LIVING LIFE WITH A SENSE OF ABANDON: "I'M GLAD MY DOGS WON'T END UP IN SOUP"

HO CHI MINH CITY, VIETNAM

Temperature: 30 Degrees Celsius

Track of the day: Imagine, John Lennon

I forgot how bad the Vietnam war was," I say as Alecs and I stand in the War Remnants Museum of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Upon stepping foot into the small museum we are bombarded with photos, stories and gruesome details surrounding the American involvement in Vietnam. As this war was one of the most well photographed conflicts, thousands of graphic pictures illustrate the pain and suffering so many thousands of people endured. Near the beginning one can't help but notice the anti-American sentiments depicted in both words and photos. A photo of three American soldiers smiling and posing beside two Vietnamese corpses

hangs beside a sign which reads, "this just shows how if you let the army get to you, it can seriously f*ck you up." A large cement well sits below a story about a platoon who raided a village and pulled out three children hiding in this well, killing them all. The photo of the three children's bodies, bloodied and indistinguishable make my stomach churn. Medal of Honour winner and Ex-Senator Bob Kerrey broke a 32-year silence about these killings as he said the guilt was eating him up inside - he maintains that his Navy Seal Unit killed the civilians. "I can't believe this place," Alecs says, "I knew it was bad, but this is just insane." Hundreds of photos of bloodied corpses or what remains of them litter the walls, but the photos of victims pleading for their lives are what strikes us the most. 'If they are dead, they were Viet Cong' a sign reads next to a maimed woman and baby. We enter the next section of the museum where victims of Agent Orange hang, their bodies mutated in indescribable ways, women, babies, young children - no one was immune, including American soldiers. After we have seen all the photos of horror, hundreds of children's drawings about war line the walls. A crayon picture of a burning house, a dead family in front, a black sky and US missiles in the

air was drawn by an eight-year old girl in northern Vietnam. "Eight year old children shouldn't know about this," I say to a scowling Alecs, "they're supposed to be drawing flowers and rainbows not death and war." However, there is hope under all this tragedy - another set of children's paintings portraying peace between all nations shows that some lessons have been learned. The last photo we encounter in the museum is of dead American youth who were gunned down in Ohio for protesting the war - showing that there were people who cared -citizens cared, parents cared, soldiers cared, but too many didn't care. Walking around the museum leaves us exhausted, not physically but mentally and we both nearly fall asleep on the way to the bustling market, located near the centre of the city. We think about all thehorror we

've seen on this trip, horror that only touches the tip of that in this world. We are dropped off at the south entrance of the market where we get the full extent of the traffic in this city. The city centre is situated on the banks of the Mekong, a perfect final destination on our Indochina trip which has followed the Mekong River almost religiously since northern Thailand. Ho Chi Minh city (also referred to as Saigon) is the largest city in Vietnam, although not the capital, and is also called the 'world motorbike capital.' Nine million people call this place home making it the most populated city in all of Indochina and standing here at a roundabout there is no doubt in our mind to the validity of this. Anytime the flow of traffic is impeded

by a stop light, hundreds (literally) of motorbikes mass together almost creating a black-out on the ground. "I've never seen anything like this before," Alecs says as we both stand dumbfounded watching the traffic whiz by. "I guess we should go into the market," I say after a while. The market is something else, something we've never experienced in the tons of markets we've visited thus far. In Thailand, Laos and Cambodia vendors might follow you around, call to you, flash souvenirs in-front of your face but never would they touch you. Here in Vietnam the vendors grab our shirts, pull us into their stands, throw t-shirts over our heads and forcefully try and sell us their goods. We know this is just part of the experience involved in visiting foreign countries, and we are the visitors who must adapt to their culture, but we can't help but remain on edge clutching our money tightly. We do manage to purchase some new sunglasses and some great t-shirts before making our way to the airport. Once in the airport we order some Pho Soup because there is no way we can come all the way to Vietnam and not have this traditional soup. "Would you like Beef, Chicken

or Dog?" the waitress asks me. Dog? I almost vomit at the thought of eating a Shadow or Klinker, but remind myself that I eat cows, which some people believe are sacred. "Chicken," I tell her, praying that no dog meat ends up in my soup, Alecs orders beef and I sit in silence thinking about my own dogs. "I'm glad my dogs won't end up in soup," I say to Alecs, who nods in agreememt. Our soup arrives and we both agree it tastes almost

exactly like that in Calgary Vietnamese Restaurants. "Good," Alecs says, "but not much different than home." A whirlwind trip through Vietnam was no where near enough time to fully understand the culture, the people or the land, but we feel we have taken at least something away from our trip. "Busy," Alecs says when I ask him to describe Vietnam in one word, "it would definitely have to be busy." In a few hours at 1:00AM we will be boarding a plane to the Philippines, and then another