apocalypse yesterday
okay, maybe it was far from an apocalypse, but it definitely isn't now.
since i'm waiting on verizon to change some settings, i had yesterday off. it was quite nice. windy picked me up, bright and early, and we went to foreigner street to take a bus someplace referred to only as "the west".
foreigner street was quite possibly the most frightening place i've been in a while. it was exactly how i'd imagined it: large white people, all carrying enormous backpacks, wearing those clothes you buy before any big trip in a warm climate (that unzip into 45 different kinds of clothing, each with a set of secured passport-sized pockets and keychain clips), zillions of overpriced coffee shops with WiFi and decade-old machines with keyboards you can't recognize, a few hundred tiny sad-faced children selling lonely planet books for roughly US$70, hoping someone will miscalculate the exchange rate. i'm sure i've seen it in a few movies, the same way calson road is in every movie about hippy travelers in bangkok. (not that i'm that same person; i've spent quite a bit of time on foreigner streets around the world.)
the bus ride was bout ninety minutes. i was a bit sleepy from drinking too much with kyle (whom i'm growing to like quite a bit), and i would have killed for my headphones, but i wanted to be polite. there's something about traveling in southeast asia by bus. i'm not sure what it is, but i really feel at home when i can sit and stare out the window, see all i'm interested in looking at, feel the cool [polluted] air on my face, and every now and then get a rush of adrenaline from almost killing the forty or so cyclists on the road.
once we arrived at the mekong river, we pretended to listen to a guy pretending to speak english. i gathered that the river was roughly two miles wide (!!), with a bunch of little islands giving it the illusion of being less impressive.
as soon as i got over my fear of my iPhone once again going to heaven, we hopped on a little wooden boat to go to some place that sounded like nguck liuck mai ngungu (not sure how to say it in vietnamese, though). it was pretty incredible to see some of the poverty surrounding the mekong, such a symbol and source of pride (and often wealth). it was even more incredible when we quickly began trip into the heart of darkness. every corner we turned, i waited to see marlon brando's team of merry pranksters. it was pretty incredible.*
anyway, i also ate some good coconut candy, drank some delicious tea, watched some beautiful women in traditional clothing sing some interesting songs, took more boats, got sunburned on my left arm (trucker\'s tan), watched them make honey, and talked to some cool germans. it was a great trip.
once we got back, we got some dinner and i drove around on windy\'s motorbike for a while. what a life!
*note: i must admit, apocalypse now was filmed in cambodia and thailand, as the vietnamese government wouldn't let them film in vietnam. hmm. wonder why...
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