Away from cities: two books and two bus rides later

Wow.

The last few days feel as though they've flown by, having left Pnomh Penh for Saigon; arrived in that new, big, bustling city of scooters; and, now, found my way up into the chilly central highlands. Dalat, to be specific!

First Saigon - crazy, somewhat endearing and far too full of people! I spent most of my time just trying to navigate District 1, the so-called center of a town as sprawling as anything LA has to offer. Sightseeing of a sort at the Cu Chi Tunnels - it felt wrong somehow. Wrong to be tramping over ground where so many met such violent ends. Tunnels themselves were a claustrophobic testament to a country's absolute RESOLVE. To think of living down in those deep holes, crawling around and plotting war...well, one realizes why we couldn't possibly have fared differently here. Why we can't possibly fare differently in Iraq today. Ah, correlations. Geography changes, lessons seem not to apply.

Enough politics. Though on a last note, I saw a chilling exhibition of war photographers and their works; that is to say, war photographers who were killed while on assignment, following their story - in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia. Gorgeous looking young men, with keen eyes and messy hair. Men that were born in places like Vermont and died on Route 1 Pnomh Penh in April of '74.

Thankfully left this behind with seven hours on a bus and am now sitting in the cool air of DaLat. Tomorrow I set out for my big three day motorcycle trip into the countryside - should end up somewhere near the coast...

Hm.

Think no computers for awhile...so.

Oh, and by the way, the books were the devastating I MARRIED A COMMUNIST and the truly lovely little Nicole Krauss book THE HISTORY OF LOVE.