Update from Saigon

Hey everyone -

As most of you wake-up, I am enjoying an evening (same day as you but + 11 hrs) meal at a street restaurant with a pleasent evening breeze blowing.

They set-up these restaurants in about a half hour - one minute the street is crammed with traffic and the next restaurants appear complete with kitchens, tables/tablecloths, chairs, fans, menus, and wait staffs! I eat at these retaurants almost every evening - meet lots of interesting people. See photo...

At the moment I am sitting in one of these restaurents consuming the following (total cost of about $4):

1 ea Sinh To Dua (cocanut milkshake)
1 ea. Sinh To Thom (pineapple milkshake)
1 ea Sinh To Du Du (papaya milkshake)
1 ea Cha Gio Hai Lua - 3 fried pork/shrimp spring rolls with dipping sauce
2 ea Thit Nuong - "grilled meat" I had 2 meals - 1 ea pork and beef ea with sticky rice, greens & delicious dipping sauce.

Pop Quiz; Sinh To = ? In English - one of the first Vietnamese terms I learned and used often this evening!

By the way – for your information - some readers of my emails DO speak Vietnamese.

I am attempting to finalize plans for Angkor Wat and Angkor Tom (bigger than Wat) in Siem Reap, Cambodia. It appears that the best way to handle visa probs is to fly roundtrip Saigon to Siem Reap! The problem is that to get a Cambodian visa you MUST have airline tickets to both enter as well as exit Cambodia! This ia a problem when I don't know exactly where I want to go next combined with the fact that there are few flight options! So, I am thinking about staying in Siem Reap for 5 days beginning Sunday or Monday. My intentions are to nail down dates tomorrow and go from there.

As a result of my vagabond focus groups, I have scratched Sihinoukville, Cambodia off my itinerary. All whom I've spoken to who have been there say it just wasn't worthwhile, e.g., very small real beach area, "costly" for what you get, little to do except drink and have sex <- evidently like most area in Indochina there is plenty of "inexpensive" sex available. Upon returning to Saigon - I'm not sure what my next stop/step might be... Perhaps Phu Quoc!? Phuket? Not sure - but am in no hurry to make any decisions either! So - let the clock tick away.