Leaving the mekong

---

Tonight is our final night in the mekong area as next stop will be an island called pulau tioman off the coast of malaysia.

obviously after india the mekong area has been like a cuddly teddybear in spite of all its tragic war stories (cambodia and vietnam), visible poverty (cambodia) and revolting dirty old men (thailand).

Cambodia was sort of an avdenture with all the haggling over prices and fake exchange rates but it got better as we went along. Pnohm Phen turned out to be a quaint little capital and its war sights, s21 prison and the killing fields were well put together. The waterfront area wasnt a bad hangout spot either with a nice breeze. The corruption and poverty was a bit bothrsome though and i couldnyt help but get the feeling that the tourist dollars were pouring in a bit too fast for the local economy to adjust and make something good out of it.

Vietnam has seemed like a better place in that respect. Might be the time they have had to adjust in comparison. We have heard of corruption problems but from what ive seen it seems like vietnam is absorbing the foreign dollars but making better use of it. There is also not as much feeling of being catered to as in thailand. The Vietnamese seem to live their lives as they please regardless and not being so keen on turing their cities into resorts. Id heard differently before i came here so maye ive just seen good examples. The small towns of Chau Doc and Ha Tien werent that affected by tourism, sepecially Ha tien were we were the only foreigners frolicing on the local beach.

Other typical vietnamese things are motorbikes, Ho Chi Minh City has 8 million inhabitants and 3 million motorbikes.

The War remnants museum is highly recommended to anyone who might end up here. Agent orange and other atrocities are well documented along with weapons used which interrestingly some younger american male tourists found most interresting. Who cares about deformed foetuses in jars when there are cool machine guns...) It made me think of the Dennis Leary song asshole, I like football and porno and books about war... There are also the tunnels of Cu Chi where Vietcong lived underground while the ground was napalmed. Our Jackie Chan look a like guide (who was even named Jackie) was a former member of the south vietnamese army who now showed tunnels and jungle traps.

Jackie never quite got to the point in the story where he went from being imprisoned by the north in 1975 to how he came to be proud of the VC but thats a different story. The musuems themselves are fascinating that way in that the vietcong and the north are called patriots or hero-american-killers, the americans devils and the south vietnamese army are just left out of the narrative altogether. While reading and looking you get the idea that there was no division in the country at all.

The tunnels and the traps shown were nice as well, the traps were pretty much all the stuff Stallone builds in the first Rambo movie.

To sum it up, Mekong has not seen the last of us, but it is time to move on for this time.

---