Saigon at times feels like I'm in Bladerunner. Looking out the window last night, at the mess of towers with tiny ally-ways between them, neon flashing, bats swooping, humid air blowing in gusts, steam rising in jets from far below, the roar of a million scooters racing below a tangled mesh of electricity and telephone wires...and the passing sound of an old lady on a bicycle with a much too-loudhailer looping out ear piercing monotone communist mantra over and over the recording goes. She's off in the distance now, but she'll be back soon enough. Poor woman.
An interesting thing I overheard last night between the hotel owner and a Russian guest was: that the city centre with its blend of old world and west-world was going through a social experiment. The police are apparently all about the western style bars, undercover, observing. They want to study the effects of alcohol, drugs and western style debauchery as it enters they're society. At present, Vietnamese people drink very little but as society changes with the onset of prosperity...
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