Craig's Here!

With the exception of Craig's arrival, the past few days of been fairly uneventful. We've pretty much just wandered the busy streets of Saigon and taken in the sights.

There's quite a lot to catch our eye in this bustling city of 15million people or so. The first thing you notice is obviously the motorbikes. There's said to be more than 3million of them in the city...but we'll save telling you about them 'till another time.

The other thing that makes things interesting are the Tet (Lunar New Year) perparations that are taking place all over the city. It's the biggest holiday in Vietnam, so it's comparable to Christmas at home. From gifts, to street displays, to lights, things are really starting to gear up for the big party on New Years Eve, which is Jan. 25. We'll be in Ha Noi, the capital, so we're natural looking forward to what that'll look like.

here are some pics of the Tet preps...

The other night while making the big trek to Pizza Hut for a taste of home, we stumbled into the real ritzy area of the city. It's an area of about 4 blocks filled with high-end hotel and swanky restaurants, and shops selling brands such as Rolex, and Louis Vuitton. We thought this must be the yuppy white folk area, but much to our surprise the restaurants and shops were occuppied by Asians. It was a stark contrast to what we've seen in other parts of Vietnam and south east Asia. We're used to plastic chairs, and brands such as Ronex, and Louis Mutton. Obviously there are some very wealthy communists.

Last night was the grand arrival of Erin's brother Craig. He arrived safe and sound, and came with cookies and fudge from some beautiful women who love us very much. Thanks! We're glad to have him here, but we put him straight into action today though. We hit up the War Museum, which we were saving for his arrival, and will be boarded a night train north in a few hours.

So the museum....wow! What can be said? It was a real eye opener. We just finished our visit an hour ago, so we have hardly begun to process what we took in. So I won't try to put to many personal thoughts down just yet...I'll just try to explain what we saw. The museum has been constructed by the communist government, so naturaly it's going to have a real "anti-american" feel to it...and it sure did. Basically the museum tried to paint a picture of the Americans being invaders; and it did a very good job of it. It clearly demonstrated the horrors or war, and showcased the war crimes that were committed by the american government and the GIs themselves. It did this with 1000's of photo's from the 17 year war, and with excellent descriptions and timelines of the events that unfolded leaded up to "the liberation" of the south. Having not even been born yet during the time of the war, we don't have as much of a grasp as to what actually went on around the world during that time as many of you who are reading this do But it's certainly safe to say that the Americans were not innocent and were certainly not the victims in the war. I'll follow these thoughts up with more later...but for now, here's a few mediocre pictures from the museum.

This is the first thing the visitor sees in the "war crimes area".

This is the size of the largest bombs the US dropped, it would kill anything within 100M radius, and would cause extensive damage up to 2.5km.