Book Report

In grade school we wrote book reports, in college we wrote critiques, in the real world we throw books on the ground. During my 22 day venture through SE Asia I managed to power through 2 novels and a bunch of paper bounded together categorized as a novel but more appropriately described as expensive kindling.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavaleir and Clay has been sitting in my book pile, haunting me, beckoning me, for years. I read through the first third of the novel numerous times, and inevitably somehow, for some reason or another the book would be forgotten, delayed, and placed off to the side. So as I packed my things in preparation for my trip I made a point to bring it along.

Anyway, I read it. I smoothed through the first third per usual and thanks to the serenity that was my guestroom in Luang Prabang, Laos, the second part came easier than ever. In the end I recommend this novel not for it's magnificent first and third acts as much as I recommend it as a perfect example of the way to tell a great story. A whole story with peaks and valleys and in the end I felt like a little better person.

I proceeded to the book exchange, run by a charming English woman and her psychotic dog in a back alley overlooking the Nam Khan river. One of the most difficult tasks in my existence is choosing a new book to read. I spent an hour or so going back and forth, back and forth through the small but respectable selection and only The Shipping News by Anne Proulx caught any of my attention. And why not? Kavalier and Clay was a Pulitzer Prize winner, The Shipping News was a Pulitzer Prize winner, yes, why not?

Read it.

Don't read it too fast or you will end up left with two days in Vientiane and nothing to read. You will go to a bookstore and choose a short novel with "New York Times Bestseller" at the top. It will be called The Devil and Mrs. Prym. Because it is short you will be halfway done with it about a quarter of the way after you decided it was organized garbage. It's too late to give up so you will finish it. You will throw in on the floor of your guesthouse and leave it there.

Vietnam.

Telling my dad I was going to Vietnam was like telling him I bought Giants season tickets or that I hated the Beatles. Except for the fact that I really was going to Vietnam. His answer? "You are paying to go to Vietnam?" You see he got a free trip there, well technically he got paid to go there, just not very much.

Yes, I was headed to Vietnam, not only Vietnam but their two equally communist neighbors, Cambodia and Laos. No, I didn't go to China, what do you think I am, a jerk? (Definitely going to China, eventually.)

First stop, Ho Chi Minh City, better known as Saigon, more accurately described as Moped City.

It is a city swollen with sweat, choked by smog, littered with history, and filled with delicious food. Pho, it's all the rage right now, well I am happy to report I had the best Pho, ever, at a food stall in Saigon. I am also happy to report that my pronounciation of Pho, shockingly enough (not really I am always right) is the correct pronounciation of Pho. http://www.lovingpho.com/pho-opinion-editorial/how-to-pronounce-pho/

The old US Embassy in Saigon makes any red-blooded American nostalgic for the days of colonialism. History smistery, all I was thinking about while we were exploring the place was the wild parties that undoubtedly went down in the old building. It is a beautiful, open air structure, reminds me a lot of the buildings of another colonial conquest that we manages to hold onto, Hawaii.

I felt claustrophobic in the Cu Chi Tunnels, I felt scared out of my wits riding on the back of a moped in Saigon traffic, I felt shady as hell buying oregano in a back alley, and I felt damn happy to head to Nha Trang for some beach time...