Leaving the Nam.

And so it comes to sum up another country having only been in it for such a short time. I have to say I really loved Vietnam, and if you want to read a better description than mine read "Catfish & Mandala" by Andrew X Pham, I'm reading it now and it really captures the essence of the country. The people are lovely though not outrightly so, once the ice is broken they are some of the friendliest people I've met on my travels. Of course there's the element of working towards a sale but always with a smile and a joke and a laugh. I've always found the best descriptions come from what you see out your bus window because it's everything you see and hear and smell condensed, sometimes so condensed it gives you a headache with all the information flying into your brain!!!! So this is what I see, threshers, the old-fashioned ones turned by hand, separating out the rice grain, to be laid out on any spare piece of flat ground even if it's the side of the main road, and dried in the sun, cone hats covering young beautiful faces and wizened faces alike, plastic chairs the size you used in school when you were 8 surrounding road stalls serving food on equally small tables, people squatting and slurping from bowls of noodles and rice and vegetables and unrecognizable meat, surprisingly good roads with cars playing chicken with motorbikes playing chicken with busses playing chicken with lorries which are not going to lose, hot women in modern stylish clothes leading children with no pants, kids playing amid lush green scenery, paddy fields, eastern bloc ads, look how happy we are everyone equal, except the people living in poverty, Vietnamese flags distributed by the government to every family flying high outside every house, election day looming, don't have to vote if you don't want to, the winner might already be known... possibly the one and only political party, I think so. Hundreds of motos loaded to ridiculous extremes, pigs in bamboo baskets squished in tight, chickens tied by their ankles, trees 2 stories high, a pane of glass, a few door frames, industry, fashion, red soil, bicycles everywhere, tourists in aircon busses, locals like cattle in local busses, red propaganda, women in pyjamas, kids in school uniform, high school girls in bright white trousers and ankle length tunics cycle back straight with heads up high, men in boats fishing, clean brick houses, peaked hats on the men, face masks on the women, bent over women with shoulder mounted staffs, baskets hanging from both ends, bike shops, girls on motorbikes with arm gloves, markets flowers, fruit, noodles, raw meat, animals heads, weighing scales, overloaded motorbikes, huge smiles and long stares, people don’t smile back, small stalls selling only 2 or 3 items, new buildings, ancient temples, dollhouse like spirit houses, crazy traffic, homemade signs advertising spare part shops with available nonexistent internet, umbrellas, shirt and tie, water in fields, thin buildings, motos, iron grill doorways, posh resorts to keep the locals out so the fat tourist standing at the gate can feel relaxed, Vietnamese flags….