Sweat and Malaria Tablets

I haven't written. I know, I know, what good is a blog if you don't write, and how will anyone know I'm alive if I don't feed the blog, but the internet isn't exactly the most reliable thing when you travel, at least not in South East Asia. Things here run differently to back home, as you might have guessed. For one, heat is a given. I encourage you to find a clip of Robin Williams in "Good Morning Vietnam" doing the weather report - "Hot today, hot yesterday, hot tomorrow", but I'm pretty sure he uses more profanity, being Robin Williams and all. But somehow I don't think you'll be satisfied with a simple paragraph telling you that the jungle is hot. No, you want more:

1) We're terrified of mosquitos. They're invisible biters and cary nasties with them. We take a malaria pill each night after dinner (if you want to know how well they work at preventing malaria, ask my brother). Adrienne's makes her photosensitive, which doesn't mean that she turns green and produces energy (which is what I thought it meant, she asured me that was photosynthetic), but means she get sunburned easily. I already slop so much sunscreen on there is no way to tell if mine is as well. Yet we're not afraid of malaria (hell, malaria is curable, just ask my brother). We're quaking in our sandles about Dengue Feaver: uncurable and absolutly miserable! We were at a swanky bar in Saigon and they had a cocktail called "The Dengue Cure", so we had to order it. On a tangent, the bartender was a friend of ours who had won best mixologist in Shanghai last year, a city of many classy bars... this was a delicious drink! But back to the serious matter at hand - I am relieved that I come from a place with next to no infectious disease inherent in our mosquitos.

2) Vietnam is a forgiving country. You'd expect them to be rather upset with the USA for fighting them, occupying them and causing thousands of birth defects as a result of chemical warfare (agent orange). Yet they're just not that angry. In the north there wasn't much fighting (lots of bombing, but not hand to hand fighting), so they were rather realxed about the whole thing. In the south it was more intense, especially around Saigon, where there was fighting and American troops. But people like my motorbike driver, who was from the south, was very philosophical about the war. He told us, "My father went to the war against the Americans but was very unlucky, he didn't come back." Those are not the words of an angry bitter soul.

The only time I felt any animocity towards my country was at the Chu Chi Tunnels - the tunnels outside Saigon the VietCong faught their war from. They were amazing to see, and unbelivable, considering they lived, ate and slept in these tiny little subterranian tunnels. Before we went in the tunnels they showed a propoganda film from the 70's about local men and women who'd killed lots of Americans and what heroes they were. It was odd to sit in a room and watch a video explaining how great it was to kill an American.

Other than that incident though, Vietnam seems to have mostly moved on from the war. That isn't to say some people aren't angry or effected, but the unused bunkers dotting the country side seem to have blended into the landscape and history of the country, not like a black eye, but like another story in Vietnams long history.

3) At the tunnels we got to fire M16s. They were loud, they were awesome!

4) The Temples of Ankor Wat are one of the 5 most amazing man made things I've ever seen. They're older than almost any church in Europe, bigger than any church in Europe and can be covered in elaborate carvings. I mean, some of these awesome temples are older than England... that's old!!!