About Abundance
We have just met Denise again. Denise is Irish. We had met her in HCMC’s funny expat scene. When today in Mui Ne we stepped onto one arbitrary bus among the thousands that go north each day, suddenly she was there again. Yesterday in Mui Ne, Julian met two expats that he had been boozing with some days ago in HCMC. But the greatest miracle happened the day before yesterday: When we dragged out of bed at 9 this once because of the heroic 35th anniversary of Saigon’s liberation, I was singing the beautiful German schlager Wunder gibt es immer wieder (There are miracles again and again). Indeed: When I went down the steps to the living room of our guest house granny, who sat there but Caroline and Anne-Laure, the two French girls we had once met in Rattanakiri, Cambodia, the official end of the world. Among the thousands of guest houses in this city they had actually booked the one remaining room besides ours chez granny. They had been living here for days. It was just our entirely different sleeping rhythm that had kept us apart.
What do these miracles want to tell us? Apart from the realization that the traveller trail in Vietnam is apparently as narrow as the country itself, to me it says a lot about the abundance in the Universe: The world is a benevolent place for those who live in abundance. Read the rest of this entry »
Ho Chi Minh makes you clever
Dumb Executive Summary
Dumb. Easy to confuse with words. Cannot Brain today. Got the dumb.
Viet speak like I. Lady massa bumbum? Marihuana? Motobike? –No? No understand. Not no. Not know. But nod. Understand is bad for brain. Make brain hum. I speak like Viet. Good for nationunderstandment. Bad for brain. Good.
Always hum and Motorbike. Thousand. Run over you. Almost. Million hum next to Vietnamman drink coffee and tea on street. With table. Chair. Brain hum like hum. Thousand hum.
Always booze. Smoke. Always booze and smoke. Viet booze. Cum sei Cum yaei. Charly say means: You not run you not go away. Farther. Glass empty glass full. Until evening. Expats always booze. Until morning. Brain hum because poisonous poison in trash smoke booze. Mmmh trash.
Oa! Much. Much oa. Always much lookie. Listen. Thousand. Always Oa. House big. Statue uncle Ho. Tree green. Ho good. Good Ho. Oa. Always much Oa. Make Oa in brain. Oa brain!
Sleepy not. Warm. Hot. Death. Night wake for sweat. Booze sometimes. Day wake for Oa. Sweat. Drag. Death. Brain burn better. Wither. Burn. Crackle when burn.
Death brain.
Clever Long Version
Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh!
If you thought socialism had gone down with the Soviet Union or had been reduced to a shadowy existence in enclaves like Cuba, think again. Welcome to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, welcome to socialism, welcome to the future. Not just compared to Cambodia we find ourselves at the hub of civilization here: Ho Chi Minh City has 11 million inhabitants, 6 million motorbikes, and an estimated billion of luminous signs. Besides, the city is named after the best man in the world, Ho Chi Minh, the king of benefactors. If you doubt this, it will be a pleasure for me to smack some sense into you. Want proof? Who else has a city of 11 millions named after himself? I believe that Ho Chi is in the lead. Well, there is a certain Sao Paolo, but that was a long time ago … I’m not sure this guy even existed.

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