I am not fat, just big boned

Though after scurrying through former Viet Cong tunnels I could be mistaken for either.

So there may or may not be an image next to this post, we finally bought a flash drive but the internet cafe is slow as dirt.

Anyway, we just got back from touring the Cu Chi tunnels, which are a series of, well tunnels, used by the vietnamese for fighting both the french and the americans. They were built originally in the 1930's and then during the american war they were expanded to the point that a few of the trap doors were actually in the middle of the US Army base in the area (yeah, kind of a problem). We wandered around the outside for a while and then wandered in.

The tunnels were tiny, tiny, tiny, although the insides had been expanded by 40% in order to accomodate the larger sizes of the Western tourists. We went down about three leves, each involving sort of sitting on the step and sliding your butt down, then crab walking about 25 feet to another turn or step down. Our guide was blazing through it, while my tall self was reduced to crawling at a glacial pace to avoid hitting myself in the head. Natalie, sadly, was stuck behind me, with nothing left to do but take pictures of the every accumulating amount of mud and water attaching to my backside (that's my girl). We did this for about ten minutes, though it felt a lot longer, and then we were back up to freedom.

Obviously wandering around in something this size raises the question of girth, or more accurately what happens when girth meets stone. Thankfully the only part that got caught at some point were my shoulders, though the way I have been eating I was a little worried that my gut was going to get stuck going into the third level.

After the relative calm of Hue, Saigon feels like we are back to the big city grind. Kind of like Bangkok, but more neon, more large billboards and many many more mopeds. The strangest catch to far has been the prevalence of arm socks on many of the female moped riders. Apparently light skin is extremely favored here, tanned skin being seen as vulgar (not sure if that means trampy or just low class). Given the obvious problem of heat and sun, many women opt to wear some sort of sleeves while stuck in traffic and then remove them when they are out of the evil rays of the sun.

Our guide, San, has been by far the best we have had on the trip. He is pretty honest about the failings of Vietnam and the problems in Ho Chi Minh City's gentrification, but at the same time willing to spend a half hour going through the various opinions and the reasons for state control of portions of the economy. The only drawback was his like of John McCain, but nothings perfect.