HOLY SHIT. These are the only words I can use to describe Saigon so far. We’ve been here for 4 days now and I don’t think I’ve ever encountered such madness in my life. If I was worried about crossing the street in Istanbul, well I guess I’m just fucked now. Crossing the road here is an art form…. I’m learning though. There are about 500 gazillion motorcycles and a complete disregard for traffic rules. We saw the scene of an accident yesterday, a pair of flip flops and a helmet lodged underneath a truck and a pile of blood. We didn’t see a body, and I am VERY grateful for that.

Within our first 15 minutes of being in this city, we already saw male genitalia. Some dude just whipped out his junk and decided to start taking a waz right in front of us. Sure I’ve seen dudes at home pee in public, but usually it’s up against a wall or in a corner somewhere. That is definitely not the Saigon way…. feel free to piss anywhere!

On the the less scary side, the food here so far is amazing. I’ve eaten countless bowls of Pho already, crocodile, ostrich and mouse. Yes, MOUSE. It was delicious!

We’ve managed to find a place to live already, a nice guesthouse in District 1 which is a tourist area but for $6 a night you can’t go wrong, we even get HBO.

I’m a little concerned about finding a job. First off, we’ve been told that because of the poor economy there is a surplus of English teachers right now. The second problem is I’m Asian (although a Vietnamese girl asked me if I was Spanish, wtf?). After reading countless numbers of ESL forums and actually speaking to an English teacher here, it appears as though English schools only want white people, despite the fact that I am a native English speaker and I only know about 9 words of Chinese. Oh discrimination, you gotta love it.

I said countless times that the worst part about Istanbul was how chaotic it was but it is 1000x more chaotic here and I’m ENJOYING it. I guess in Istanbul it felt like organized chaos and here it’s actual chaos which makes it more exciting… I don’t know, it’s possible I’m just crazy.