Weekend in Vietnam

A buddy was visiting me in Singapore (early August) - so we took an excursion to Vietnam. One of my old roommates from Washington DC happens to be living in Ho Chi Minh City, which the locals still refer to as Saigon.

Other than being the most unpleasant language to overhear, it was a good city, albeit dirty and chaotic. It's trying to prosper, there is a sense of work ethic in the air.

The most fun was cut between going to a local bar, rocking out to an amazing cover band from the Philippines (all the best cover bands in this region come out of the Philippines), or eating 'pho' (a rice-noodle, spicy soup with chicken or beef) on a busy street corner while drinking Vietnamese coffee.

The most disturbing aspect was visiting the Vietnam War Museum.

Over a million Vietnamese are said to have been killed, who knows how many people from Laos and Cambodia were killed from bombs dropped by the US military as the war spilled over into their lands. Around 60,000 US soldiers were killed, 300,000 wounded. Countless amounts of biological weapons were used by the US military and their destruction lingers still as babies continue to be born with birth defects in the northern regions.

The War Museum is the perspective from the Vietnamese of the war...a superpower invades your land, kills your family and burns your village, and burns your village with chemical weapons to make that land uninhabitable for years to come. Against what appears to be an insurmountable and unscrupulous foe, you persist and overcome (with the help of other countries feeding you weapons to fight back).

The museum felt much like the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC, except my government was the one that invaded and killed over a million people. I left the museum with many strong and negative emotions...one being despair as I thought about the current wars elsewhere on the globe...tears welled up.

Surprisingly, the Vietnamese that I briefly met during my time were very welcoming to Americans. They smiled at me and welcomed me to their country. They didn't seem to harbor negative sentiments. Perhaps they've moved on.

I didn't do a good job taking pictures - but here are three - the electrical wires there were very amusing to me.
Much love,
Jake