Good morning, VIETNAM!!

I left Pondicherry on Thursday after Sudha had told the taxi driver in tamil to drive slow on his way to the airport. Five minutes later we were overtaking a Ferrari.

It was a long and tiring trip to Ho Chi Minh City. I arrived in Kuala Lumpur at 5am and tried for more than two hours to sleep over four seats on a bench. It would have been possible as the cushions were quite soft, had it not been for the "non-quiet-airport"-policy and flight announcments every 90 seconds. I got pretty sick in the end of "Mr. Ngyen, would you please come to gate 42 immediately as the gate is closing."

I landed in Vietnam and was met by Solfrid and two of her friends. They had worked out the currency already and happily paid 160 000,- dong for the ride into the city. I withdrew 1,2 million yesterday and another three million today. HCMC was like Chennai without the tikka masala and felt a bit like any other China Town in a world metropol. Yet, it was just a bit crazier than anything else I've seen before, and crossing the streets here are even more of a nightmare than in Pondy. At least in India you were faced with five tuk-tuks you could count, in HCMC there were fifty motorbikes for every car, which are just slightly more difficult to keep track on.

We visited the War Remnants Museum which was a brutal and honest portrayal of the war. I'd been sitting in on a lecture in Peace & Conflict Studies the day before on Afghanistan, and it wasn't hard to realize there is so much we don't know about conflicts in other areas than our own. After two very hot hours, Solfrid and me had seen enough war crimes, at least for this country (still hoping to see the land mine museum in Siem Reap).

This morning we got up at 3.30 am after the guy outside our second floor window had been testing all his different ring tones all night. We caught a taxi to the airport and had noodle soup for breakfast. We landed in Hoi An, were told our hotel room wasn't ready yet, and have been at the tailors since. There are more than 200 tailors in this town of about 70 000 inhabitants, so plenty for me and Solfrid to spend our easy earned dong on. Anyway, after a combined total of less than ten hours of good sleep since Wednesday it's time to go to bed.

Good night, Vietnam!