Saigon Busted

Well, we made it to Saigon, the big, swirling city that was the terminus of our trip, full of a swarm of motorbikes, buses, taxis, and pedestrians. It’s big and smoggy and quite, well, citylike, especially after our days in the countryside. I am here sitting, typing a letter so that they can film me hard at work. This is all rather ridiculous, but hey, that’s the price of fame. They are a vietnamese film crew of what will surely be the greatest tradgedy of all time. Guy goes to the US to get money to get the Girl, but when he returns with the requisite $30,000 (her father is aparently quite greedy) she has already married someone else. Of course, now he’s a rich man in a poorish country, so maybe he just buys a penthouse. We’ll find out when the movie is released in Arpil. We’ve been Saigoned into being extras on a film set for a day, a random but fitting ending to a trip characterized as much by its random occurences as by the singlemindedness of our treck from Hanoi to Saigon. Though we strayed from the straight and easy road, this city was always our destination, and in making it we have achieved the only goal we set for ourselves. I guess that’s not true, perhaps another was to always listen to the voice of spontinaity, which I think we have done as well. From crashing weddings to bushwaking by the river, this has been a good trip, and I’m ready to go home.