Two posts in two days??? Wh-wh-WHAT!!!???

I've decided that yesterday's post was shitty and didn't do justice to Vietnam. And today was awesome so I wanted to write about it. And internet is absurdly cheap (typical) and convenient (less so).

So today I rented a motor scooter to take part in the law-and-orderlessness that is taking to the road in Vietnam. It was nice to not have to stop at red lights, and intense having to be aware 100% of the time of what's happening in 365 degrees. Taking some of the pressure off is that the other scooterists are acclimatized to just such a driving environment and thus are thus highly adept at reacting in an instant to any of an infinite number of driving contingencies. Plus, no one really goes faster than 40 kph. I ended up renting the most expensive bike because it was the only automatic. It set me back a whopping 12 dollars (including gas) for the day. The cheapest one was only about 6 but I haven't had any experience with standard transmission motorcycles and thought that as I was travelling alone, safety was worth the six dollar premium.

The countryside around Hue is stunning; a mix of rice patties, jungle, meandering and lotus covered rivers, elegant buddhist graveyards (a lot of people died in Vietnam in the last 50 years), and accentuated by elaborate and colourful monuments, temples and old imperial tombs. There's a mildewed grandiosity to the way the Vietnamese build things. It reminds me of what I know about french-Louisiana, although the French influence is heavily complimented by the Chinese and other Asian influences.

Side note: I've just been sneezed on. Pet peeve: the Vietnamese don't ever cover their mouths. It was particularly offensive while packed into a sealed bus with 70 other people breathing recycled air for 14 hours.

Back to description of the countryside: The colours are fantastic as well, all saffrons, turqoises, stained yellows and reds that fit in almost organically among the natural greens, browns and greys.

The people are just as photogenic as the landscape, self-posessedly wearing a fusion of traditional wear with the sortof clothes I've seen in every developing country I've been to, and doing quotidian things in interesting ways - using these complicated looking bamboo and net contraptions to fish, carrying goods balanced in baskets strung from either side of long polls, moving livestock by binding its hooves together and tying it to the back of a motorscooter (I saw live cows being moved this way). I kept seeing the napalm girl from the famous picture that came out during the war. Where usually the difficulty in telling East Asian strangers apart I find vaguely shameful and mildly amusing, when they all become the napalm girl it's downright upsetting.

I'm excited for the next 6 days.