HOI AN!!

Well, I'm glad to be out of Saigon. It was fun, but any city that makes New York seem quiet and peaceful with easy to navigate traffic and fresh, clean, healthy air is not exactly a place I'd like to stay for vacation. One update I would like to include is about the War Remnants Museum, which was a heartbreaking look at the results of our incursion into this small, peaceful country.

There was an entire exhibit dedicated to all the photographers who died in the line of journalism, and those who were forced into trying to save soldiers lives when all they intended was to chronicle the war. Really intense, heartbreaking stuff, some of the best action photography I'd ever seen. (Alan, you'd love it.) There was a Vietnamese High School group waiting to go in who all stared at me in my 6'5" glory and cheered wildly when I smiled and waved at them. Hehehe

The Levy family also went out to some of the best eating we'd had so far. At each meal we'd just keep ordering more and more food until we were stuffed, and it'd always come out to less that $15 a person.

After three days in Saigon, we caught an early morning flight to Da Nang and then a cab ride to the city of Hoi An, which was much more what I was looking for in a vacation from NYC. Smaller, coastal town, where it's POURING on and off the whole time we're here.

The main reason we came to Hoi An is for the clothing. They have some of the best tailors in Viet Nam here, and I got not one, not two, but THREE hand-tailored three-piece suits and silk shirts for only about $70 apiece. For those of you who really know me, you know the next time we take a night on the town I'm going to be strutting about in all my pinstriped glory. Wé're getting them fitted later today, I can't wait. We also got handmade silk lanterns for $4 apiece. . . .

Some of you lucky ones may have one coming your way. . .

That night we went out to a really snazzy restaurant called the Mango Room which was a Vietnamese/Cuban/Argentine fusion restaurant with brightly colored walls, mellow Cuban music, and the comfiest chairs I'd ever sat in in a restuarant. 75% of the dishes had mango in them, plus a pureed mango daquiri that was just divine.

Right next door was the (as far as I could tell) only late-night cater-to-tourists pub in town where all the international tourists and exchange students went. There were maybe 50 or 75 people there at peak when the rest of the town was closed up for the night. On the walls were paitings of "SuperBono"(Bono with a superman suit and U2 on his chest instead of the Superman S), a Samurai soldier listening to an Ipod and a Warhol-esqe 3x4 collection of square portraits of influential writers, philosophers and world leaders including Ghandi, Stalin, Nietzche, Marx, and Marilyn Monroe. Go figure.

The nations represented at the bar were Australian, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, England, one French, Matt and I holding down the US and maybe some others.

Today, we're going to take a hike of Marble Mountain and then off to the city of Hue! (pronounced Hway)

Missing you kids, and remember! If you want a postcard, send me your address!

-Gideon