We are leaving Vietnam tomorrow night so I think I will make this my last email from Saigon.  Last night I was going on about how this city and region of the world is right out of a George Orwell novel. I just realized they have added some more big screen advertising towers around the city.  You know, like the ones they use in the pro sports stadiums in America.  Well, as you walk down the streets of vendors, chaos, sidewalk soup kitchens, and poverty, you can look up at a giant Sony commercial.  They don't have Philip K. Dick's advertising blimps from the movie Blade Runner but the big screens are close. 

Something different this year are the tourist security soldiers.  They wear a little bit different green uniform than the regular police and army.  Today I saw them marching in a platoon in the park.  They all look about 17 years old.  At night they pair off to keep the scooter taxi drivers and scooter hookers from pestering the Europeans.  They also help them cross the busy streets.  Can the Europeans do anything for themselves? Jeez!  If you go two streets over from the tourist sector, the street pestering desists.  There are a million streets in Saigon besides the dozen or so the Europeans use.  They should go nuts and walk an extra block or two now and then. 

I see girls sometimes all dressed up in high heels riding on their boy friend's scooters side-saddle once in a while.  Families often ride five to a 100cc scooter.  I saw a dude get creamed by a taxi the other day.  He just picked up his scooter, brushed himself off and headed back into the hoards of traffic.  The taxi dude just laughed at him and took off.  

We have met few Americans - maybe a half dozen on our whole trip. I have been asked if I am French, an Englander, from "Italia," a Canadian, and if I am a Spaniard.  When I say I am an American ("from USA") I usually just get an incredulous look and a shrug.  Then they ask me again if I am sure I am an American. 

A couple of days does not do a city the size of Saigon justice.  It takes a couple of days just to get your bearings. One also must establish to the Vietnamese and the Europeans that I as an American do not like to be told where to go, get herded in tours, told what to do, and for god sakes do not tell me when I need to come back to the hotel to go to bed.