For my second and last day in Hue, I decided to get up early and bike to a mausoleum or two in the countryside. Getting up early is not a problem as my room looks over one of the busiest street in town and the horn blowing and moped traffic starts just as the light is penetrating my chintzy polyester curtains. And a bike ride through the countryside is a great prospect, rusty Schwinn and sore butt aside.

Hue is an enchanting city. And I am not just saying that because I was able to feast at two buddhist restaurants exclusively serving vegetarian food. But feast I did. After a long day of cycling on a rusty bike with an uncomfortable seat and pedals that rotated in the shape of a lopsided grapefruit , I rather deserved those meals. And dessert.

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Day two in Hoi An went like this:
1. Eat tofu vegetable soup for breakfast. Begin sweating.

2. Purchase items in the market that will be too heavy to ship home and break on the way.

Hoi An is the town where people come to get clothes made. It's got some historical value, too, like Chinese Assembly Halls and Chinese Houses from the 1800's (or was that the 800's?). And then there's the charm of an ancient city that stayed its ground and refused to succumb to the changes of modern life.

The blue shirted porter led me down the linoleum lined train corridor to a sleeping compartment. There were four mattresses attached to the walls -- two up, two down -- with a space in between to maneuver yourself into your assigned bunk.

Back in Saigon after a four day beach retreat and a five hour bus ride through rush hour Saigon traffic. I have a few hours to kill before I have to be at the train station for my 18 hour trip north. I spent up an hour or two eating a mediocre vegetarian dinner but a really cute 12-year old girl selling gum got the better of me and I bought her dinner.

The day began with some much needed exercise. Traveling requires long, tiresome stretches of latency -- lots of sitting on busses, trains, boats and mopeds with your knees cramped against the seat in front of you or your body settled into an uncomfortable position for hours.

A five hour bus ride outside of Saigon deposited me at the lovely beach town of Mui Ne, complete with palm trees and a strong ocean breeze. On a recommendation, I chose to break the bank with a $30/night room at a top notch beach resort called the Mui Ne sailing club.

Humidity and my hair do not get along. Humidity blesses my hair with a firzzy glow, a brillo-like sheen . The hair follicles saturate with moisture and my already full head of hair expands outward and shrinks upward so that it takes the shape of an unruly topiary and assumes the texture of a kiwi.

I went to bed with a phone call from my family and was awoken by a phone call from my boyfriend. For the first time, I felt homesick. Talking to the people you love widens the distance, makes you feel how far away they really are and how many days there are ahead before you see them again. But it's nothing that a little shopping can't solve.

Score: one invitation to a house party in Saigon, courtesy of a NY acquaintance of my boyfriend living in Saigon. Accompanied by Jenny, a Harvard grad named Max who we picked up at the Cambodia border and a plastic bag loaded with one bottle of rice vodka, four cold Saigon beers and a mid-priced bottle of red wine, we headed to District 3, where the party at.

I loved Bangkok. I liked Phnom Penh. I adore Saigon.

I feel at home in Saigon. Perhaps it is that my hotel room is tiny and clean and a fourth floor of a walkup, just like my apartment. Perhaps it is because it has all the modern conveniences of Bangkok without the squalor and raw sewage smell.

With no hopes of getting boat transport to Saigon from Vinh Long (a town halfway between the Vietnam/Cambodia border and Saigon), me and my traveling companions decided to become complete tourists for a day. We hired a 1/2 day cruise that looped through the narrow canals of the Mekong with some visits to locals along the way.

Four hours from Chau Doc to Vinh Long.
Three hours to wait before the minibus left the station.
Four european-sized travelers packed into the back row of the minibus.

With our new friends, the American and two Brits, we rented motor bikes and picked a destination on the map. Ba Chuc. Pronouncing it Baaa Choook Ahhh got us more mileage and better directions. The comforts of English speaking Cambodia were far behind.

Two Americans, one Canadian couple, one unidentified gentleman, white-haired and tanned, five Cambodians, two Cambodian childrens, sacks of food and one driver head down the Mekong River in a small motor boat with wooden bench seats. Only the white people are handed life jackets. This is high-speed travel to cross the border into Vietnam.

A drunk Dutch guy enlightened me last night on the difference between a tourist and a traveler. He had spent the last five hours drinking beer in the restaurant of our guest house. Halfway through Spiderman, the DVD crapped out and he took this as his opportunity to begin the lesson.

Just back from S-21 and the Killing Fields. Nothing like a little genocide in the morning to get your day going.

Started the day with some shopping. Had to replace the hat that I left somewhere in Siem Reap (the hotel? the bus?), which is not easy as I have a European sized head and a big one at that. Got a fake Tommy Hilfiger.

Another 5am morning. Our driver picked us at 5:30am, the third morning in a row that I was awake and outside before dawn to see the sun rise over Siem Reap, this time from the window of a minivan on the way to the boat that would take us to Phnom Penh.

We met the guy on the cover of my Lonely Planet Cambodia guide book. Just like in the picture, he was sweeping out a temple called Ta Prohm. Werd.

When we emerged from the hotel at 5:40am, our moto drivers were waiting for us, bundled in jackets and long pants. We hopped on the back of their scooters and drove through the chilly morning.

From the plane, Cambodia appeared brown and green and flat in all directions with a smattering of palm trees along the runway and dark tree lines in the haze of the horizon. It looked like the tropics. Where was the jungle?The sun blazed on my skin as soon as I stepped out of the plane, runway glittering, dust clouds in the air.

Boy am I ready to leave the city. A week is too long for any tourist in any city. Onto the jungles of Cambodia tomorrow.

Can't believe I've been here almost a week. Time moves at a very strange pace when you're traveling. When you look in the immediate past, a week seems like it took a month, and the greater future, two months down the road seems like it will never come.

At Kao San Road (tourist ghetto), we visited our favorite travel agent (her name is Joy) where Jenny found out that she would not be able to get her Vietnam visa until next Friday. Bugger.