Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)

Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh City was an eight and a half hour bus ride—the longest I've done yet. Yet since I started this journey, I've begun to experience time differently. A long bus ride passes rather quickly, but a good conversation or a beautiful view seem to last quite a while. I'm more acutely aware that everything changes and everything passes, so I've been more patient with the unpleasant experiences and while savoring the pleasant ones. I see no reason that I can't bring this with me into the regular world.

The Vietnamese border crossing was surprisingly quick and convenient. As we entered the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City, it was clear that Vietnam is a much, much wealthier country than Cambodia. The storefronts are more modern, there's an abundance of tall buildings and new construction, and the streets are absolutely packed with scooters. This very modern suspension bridge was constructed only a few months ago.

The traffic is like nothing I've ever seen before. There's hardly any public transit, but there are eight million motorcycles in a city of twelve million people. Crossing the street is an act of faith. Even at a crosswalk, no one stops to let you pass. You just have to wait for a short enough break in traffic to step out into the street, then walk at a slow and steady pace while the scooters weave around you. It's terrifying the first few times, but after a few days it feels pretty normal.

The kids are alright in Vietnam. I witnessed teenagers skateboarding in a park, practicing synchronized dances, and generally participating in community in a public space. I don't care much about fashion, but I noticed that they seem to be doing well there, too. A lot of it seemed to be copied from Japanese and Korean trends, but there was still plenty of evidence of a unique Vietnamese fashion culture. I got my beard trimmed at a barbershop where most of the barbers wore extremely wide-fitting trousers a bit like a zoot suit. That might be a played out hipstery choice in the US, but it looked cool here.

On my first morning walk around the city I met Vinh, a local guide who struck up a conversation and offered to taxi me around on his scooter and show the sights. Although I've been riding motorcycles for half of my life, I had never actually been on the back of one.

We checked out a few pagodas (that weren't terribly memorable), the exterior of the Notre Dame Cathedral of Saigon (which was completely covered in scaffolding for renovations), the Saigon Opera House, a huge indoor market, and a few war memorials. I was impressed with the city, but underwhelmed with the touristy stuff.

Vinh is a pretty competent driver, but he clearly wasn't used to having a 225 lb passenger. He stopped short a few times and I nearly knocked him off of the bike. The most entertaining part of the tour was learning to be a passenger. It's terrifying to be that out of control. I've got a new appreciation for the experience of people who have ridden on the back of my motorcycle.

Vinh and I got involved in motorcycle talk and I told him that being driven around was really making me want to ride. He insisted that it's easy to buy a motorcycle, ride it to Hanoi, and sell it there. He told me he'd take me to some shops that sell secondhand motorcycles so I could see for myself. It occurred to me that I might even be able to ride to Laos if I owned it outright, so I agreed enthusiastically. In the end, Vinh's recommendations instilled much less confidence than the more common touristy rental option on the main drag, but he put the idea in my head and I couldn't shake it.

My hostel is located right next to Bui Vien Walking Street, which is wild. Khaosan Road has become the standard for concentrated nightlife by which all others will be judged. Bui Vien is more impressive than Khaosan with a wider street and more luxurious offering, but it's not the same hedonistic free-for-all. The only drug readily available is alcohol.

The other popular tourist attraction is the Cu Chi Tunnels Museum, which is dedicated to showing the ingenuity and cunning of the Viet Cong. Every advertisement has smiling westerners poking their heads up from one of the tunnels. I'm told it's interesting and that the 250km network of tunnels is an impressive feat. I'm the only one at my hostel who didn't join the tour, though. Nobody but the Australian guy shared my complicated feelings about the tone and message of the museum.

I think I've done a pretty decent job here of sharing experiences newspapers couldn't print in a way that tells the story without laboring on all of the gory details. I'm not particularly private about my own life—sometimes I'm outright exhibitionistic—but I don't want to put anybody off. Yet, all of the feedback I've gotten has been positive and it appears that even buttoned-down professional colleagues want to hear more about stuff like the ping pong show. So I'm going to keep trying to do that in good taste. The following story might walk that line, though.

My anecdotal evidence doesn't include an adequately diverse sample of the population for me to draw accurate conclusions about pubic grooming. Because of the underrepresentation of men in my study, I assumed that waxing was something only girls and bodybuilders do. I figured it was normal for a man's nether regions to resemble Sweetums from The Muppets—just a nose protruding from a big mass of hair. When a masseuse took a peek then insisted something be done about my bird's nest, I was cautiously open to a new experience.

Waxing was just out. I'm a hairy person, and I think it would look bizarre to become suddenly hairless in one spot. So she offered to trim it. I attempted to give some instructions about the length I wanted, but she didn't really have the English ability to handle that request. She produced a pair of tiny scissors (smaller than the ones I used to use to trim nose hairs) and went to work for half an hour slowly and methodically trimming.

There was a time in my life when I was so lonely that I looked forward to getting a haircut because I craved the human contact. I don't suffer like that anymore, but I still appreciate the type of attention and caring physical contact that comes from services like a haircut. And a pubic haircut? Golly, that's just the bees knees.

Because this isn't already a strange enough story, I should add that she gave me her contact information and invited me to join her in passing out fifty meals she had just cooked for needy families. I wasn't free for that, but we ended up hanging out each day I was in town. We had to make a lot of use of the translation app, but it's surprising how quickly you can enjoy someone's company even without having anything to talk about.

I found a shop that would let me rent a motorcycle in Ho Chi Minh City and drop it off in Hanoi, so I pulled the trigger. My first trip driving in Vietnamese traffic from the shop to the hostel was intense. It was only a ten minute drive, but when I got back to the hostel I had to lie down for twenty minutes to let my heart stop pounding. Later, when I got back on the road, I decided not to drive anywhere in particular, but rather to join the traffic. A few minutes into that exercise, something completely clicked. I started seeing the order to it and approaching driving completely differently.

When riding a motorcycle in the US, I always noticed that traffic moves in clots. Because I had the speed to get away from the clot, I could chase open road. Even during awful periods of rush hour traffic, cars seem to pile up in herds and leave stretches of open road completely untouched. I always found it to be an annoying behavior of drivers that they needed to join the herd, but in Vietnam, the herd actually makes sense. There are lots of intersections with no lights where drivers just have to figure it out somehow. The only safe thing to do is to join the herd and move together as one big swarm of scooters.

Next stop: Dalat by way of Mui Ne