Happy Tet - 'But Not For You' said the beggar boy...

'Saigon, Still only in Saigon' - Capt Willard as played by Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now!

Yesterday was a truly lovely day here in Tet obsessed Vietnam. Liza and I decided to go see some historical buildings including the Rex Hotel,particularly it's roof top bar, where the US army spent much of its time in the war years. This lovely old hotel, (blah blah blah etc - read the Lonely Planet guide for more of that kind of stuff), retains that pervasive French atmosphere that this town is renowned for. Across the street roughly, is the Continental which I'm told was the setting for Graham Greene's novel The Quiet American. Also on this square is the Caravelle Hotel which was pretty much the home of the press corps during the conflict here. I actually got into the Tet spirit by buying myself a red cotton, or should I say 'cotton', T Shirt with a Yellow Star on it, the symbol of the revolution and the flag of Vietnam. I bought it for the equivalent of $1.50 US from one of the street vendors. At least most of the street vendors dont yell at you or touch you to get your attention. So many beggars, so many of them kids. When you're sitting on a sidewalk cafe having a 'white coffee', they come by your table one at a time like some sort of living channel changer, desperately displaying a disparate assortment of diversions for your discerning tastes, in exchange for your oh so discretionary income. The pattern is becoming familiar. First it's the lighter guy with a wide selection of engraved Zippolighters - possibly from the US army soldiers but likely forged (literally)versions arranged in a quick folding briefcase for easy displaying. Curiously these guys also seem to sell those tacky little 'Peeing Boy' statues that I haven't seen since I was a wee one myself. They were usually sold in Variety stores back home, right between joke birthday cards (COVER: You're Not Getting Older INSIDE FLAP:You're Just Over The Hill) and the dubious 'golf' awards (INSCRIPTION: Duffer Of The Year!) But I, as they say, digress. Like clockwork, immediately after the visit from the lighter guy it's time for the 'Girl-Selling-Fifty-Bootlegged-Paperback-Novels'. Pretty self explanatory I suppose, just a girl with fifty cheap imitation paperbacks - the stack held together with straps like in old school days (not mine)- with titles as eclectic as The Quiet American, Future Shock and Nick Hornby's High Fidelity. It seems like Ben Elton is an incredibly popular writer and published in German, English and French no less. Next are the little tykes who just want money. No sales pitch. No phoney promises or claims. Nothing to buy, ever. But that's the problem really. Last night, this being the actually Tet night celebration evening, this one little guy smiled happily in my face 'Happy Tet - Good Luck To You!', and then stood there waiting with just the cutest grin you've ever seen. Naturally, and rather thoughtfully and sincerely I might add, I wished him the same, and smiled a warm smile of my own . Then our little scamp realized that I was not in a paying mood. Ooops. My bad. The temperamental young lad scowled back at me and walked away in disgust but not before damning me with 'No Happy Tet To You!' Ouch. Liza and got home around 8:30 and were told that the hotel was having a Tet Party and they had dolled up the lobby with a tree, I think a peach blossom tree, decked out with greeting cards. They told us to come back down around 10:30 and we were welcome to party with them in advance of the midnight celebrations. But you know us, we're just not Tet people. Never have been. You kids go Tetting without us. We were asleep by 9:30. But that's not to say that we stayed asleep. No sirree bob, to use a quaint old expression for no reason.

At exactly 11:30 pm, we were awakened by the rude 'KLAK KLAKKA KLAK' of firecracker in the street six stories below. This was enough to get me out of bed, and good thing too because I was able to wake up Liza so that we could step out on to our rooftop balcony and witness a truly remarkable fireworks display to welcome in the Year Of The Snake. (Even though I know it's the Year Of The Snake, I bet I'll still be writing Year of The Dragon on my cheques for a few weeks. It's so hard to get used to it)

Did I mention that the currency here is Dollars To Dong the most ridiculous I've ever come across? At the airport we changed 200.00 USD to god knows how much Dong, but it's all paper notes. No coins. So te money exchange lady handed us a big stack of notes that, if they were US Dollars would have looked like a bank job or a ransom drop. Here we were, frightened and culture shocked and being handed a wad of bills that was big enough, as Barney Rubble might have said 'to choke a dinosaur' But that's prehistory. Anyway, it all works out since the average meal we've had seems to cost around 13,000 to 20,000 Dong (or VND)So you tend you use up the 20,000 VND bills faster than others. Most places list the prices with a decimal point (like 20.000) as opposed to a comma (20,000) so it feels more like 20 dollars, but that's not an accurate value for the money, dollars to dong.

The Zen cafe is vastly becoming our favourite quick and cheap meal place, but today we discovered the Lotus Cafe and yesterday we had breakfast at the Cafe 333, which I believe was named after the popular beer of that name. Speaking of drinks, today I noticed that the words DIET COKE and VIET CONG share many of the same letters and that the middle IET CO is sequentially identical. Did I mention the heat? Tomorrow we go to the Cu Chi Tunnels on a touristy day trip. Then we'll be back here in Saigon for a couple of days and then down to the Mekong delta for three days. Then, next week we're kicking it old school up Hue way. *That's sort of near Da Nang. Then later still we're going to Hanoi.

I'll try to write from somehwere. Thanks for reading these, and keep sending emails to liza (Liza.algar@airtreks.com) and try sending them to me (paul.myers@airtreks.com) so I can see if it's working yet. (A nice person at airtreks forwarded many to me last week but I want them to be sent straight to my account so let's experiment, hopefully I;ll be able to get in a real dialogue with some of you.)

PM

PS Wrote some songs, bringing a guitar is a definite boon. Played 'Get Back' on our rooftop today, Let It Be I say.