Apparently We Fought Some Kind of War Thing Here

Given that we have spent the last three days touring former US military bases and the DMZ, here's my only original contribution to the comparison between our work over here and our current woes over in Iraq:

I think that the US military in Vietnam had a higher rate of heroin use than the US military in Iraq.

I don't mean to be flip, but going through these tours seems like doing some sort of bad Iraq check list. Overconfident about traditional fighting tactics? Check. Losing support of locals possibly sympathetic? Check. Engaging in possibly questionable tactics involving the poor treatment of persons later found out to be civilians? Check.

Anyway, since there are people far smarter and better to write about these things I'll just give an update on Hue.

1. The past two days have been the downfall of our "all food over here is awesome" mentality. Two nights ago we went to a restaurant picked by the lonely planet as one of the better places in Hue. It was the worst we have eaten so far (thanks lonely planet). Then last night we went to a place recommended by (1) our guide, (2) our hotel (3) lonely planet. By the end of the night I had a raging headache and natalie's stomach was in knots (this was our first sickness like that of the trip). If this keeps up I am switching to an all hamburger diet or something.

2. Man does it rain here. For the past couple of days we have been stuck in an all day downpour, wandering out occasionally to go to a temple and then running back inside to get out of our now soaked clothes.

3. We spent yesterday traveling through the DMZ and Kae Sahn military base with a nice guide named Hai (as she said a couple of times "not hi, it's Hai!" with an inflection that was lost on the german members of our tour group). She attempted more jokes on the trip than any guide before, but most were lost in translation. Finally at the end of the day she said it was an hour and a half home, but for us three hours. Everyone laughed. This time, however, she was serious. It was 90 minutes to her office then 90 more minutes to Hue.

4. Sorry for no photos, but we didn't bring a flash drive and are relying on the kindness of internet cafes that have computers built some time in 1998, so it has been a little hard to figure out the photo posting. We will do something when we get back.

5. The weirdest part about this trip has been morning television. We have watched two presidential debates and various National and American League Championship series all before 9 am. Anyway back up to watch the world series now.