Heyyyyyy! Ho-ooooo!

So our Saigon guide rocks. He tells good stories, he's friendly and he's honest about what he thinks. We love him.

I asked him if it was true that all Vietnamese people have a shrine to Ho Chi Minh in their houses. He snorted and said, "Maybe in the North. If they're stupid."

I asked him the same "Was Ho a 'ho?" question I'd asked our guide in Hanoi. There, I got discomfort. Here, I got a very different answer.

Apparently, there's a politician who has risen very quickly through the party and some say he is Ho's son. His mother was once one of Ho's servants, so our bit comparing Ho to Jefferson wasn't that far off. When asked directly if he was Ho's son, the man replied with one of those standard, "All Vietnamese are Ho's children" bits.

I knew it!

Here's a link to a story about Ho's kid: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/1291000.stm

Other news from Saigon:

1) Before coming here, other people on our travels told us how the traffic was a nightmare and the guidebook even gave a list of places were to go to watch the madness from the safety of a non-moving chair. Anne, a Dutch girl we met, told me that when she was in Saigon, she saw three accidents, including one that involved a girl and blood. She said she was freaked out, especially at rush hour when people avoid the traffic in the streets by jumping on the sidewalk, pedestrians be damned.

We haven't seen that part yet, but when we asked how long it would take to get from the airport to our hotel, we were told anywhere from 30 minutes to three hours, depending on traffic. It was somewhere in between that.

2) Another thing about driving in Vietnam: You must not only have a vehicle, like a car, bicycle or moped. You must have a horn. Because you must honk that horn all the time, not in a "Hey, jerk! Get out of the way!" way but in a "I'm here, driving past you. Beware." way. And since you must learn to pass a lot here, you must honk a lot. We were on a bus trip and the blaring horn was soooo getting on my nerves. Between it and a man I called "Typhoid Tyrone"-- he could not stop coughing -- I was completely on edge.

3) Jordo is like Magellan. He gets to a new place, pulls out the map, and immediately starts figuring his way around. He knows street names and, perhaps more impressively, north, south, east and west wherever he is. (He says it's from the sun. He also says he can tell the time of day from the sun. I say that when the sun is shining, I know a liar when I see one.) It's very impressive, especially since I get to a new place and start walking in circles. He's good to travel with. I was thinking the other day how much fun this trip has been and how we haven't had any of those disagreements that people who travel together have. I mean, Jesus Christ and Buddha could go on vacation together and even they're going to disagree about something. Or maybe not. Maybe we're just like them. I guess Jordan can be Buddha, since he was compared to that diety earlier. I'll be Jesus. We have a lot in common: We're both Capricorns. And don't forget our self-sacrificing natures.

4) Re: The tunnels again. Jordo and I were marvelling how, at the first series of tunnels we visited, all the townspeople had worked together to dig them out in such a short time period. We tried to imagine what would have happened if the people of Philadelphia had to work together to do such a project, and we had Johnny Doc complaining that non-Union labor was doing the work, Rendell wanting to make sure there was room for the casinos, Street saying things were racially biased. We also couldn't imagine living in caves with some of our neighbors, like the guy we call "RDD", short for "Republican Drug Dealer," since 1) he is a drug dealer and 2) he told me he's a Republican. He hangs at the corner near our house. I could live with the fact that he's a drug dealer, but the Republican thing would get old quick.

5) Earlier in our trip, we noticed quite a few couples -- usually Japanese -- who wore matching outfits. Even matching bathing suits. Of course, the day we noticed it we looked down and noted we were both wearing green khaki shorts and black t-shirts. I was like, "Oh no, do you think we're becoming one of THOSE couples?" Jordo said, "Come on. You know us. We just threw on whatever was on the floor." True.