final day.

today is our last day here, and it proved to be just about as exciting as the rest. after sleeping in and getting a few donuts down the street at a great bakery, we went to the Ben Thanh Market, a huge indoor market place that sells everything you could possibly need - clothing, jewelry, luggage, food (some of it stunk so bad it could gag a maggot as Dylan would say), you name it.

notice how the pearly gates are shining down on the shoe rack? obviously...

what interested us were the watches and shades!!! we each scored a few pair of glasses and i got myself a pretty sweet watch. bob also got a few watches - we couldn't resist. both the glasses and the watches were really good copies, and they were cheap! here's bob working out the deal for his watches.

after making our purchases, we strolled on to the War Remnants Museum. it was a lot smaller than i thought it would be, but was interesting nonetheless. it was mostly filled with pictures from the war on the inside, most being graphic images of injured and killed vietnamese citizens. just like i felt in tokyo at a museum standing in an exhibit about hiroshima, i felt a bit out of place there. all the images were of vietnamese people harmed by US troops, and there stood bob and i, two Americans. but again, we received no bad looks nor did we get the feeling we were not wanted there, so that was nice to see. outside in the courtyard were US planes, helicopters, and other military vehicles. i'm not sure if i mentioned this yet, but a main reason for me wanting to come to Vietnam was due to the fact my uncle Scott served four tours here flying huey helicopters, and i really wanted to get a small sense of what he saw and felt here. i say small sense because i realize the conditions here 35 years ago were dramatically different, but it's still better than seeing images in a book or on the television. i was glad to see they had a huey at a museum, and while i've seen one in the past, it was neat to get up close to one again.

just before leaving the museum, we were sitting on the front steps enjoying a cold drink and a nice breeze when a malaysian women walked out in front of us to take a picture right at us. bob looked over at me with a 'should we move' type look on his face and we then noticed a 50 some year old malaysian lady had scooted between us on the stair behind us to try to sneak a photo with us! we weren't going to let her get some shitty photo, so we slapped the stair right in between us and told her to slide on down. the 5 or so other women with her laughed and for the next 5 minutes, all the women took turns getting a shot with us. we still don't fully understand what happened or why they wanted a photo with us, but it made us feel pretty good.

in about two hours, we're off to the airport for our flight home. i'm a bit sad to be leaving - this has been a wonderful place to spend the last two weeks. the people have been so wonderful, the country truly is the most beautiful place i've ever been, and it will be hard to leave here the same person i was two weeks ago. to open your eyes to a culture so different from ours with so much poverty, yet people who seem far more happy than the people back home was something that amazed me and is something every person should witness in their lives. it's been fantastic, and i'm left wondering what things give me joy and happiness in my own life. or what things should give me that happiness...