I know that most people would never believe that someone could think of Bangkok as 'serene', but that is exactly what I felt while we cruised back into this town lounging in an air-conned taxi, directly to our hotel in the Silom/Patapong area of the city. It had been a rough and remarkable few days before that, and coming back to this city I knew and loved made me very happy indeed. The weapons of sound that the Vietnamese employed incessantly were blissfully absent in this very cool city we had come back to. I still cannot believe the cacophony we endured while we were in Saigon and the surrounding countryside.

On Phou Qouc Island in Vietnam we'd met some other Westerners and together had a hard time passing up the large 4$ bottles of rum. I think between the seven of us, we cruised through at least 5 of them. Lu didn't fare so well in the morning, and I was more of a rock than a human when it came to wakeup time. All trip we managed to get everywhere we needed on time without an alarm clock. On days we needed to be up before 9am we just left the curtains open and the sun provided all the impetus we needed to pull our eyelids open and then pull out the iPods to see what time it was. And, when it comes to waking up, I have a natural ability slip from sleep and check the time as dawn slowly brightens on the horizon. None of that worked after the debauchery of that last night in Phou Quoc, but the knock on the door a half an hour after we were supposed to leave was just soon enough to get us to the airport in time. I just slept on the short hop over to Ho(ly Sh*t) Chi Min (Motosaigon) City. Lu had a bit more difficult time, as she noted earlier.

The landing was smooth and we found a cab quick, but the ride into HCMC was absolutely mind boggling. I had never seen anything like it in the world. They use motobikes quite a lot in this region of the world, but nothing, and I mean nothing, compared to the flood of motorized-two-wheelers that raged through the streets of this large, southern, Vietnam city. There are millions of them on the roads, and it seemed like all of them were out there at all times of the day or night. Seven deep across the road, and six hundred back would wait at the light as we sat in our cab amazed at what gathered around us. Don't even try to imagine what it looks like when some of those bikes need to turn left across an equal flood of motorized madness. And don't even begin to guess the objects, foodstuffs, number of humans and crazed contraptions these people haul with their two-stroke engines. There should be rivers of blood and shattered cycles all over the streets, but somehow the Vietnamese have managed to commute every day without destroying one another at every intersection. And everything seems to get exactly where it needs to go, all on the seats of these Honda cycles. It's like competing flocks of birds flitting by each other with nary a feather ruffled. I still can't believe they manage to pull it off. Make no mistake, though. Vietnam suffers from a great deal of road accidents. But in the many, many miles we traveled on motobikes I never saw a single person get hurt while riding. And ride we did.

But first we had to find a guesthouse. Lu was still in recovery, so I was on recon. She took a seat at a cafe and watched the bags while I strolled the 'hood searching for the perfect room. As usual I checked at least six places, but it was the first one with the private balcony on the top floor that seemed the best choice. I got back to her, we gathered our bags, staggered up the street, checked in and chilled out. We splurged for air-con 'cause the city was muggy, haze-filled and hot enough to make me sweat just thinking about taking a stroll. But I liked where we had landed. The city and people had a drive and a passion that was missing in Cambodia. There was focus and intention. There was still plenty of people selling books or postcards, but one 'no thank you' was enough to send them on their way. The desolation-of-soul that plagued Cambodia was absent here. Only hours into HCMC (Saigon) and I was already enthralled. Lu slept. I found a balcony with a view to have a few beers, eat some food and read a bit. The madness of the motobikes below me stunned me into staring over and over again. I went back to my baby after a bit and forced her to drink some water and before long she was back on her feet and ready to go. Our first order of business was finding some tailors to make us some clothes.

Back in Phnom Penh we debated on the path to take. Since our original Vietnam visa had run out while we lazed the days away on Don Det, we could either pay for another one, or say screw it and just hit the islands in Thailand that we missed on our first pass through. Since the easy way is not our style we opted for new horizons and Vietnam was our choice. Two deciding factors were that we wanted to get clothes made (suits for me, dresses/skirts for her) and we wanted to see the Mekong Delta. After checking a few places on our street and then searching around the rest of the city the next morning we found 2 places close by that had the styles and fabric we wanted. First thing the next day I got fitted for my suits and Lu went off to her place to pick out exactly what she wanted. After that it was time to figure out how we were going to get to the Mekong Delta. We didn't want a packaged tour where the guides have everything but cattle prods to move the herd from bus to candyfactory to canal ride to lunch and then back to the packed bus to drive us home. No way. Not our style at all. We wanted to go authentic and deep risk our lives one more time, and so a motobike ride to Cantho was the method we selected. It's amazing how good a choice sounds at the outset and how bad it can turn out in the end. But before we left for the Mekong, we had a few things to see in the city itself.

Vietnam has been a battleground for thousands of years. The long coastline and the rich, fertile Mekong Delta made it a coveted prize for a variety of cultures. The Siamese, the Chinese, the ancient kingdom of Angkor all wanted a piece of this thin crescent of land. But the people of Vietnam are fierce. Every sale is a battle of wills, haggling to the last moment when we finally walk away and they chase us down to offer us just a little bit more than we said we could pay. And that fierceness is no more evident than the in the horrors that occurred during the Vietnam War. And those horrors were laid bare to us when we visited the Cu Chi Tunnels just outside the city, and then later that day at the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Min City. The museum clearly has a perspective, and that perspective is obviously pro-North Vietnam. All the images, all the stories, all the information within the museum shows how the Vietnamese managed to vanquish the terrible Americans and their traitors allies in South Vietnam. But, as they say, history is written by the victors, and Ho Chi Min and his Communist Comrades were clearly the winners of that long, terrible battle. What was done to the Viet Cong and their villager allies was truly terrible. It made us sick to see the effects of Agent Orange and Napalm on both immediate victims and their offspring. But not once did the museum mention any of the terrible things the North Vietnamese did to their American captives. After seeing firsthand how Cambodia still suffers, and seeing in fine detail the horrors of the Vietnam War it is clear to me that the true battles of this world is not between cultures or governments or armies, but between the people and corporations that Want War vs. those of us that only Want Peace. And because the former will kill anyone and anything to further their goals, we who Want Peace are always the first and worst to suffer. Suffice to say, that day in HCMC (formerly Saigon, before it was 'liberated') was a tough one for Lu and I. It was a bad a day in Vietnam as it was when we viewed the terrible deeds of the Khmer Rouge while in Cambodia. But the next day we were leaving for the Mekong, and both of us were thrilled to be getting on the road to see a bit more of this city than the touristry street where we had settled down.

There were charms to the street. We found a beer hoi and made some friends. Our room was nice. We were thrilled with the tailors we had picked when we went back for our first fitting. And when we woke up on the third day and got onto the backs of the motobikes with one little bag each and some really cool drivers, we were psyched to be getting out of town to see the massive Mekong River end it's long journey south--a watery journey that the two of us had followed for hundreds of miles. I had no idea what was in store for me, though. There was no way it could happen again, but it did. It did. And dealing with it was the toughest thing I've done. Ever. I thought Burning Man was the hardest thing I could do to myself. Then the Gibbon Experience put BM to shame simply out of pure danger-of-death. (At Burning Man you can get hurt but still get to a great hospital before things turn truly serious. At the Gibbon Exp., help was days away, and your only recourse was young (16 yrs old) guides and the people you were there with. And even then, the last thing you wanted to end up at was a hospital in Laos. You had to get to Bangkok for true medical help.) Coming out of the Delta, I went through hell. But before all that, it was friggin great.

2 hour ride to Mytho. There we rode a small boat though tiny canals canopied by huge banana-tree leaves and huge groves of bamboo. The haggling in Vietnam is intense and it took a while to hire the boat. But the ride was excellent, amazing, gorgeous and relaxing. The 1kg fish we had for lunch was delicious and the weather, although warm, was clear and breezy and beautiful. From there we pushed on another 2 hours to Cantho where we planned to wake up early and check out the floating market. In most towns they have a local produce market that bustles like mad every morning and throughout the day. In the delta, farmers put their wares on boats and float downstream to where the river widens and everyone gathers to sell and barter. Boats put up poles with examples of their produce attached to it and smaller boats cruise by buying what they need for their families, restaurants and shops. Boats dedicated to gourds. Others committed to mangoes. Some sell drinks, others sell vegetables, all at seven am in the morning Lu and I were on a small boat cruising up and down the river checking it all out.

The only problem was that I was sick. For the third time this trip, I had food poisoning. The night before we went to a beer hoi with our guides and had a few liters of home-brewed beer. It's weak stuff, but cheap and it's really quite tasty. Sweeter than the stuff in bottles and fun to drink something so fresh. And all of you know that beer is my nectar and never gives me a problem the next day. Lu got some fried rice and veggies for dinner that night, but I wasn't that hungry. Instead I just picked up a baguette sandwich from a street vendor. It was my go-to meal, and one I'd had many, many times this trip. Usually it's chicken, cheese, cucumbers, tomatoes some carrot/cabbage 'salad' with a little mayonnaise (yup). But this place didn't have chicken so it was just cucumber, 'salad' and cheese. It was just enough to fill me up and I went bed happy and ready to wake up early for the floating market fun. Instead I woke up at 3:30 am with a gurgling in my stomach. It was a gurgling I knew well. I felt it first in Ayuthaya, Thailand after eating some bad shrimp or something. That I dealt with fairly readily. The next was in Siem Reap when I ate some pumpkin soup with undercooked fish. That ruined me and I was sick for 24 hours until the antibiotics kicked in. This time it was worse than either time before. By floating-market-go-time at 6am, I knew I was in serious trouble. Again I hit the antibiotics, but they take a while to take effect and time was something we didn't have. I rallied, I rode the boat and checked out the amazing floating market with Lu for 2 hours on that rollicking boat, but inside I was a mess. The problem was, our time here in this part of the world was running out, and we had places to go and things to do. We could not stay in Cantho for a day to let the meds take effect and let me get well. We had booked these 2 motodrivers and we were 5 hours (at least) away from HCMC where the rest of our bags where, and where we had to leave from to get back to Bangkok. And there were only days left on our trip here in SE Asia.

I had food poisoning and the only thing I should have been doing was laying in bed, drinking salty water, retiring to the bathroom at regular intervals, sleeping and watching TV. But it was not to be. They had to get back to the city and so did we. So, nauseous, miserable, weak and angry, I mounted that bike behind the driver and the road we did hit. Hard. I couldn't even hydrate the way I needed to because a bellyfull of water while we rumbled down the road for hours at a time would have made me ill over and over again. The only thing that would have been worse than riding that motobike that day, feeling the way I did, would have been to ride a rollercoaster for five hours straight. But ride it we did. I was so weak and dehydrated there were times I wasn't sure I could hold on, and I made them stop and pull over many, many times to work out the poison that was finishing its ride through my insides. The antibotics were already taking effect, but once that e.coli or salmonella is doing its thing, there's not a whole lot you can do but let it get through. At times I thought I was going to have to bail out completely and just take a bus home the rest of the way 'cause at least then I wouldn't have to hold on, and I could just sleep, but that would have added hours, if not a whole other day, onto the trip home. And by then I was ready-more than ready-to get the hell out of Vietnam and go back to Bangkok where I knew I could get delicious Thai food, and enjoy the many delights of this awesome city. We made it back and I was quivering as I stumbled up the stairs to our balconied room. I spent almost the entire next full day in bed as Lu went around making final arrangements and providing me with the water and food and everything I needed to heal fast and true. (yes my wife is the best... sorry to all you other wives out there. I'm sure you're great, too, but seriously... Lu, Lani, love of my life... she is everything to me.) I went out to book our plane tickets and to pick up the final versions of the clothes I had made. But I could not handle HCMC any more. They city was driving me insane with the incredible amount of noise those motobikes emanated every time they moved a meter down the street and I was ready, oh so ready, to get on the plane, and get back to Bangkok.

I felt better the next morning. I felt great the next night. We flew the next morning and when we landed in Bangkok and rode that cab to our final hotel of this trip, I could not believe that this city that I had thought was absolutely nutz was actually far more civilized and serene than any other one I had been to weeks. The difference was the beeping. In HCMC, in Laos, in Cambodia, the bus drivers and cab drivers and most of all the motodrivers, they use their horn as a weapon to prevent imminent death. Beeping, beeping, beeping all the time. At everything. At cows. At kids on the side of the road. At motos coming the other way. At trash in the roads and birds overhead and, apparently, at the ghosts of motodrivers long gone that only they can see... they beep. And beep. And beep. And beep. beeepbeeepbeepbeeeepbepbepebeeeeeeeeeep! By the end of the 5 hour drive back from Cantho in the Mekong Delta I thought my mind would explode if I heard another motobike beep.

Now here in Bangkok, there is no beeping. People drive like normal people. They signal and change lanes and then drive on until there's a light and where they stop until it turns green and then they drive on down the street some more and no one behind them or in front of them or to the side beeps at them at all, and it is glorious.

Yes, Bangkok is wild, big, crazy, insane city, just like all the big cities of the world. The Patpong district just outside is ludicrous with guys holding out menus of all the things the women inside the go-go bars can do with their private parts. And they want our money and they overcharge us for everything. But here, back in Bangkok one last time, I find this city to be wonderful and fun and remarkable and cool. We will come back here some day and I look forward to that for sure. But more than anything right now, I cannot wait get back to the best city I have ever been to, and see my friends again, and pet my kitties, and drink some true beers and be able to read every sign around me and sit down with the NYTimes on a Sunday morning on my own couch after Lu and I finish making our own delicious breakfast and in between the articles and the sound of the fog rolling in, get to really think about everything we have seen and done, and wonder how, in fact, we managed to pull it all off all the way out here where everything is just that much different, and every single f*cking day is another adventure.

But we've still got one adventure left. One more night in Bangkok. We both know how lucky we are to get to do this and neither of us will ever forget this incredible adventure we have been on. The only thing I wonder now is the many ways it has enriched and changed the both of us.

The Bangkok night awaits, and the flight beyond that. One more time together. One more time, tonight.