The first real day in the city
VIETNAM | Monday, 11 August 2008 | Views [195]
I was woken up around 5:30am by Ryan, one of the other couch surfers, because he'd lost his bag. In a complete sleep smog, I told him to look around. It had to be there somewhere. Soon, Jiten, the other surfer, was awake and realizing his bag was also mising. I checked my stuff. Everything was perfect.
Our hosts were awake shortly calling the police. The apartment is four stories. It has a front gate that's about 12 ft high. The windows were open, but they only open about 9 inches. Somehow, someone scaled the fence and came in through the window while three people were sleeping in the room. Two backpacks, an iPod, and a jump drive were stolen while we slept.
How my things remained untouched, I have no idea. But I'm certainly not complaining. We spent the morning (mourning?) trying to work out what happened and what to do. When everyone left in the pouring rain for the police station (they refused to come to the apartment), I decided to go to the War Remnants Museum. It wasn't as if I was ruining a perfect, beautiful day, so it seemed appropriate.
It was as intense as anyone could expect. Much less anti-American than I ever expected though.
It's mostly pictures and captured American guns and tanks. The pictures...
Anything anyone's seen in newspapers or in Life Magazine are certainly real enough, but these pictures were that to the nth degree.
They have a room devoted soley to photographers who died during the War. Most of them were American. Most of the pictures were from their last rolls of film before they died. The film that was still in their cameras when they were recovered from their mangled and dying bodies.
They also had a room of countries who were against the War. Almost half of it was pictures of protests in the States including quotes from Martin Luther King, Jr. and pictures of the Kent State massacre.
I left shortly before I started sobbing.
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