Our First Night in Vietnam

Not much to report. As we made our way through customs, once we got outside, my dad said, "Fucking humidity. That's one thing I don't miss."

It is hot and humid here in Ho Chi Minh City. We arrive in one piece to our little backpacker's hotel. The kind lady at the front desk recommends a bar for us. We drink three beers, while my dad mentions the Saigon River, which we saw from the back seat of the maniacal cab ride from the airport to the backpacking district.

"Used to be, you wouldn't be surprised to find dead bodies floating down that river," my dad said in the outdoor patio of the bar. "What was it, '69? When there got to be so many bodies clogging up the river, the boat traffic couldn't get through. They had to start plucking the bodies up."

While he drank budweiser and I drank Vietnamese beer, my dad talked about being afraid, in the old days, of being in a bar like this. "Someone might throw something that looked like that" (he pointed toward my purse) "and blow the place up."