A Million Miles Away

Ho Chi Minh City

It's 8 a.m., the sun has broken through the polluted haze, and I am slowly recovering from two days of travel from New York to London to Bangkok to Ho Chi Minh City.

 I arrived here last night and was greeted by Stephan who I know through a colleague in the U.S.  Stephan had gratiously agreed to show me around this vital city of 7 million. But I didn't realize that he would begin soon after I arrived. I settled into my room and suggested I'd like to go for a walk or anything that would tire me out.  He suggested a motorbike tour of the city at night. Stephan and three others live in a three story house near the airport on a tiny street that reminded me of the futongs in Beijing. ( We would call it an alleyway.) He handed me a helmet and we headed toward the center of the city at 9 p.m.  Even then the temperature was probably mid70s and humid.

I was expecting the Saigon of films like The Quiet American with a slow pace, bicycles and houses with plantation shutters and ceiling fans. Instead, I was thrust into noisy streets that were teaming with people: vendors selling everything from shoes to fruit at the curb and hundreds and hundreds of motorbikes with at least two riders each ( often with small children ) that cross one another at  roundabouts with absolutely no accidents although it is like watching endless games of "chicken".

 Saigon is one of the most densely populated cities in the world. The streets are full of neon as you approach the center of the city and Christmas red, green and white lights are hanging down from tall trees that line some of the boulevards like limpid strings of moss.

We passed the U.S. Embassy, a fortress now with two sets of walls to protect against a car or tank crashing through the first set; The New World Hotel that hosted George Bush when he visited; and the Hotel Continental, the grande dame of the city's historical hotels.

Today, while it's still Monday evening in New York, I've wakened to a new day( literally ), a Tuesday morning half way around the world.

The journey begins.