're sick, it usually means that you've offended a spirit.  Then, the shaman is 'verr useful' as Chua put it.  The Shaman can go to the spirit world and find out not only what you did wrong, but how to fix it.  I really wanted to see the tools the Shaman uses to do all this, but when we got to the Hmong village, the village Shaman was out.

We ran into the Shaman later though.  He and his wife and their 5 beautiful daughters were just finishing lunch in a shelter by a rice field.  These little bamboo shelters were everywhere. 

The people use them to rest and eat out of the sun while working in the fields.  The Shaman looked quite old, but otherwise not particularly different than other Hmong men.  Of course, he was in his work clothes, not his Shaman outfit.  Not just anyone can be a Shaman.  Shamans choose and train their successors (women too).  Chua's Dad is a Shaman too, and he told me some impressive stories about his father's cures – even curing relatives living in American long distance.

The Shaman and his daughters went back to work in the field as we were leaving, but the Shaman's wife stayed in the shelter to watch an adorable little baby.  The babies never seem to have diapers here.  In fact, they wear nothing on bottom.  I kept wondering how that is managed.

Throughout the hike, we passed through 2 Khamu villages and 1 Hmong village.  They were definitely picturesque, especially with the jungle and mountain background.  They almost look like they're in the stone age - all bamboo and teak - and no plastic, barely even any metal to be seen.  But, I could see why people would want to leave them.  Many of the villages are days away from hospitals, even schools.  As Chua said, it's nice to own your own land, but people die all the time without medicine.  I was reminded of some French people who had been talking with me very worriedly about the loss of the country-side life and the village crafts - just like the loss of the countryside life in France!  It would definitely be a pity to lose the traditions and way of life, but clearly village life is not idyllic.

Since the working age people were in the fields, the villages were populated with children under 10 and very old people.  There were so many children!  Chua said that families had at least 6 children on average because the more children, the more people to take care of you when you are old.  I wondered about the infant mortality rate. Perhaps part of the reason parents have so many children (besides no birth control I imagine) is that many of them might not survive.  It was a very sad thought when I looked at the children - they were so curious, friendly and adorable!  Just like Ian and Ava, they loved seeing their foto in my digital camera after I had taken their picture (None of these groups minded having their foto taken).  It was particularly cute to see the older ones (boys and girls) carrying the babies in slings.  I guess they were the babysitters.

It was a long day (at least for out of shape me).  We walked on muddy, mountainous, jungly trails from 9am when the tuk-tuk dropped us off until 4pm when we reached the waterfall.  Fortunately, we were lucky with the weather.  It was cloudy almost all day, which kept the temperature down, but it didn't rain. The landscape was really impressive.  Peaks rose abruptly from the hills, sometimes with sheer limestone cliffs hundreds of feet high. We often had great views because we walked through a lot of land cleared for dry rice fields (rice growing on hillsides, not in rice paddies)

The waterfall was disappointing because there wasn't much water.  I did get a quick swim though.  Even better, I got to see several elephants go in for a dip:

Today was a great trip, but ended up being something of a disaster.  I wandered around town and looked at all the temples.

There are a lot of buddhist temples in Luang Prabang.  It has been a religious center for a long time and the king used to live here. 

(A multi-headed snake at the entrance of the temple on palace grounds)

The older temples are mostly crumbling, but the newer ones were quite beautiful.  Some of the temples seem to double as schools for boys.

There are boys all over the place in the saffron robes that showed they are monks in training. 

Around mid-afternoon, I suddenly realized that I was frying.  I was covered in sweat and absolutely exhausted.  I hadn't really been paying attention to the heat and then, it was all I could pay attention to.   I went down to the river in the hopes there would be a cool breeze.  On the bank, there was a group of Americans getting into a boat to go see some caves upstream.  That sounded great.  I asked them if I could come along and they were quite happy to share the cost, so off we went. 

Our Boat

 We stopped at one point to get more gas on the river-bank.  The 'gas-station' seemed to be run entirely by kids.  This little guy helped keep the boat steady:

We reached the Pak Ou cave after about 2 hours.  It was sort of like a repository for statues of the Buddha.  There were hundreds and hundreds of them.  This foto isn't very good because I was using a shitty disposable camera, but you can see how beautiful the view was from the cave:

Anyway, I said the day ended up a disaster, because I didn't plan very well.  Luang Prabang must be one of the few tourist destinations in the world that has no ATMs.  The only way to get cash is to go to the bank and have them write a money order backed by your credit card.  So, I ran out of money because I got to the bank too late (it's the government bank and it seems to open about 3 hours a day).  Then, I ran out of water and of course I didn't have any food.  As mentioned, it was very hot.  By the time we got back to Luang Prabang, I felt like I had been wrung out.  The only thing I could do was walk back to my hotel and put dinner and water on my tab.  I was shaky and totally exhausted and it took until the next day to feel normal again.

I met an unusual couple today.  He was Lao.  She was Japanese - very fat, loud and goofy - all characteristics that don't seem particularly 'Japanese'.  I guess this illustrates the dangers of stereotypes!  They had been continuing an international long distance romance for several years - by email and through visits.  Even more amazing, the only language they had in common was really bad English.  They had just spent the night at his family's village and she was absolutely covered with mosquito bites.  Love really does conquer all.

 I'm in Luang Prabang in Laos now.  It's much more beautiful and relaxed than what I’ve seen Vietnam so I'm looking forward to walking today and looking at all the temples.  The one fly in the soup is all the self-consciously hippy types walking around wearing hemp and multiple body piercings - they're all wearing the same thing!  In an attempt to be different they are complete conformists.... 

On further reflection, however, the French handicraft enthusiasts annoy me more.  It’s a sad fact that tourists always hate other tourists.  We all want to be special – the only ones who have discovered a place.  We also want our money’s worth and the crowds of fat westerners really ruin the ambience we flew thousands of miles to see.  So, I try to stifle my annoyance in the recognition that tourist-hatred is inherent to traveling.   

Nevertheless, I have to complain about the handicraft enthusiasts on the grounds that they must be the reason for the ridiculous prices here.  The handicraft enthusiasts add an entirely different element to the tourist scene.  If it weren’t for them, the only tourists would be cheap backpacker types like myself.  But, instead, there are crowds of middle-aged, affluent French (and Japanese) people buying $500 rugs and hand-woven silk.  I can certainly understand why they come – the crafts are amazing.  The women here have a long tradition of weaving and they make incredibly beautiful fabrics on hand looms.    

Anyway, when the main attraction of a place to some tourists is shopping, rather than a ‘cultural experience,’ you can bet the prices are going to go up.  But, I feel guilty complaining about the prices.  Things are still very inexpensive and, God knows, the people here need a few extra dollars a lot more than I do. 

The trip to Halong Bay was great.  We were on a junk (traditional boat), which was quite pretty - all carved wood and potted plants for decoration.  I even had a comfortable cabin to myself.

The next day we went ashore to one of the islands to go inside the biggest cave.  The rest of the time, we just sailed around the rocks and looked at them.

I arrived in Hanoi today.  It's a LOT hotter than Saigon - in the 90s.  I was feeling kind of run down yesterday, but for some reason hot weather always makes me feel better.
I reserved a 2-day boat trip to Halong Bay for tomorrow and the next day.  A junk (type of boat) takes us around the bay and then we spend the night on it too.  The bay is supposed to be very beautiful  - big limestone towers rising straight of the water.  Also, it should be a little cooler out on the water.

I'm regretting that I decided to spend more time in Saigon than in Hanoi.  Hanoi seems more interesting - much more culture and history. There are a lot of old temples, an old quarter which really does seem like it's in another century and lots of french beaux-arts architecture.
The trip here was less than ideal.  I wanted a window seat specifically so I could watch as we flew over Vietnam - and got a seat over the wing.  Right near the end of the flight, the woman sitting next to me threw up - partly on my bag.  It's funny, I was very sympathetic (probably because I can relate!), but the man on her left said nothing and gave her disapproving glances.   I wondered if this was a cultural thing or just that the guy was a jerk?  Then, I got a taxi agreeing on a set price to go to the city.  When I arrived, the taxi driver tried to make me pay double.  I refused.   I've actually experienced none of that kind of bait and switch since I've been here - which is surprising when you consider the people are desperately poor and we tourists are so in and out that there's little accountability for services which are often very informal (e.g. I haven't seen any established Vietnamese 'chains').

Woman praying at a temple in Hanoi:

Stelae of candidates who passed the national exams over the centuries in old Vietnam.  They are placed on carvings of turtles because turtles symbolize wisdom:

As a nerd myself, you have to appreciate a culture which chose its leaders and bureaucrats based on their performance on a standardized test of literature and the classics.  Vietnam used the same exam system as old China.  Every year, candidates would sit for a several day long test at the temple of literature in Hanoi.  This is one of the courtyards of the temple.  It's more confucian-inspired than Buddhist:

It was so hot in Hanoi that the city only really seemed to come alive after dark. Then, the whole city came out on the street - presumably because it was too hot inside and no one had air conditioning.  Whole families ate dinner on the sidewalk.

Umm, delicious:

  Everyone stayed outside talking loudly until past midnight.  Meanwhile, all the young people cruised the streets on their motorbikes - apparently just to see and be seen. 

in one way I have a lot in common with Vietnamese women - they're even more worried about keeping out of the sun than I am.  They go out on the streets with huge hats, surgical masks, sunglasses, long gloves and, of course, long sleeves and long pants.  This in a tropical climate!  You almost wonder if they're like the invisible man - that is, if you took off the hat, etc. there would be nobody there!

Dealing with the traffic here requires nerves of steel.  The legions of scooters just go.  Even when there are traffic signals, no one pays attention to them.  Therefore, if you politely waited for a break in the traffic, you would never cross the street.  Your entire trip to Vietnam would be confined to a 1 block radius.  If you're more ambitious, then the only way to cross the street is to step into the traffic and walk slowly while staring down the oncoming scooter fiends.  Miraculously, they go around you.

I just wish I had more faith in the system!  There's bound to be someone who's not looking where he's going (e.g. attending to wife, baby and gramps perched variously behind and on top of the driver).  Then the hapless pedestrian (me) ends up with tire tracks across her face.  So, every time I cross the street, I feel like I'm stepping off a cliff.  I find myself frantically crossing my fingers and whispering to myself as I cross, probably with an expression of sheer terror.

I spent some time today wandering around the market and looking at shops.  It's very tempting to buy a lot because everything is so cheap - especially silk.  I can get a beautiful silk dress perfectly tailored to fit me for $40 when the same thing would cost several hundred dollars in the US.  I have to keep reminding myself that I don't wear dresses that often.  Even if I did, there's no need to schlep tons of clothes across Vietnam with me!

I went to the Mekong river delta today.  I really liked going to the islands and seeing the farming life.  People were so densely packed together and farming everything. They made pools to farm fish, special cages to farm snakes, and hives to farm honey.

(me looking a little less than certain that touching the snake is a good idea)

No piece of land was left uncultivated.  Every tree grew some sort of fruit and they grew so closely together, we had to follow tiny little paths to get from one place to another.  The islands are criss-crosses by little canals - partly natural and partly man-made.  They're very helpful for the people who live here because they made transport of produce much easier.  As you can see, they take little canoes along the canals. 

(Phuong, the woman who owned the boat and other boaters....)

Out on the river, the boats, mostly fishing boats, are much bigger.  They all had eyes on the front to symbolically watch out danger and, also, according to Phuong, to scare away crocodiles.   

I thought I might be with other tourists on this 2-day tour of Saigon and the surrounding areas – but it's just me and the tour guide, Phuong.  She's quite nice - 1 year older than me and sweet and talkative.  I wanted to have something organized set up when I first got here so that I had a little time to get my bearings in my jet-lagged state.  After this, I'm on my own.
Phuong showed me around Saigon a little this morning.  The city isn't that interesting in itself - not very pretty, not many old historic buildings, not very clean, etc.  But, the people make it interesting. There is lots of hustle and bustle and interesting street markets and stores.  The traffic chaos here puts Boston to shame.  Everyone is on motor bikes (more like scooters) - sometimes whole families on one and they just zip and weave around everywhere with no respect for lanes, traffic lights, larger vehicles, pedestrians, etc.

It was interesting to hear her opinions on things.  I don't know if they're representative, but they were at least one Vietnamese person's thoughts.  She had a lot of positive things to say about the government - building this new road, improving that neighborhood, etc.  It seemed that in a lot of areas the government was moving squatters out of areas and putting in large apartment buildings to beautify the city.  Phuong had nothing but positive to say about that.  The squatter neighborhoods certainly didn't look very hygienic - bamboo and plastic shacks, dirt alleys, and dirty dogs running around.  Some of them are periodically flooded by the Mekong River.  On the other hand, I wondered where the squatters would go. 

The government is also cracking down on roadside vendors because they cause traffic jams.  At one point, our car got stuck in a huge jam.  When we finally reached the cause of the slow-down, I saw an old woman wearing the typical conical hat and pyjamas crying frantically while police put her bike and vending equipment into a truck to be destroyed.  I imagine that equipment constituted the woman's livelihood, so it was really heart-rending to see the panic on her face. 

All over the city and countryside, there were huge billboards with government propaganda, inspirational messages and communist symbols.  They always featured brawny looking Vietnamese people with triumphant expressions.  On the other hand, nothing else about the landscape suggests government control.  People work in their own rice fields and their own farms.  We passed hundreds of shiny new buildings obviously built for private companies with signs like: 'Nguyen Happy Glass Factory' (in English too).  There were fancy new homes everywhere bristling with satellite dishes and antennae and, across the city, endless construction. 

I didn't put Phuong on the spot by asking her what she thought about government corruption and the 1 party system since, from what I've read, people can get in trouble for talking about politics, especially to foreigners. 

In the afternoon, we went to see the Cu Chi tunnels - the remaining tunnels from a huge Vietcong base about 30 mi outside of Saigon. There are more than 100 miles of tunnels, most of them only big enough to crawl in.  They made them that small on purpose so that American GIs would be too big to fit inside.  Imagine crawling miles on your belly in a dark worm hole!  They also showed us a bunch of different types of mantraps made for the American soldiers.  See below 'klipping armpit trap' 

and sharpened bamboo stick impalement trap: 

It was absolutely gruesome.  I started to feel dizzy and couldn't go into one of the tunnels that they had open for tourists.  The guide had a lot of fun with that one:  'look even that old man went in!'  Not very tactful here.  

I could just barely fit inside an escape hole:

Me on an American tank which had seen better days: