Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam

The city of 6,000,000 motorcycles. Vietnamese new year is steadily approaching, "Tet", the year of the snake. People will save up all year in anticipation of going home to their families in the countryside and celebrating, much like we do with Christmas and New Years in the West. They'll purchase gifts for family members, lavish party decorations and all civilization, large and small, is a buzz with celebrations, parades and fireworks. This also means that travel north is near impossible, as the transport is packed with Vietnamese who have purchased their buses, airplanes and trains a month in advance. Traveling during your culture's holidays can be tough mentally, feeling far from home; traveling during other cultures holidays can make things an expensive, logistical challenge. But I have purchased insight into Vietnamese Society when they are most spirited. Of course, all this good cheer was counterbalanced by a healthy dose of depression due to the history between our nations. I visited the war remnants Museum. Akin to a German visiting a Holocaust Museum I was both ashamed and moved to sympathy for their people. Vietnam was a domestically, internationally unpopular war that killed 7,000,000 Vietnames (a little less in the population of Saigon), absolutely devastated the countryside wreaking havoc not only on crops but also mutilating generations with congenital birth defects. The exhibits are heavily infused with the views of the Socialist Republic Vietnam, although I could not help but feel horrible for the atrocities committed by my people. Exiting the museum, I hopped on the back of a motor taxi and was treated to a harrowing near death experience as the driver went the wrong way down a 1-way road and narrowly avoided being splattered against a bus by popping the wheels up on a curve. The scare was enough to distract me for a time...