-went to the 'War Remnants Museum' (recently renamed from the 'Museum of American War Crimes') which was gruesome but fascinating. i'm sure it's just as biased as the crap you read in American textbooks, but probably if you average the two you get a pretty good idea of what went on. it had lots of gory pictures and huge american bombs and planes and tanks. all the captions to the pictures referred to american (and south-VN) forces as 'puppet army'. also had jars with horribly mutated fetuses caused, apparently, by agent orange.
-rented a motorbike and rode around for a day and survived! it's actually surprisingly easy. just watch your own ass... don't hit anything, nothing will hit you. i only made physical contact with one other vehicle during the day which i think was pretty good. i rode down into Cholon (chinatown) and had some yummy food and wandered around the spice shops which sold shark fins, dried (intact) tiger penises, snake wine (rice wine, with whole cobras in it), little fetuses of some sort and everything else aromatic you can possibly imagine.
before i forget, a word of caution to anyone traveling in this region: if you buy a hardboiled egg on the street somewhere, be very careful... some of them have chickens in them. intentionally. to be eaten. little tiny baby chickens. yeesh...
and now i've arrived in Dalat, which is wonderful. it's quite a big holliday spot for vietnamese people as it's at about 1500m and the climate is cool and pleasant. it actually reminds me of european mountain villiages. it's all pine trees and twisty turny streets with stunning vistas at the ends. doesn't look at all like the vietnam in the movies (maybe because all the vietnam movies were filmed in thailand). they even have a big replica of the Eifel tower on one side of town. yesterday i met a french canadian (noime, 26), an australian (ross) and an australian-canadian (mark, 32). mark and ross both had their own motorcycles and today the four of us went up into the mountains for some adventure. after about 15km the road dissapeared and it was all dirt roads and gravel. the scenery looked more like montana than vietnam. tall pine trees, cool mountain lakes, and stunning waterfalls. after a few hours on the bikes, during which we encountered maybe 2 other people, we rolled into a tiny little village in the middle of nowhere. within about 5 minutes the ENTIRE village was gathered around us staring, asking questions (in vietnamese) and trying to be hospitable. we packed our own lunch which went well with the local mulberry wine they gave us. as we sat inside a hut eating, about 15 kids piled on top of eachother right outside the door just staring and laughing. really memorable afternoon.
the market here in dalat is maybe the best i've seen in asia so far. the bustle and excitement is just incredible. it might have somethign to do with the holliday preparations (read on...) but whatever the case, it's a sight to behold. i'll post pictures as soon as i can.
now i'm saddle-sore, sunburned, and tired as hell....
tomorrow is the first day of Tet, the vietnamese new year (of 'the tet-offensive' fame). as dalat is a popular holliday spot, the entire city is basically booked for the next few days so Noime and I are catching a bus (at 3AM ?!?!?!) to Lak Lake which should also be a little village in the middle of nowhere. i have no idea what to expect from the Tet cellebrations. a few years ago they outlawed firecrackers, but now you can buy tape-recordings of firecrackers being ignited so the atmosphere should remain intact. that fact really captures the spirit of the vietnamese to me... they're a really funny people.