Five Things to Remember About Vietnam

One highlight of this week: I drank weasel poop coffee. And liked it.

What's that? Well, they take coffee beans, feed them to weasels, collect the droppings, roast them, and then mark up the price. I'm no coffee connoisseur, but I'm not the only one who thinks it tastes pretty good. There's coffee everywhere in Vietnam, so they should know.

But you don't need coffee to stay awake in Vietnam. With my short visit over (I flew to Bangkok this morning), here are a few of the things I'll remember:

1) Motorcycles. Because of high taxes on cars, everyone here drives a moto. I hardly ever saw cars other than taxi cabs. I thought crossing the street in China was hard until I tried passing through 8-10 lanes of moto mayhem. They say the trick is to not look before crossing because if riders know you've seen them they will expect you to get out of the way. Imagine teaching that to your kids: "Now honey, always close your eyes before crossing the street." Right.

2) The writing. An Asian language with letters? ABCs? What? They made the switch from a system based on Chinese characters in the early 1900s to make writing accessible for the masses (and thereby strengthen the country against French colonialism).

3) There's no facebook. So, about the party--the Communist Party of Vietnam, that is. China isn't the only country that blocks web pages it sees as sources of unrest. Censorship isn't as far reaching here as in China, but it's definitely happening in both overt and subtle ways.

4) Religion. My friend Lara and I sat in on both a Catholic mass (in Vietnamese with lots of neon lights) and a service of the Cao Dai sect, a Vietnamese religion that counts Buddha, Confucius, Muhammad, Jesus, and Julius Caesar among its many saints. I'm not going pretend to understand the religious landscape of Vietnam, let alone explain it, but I would love to learn more.

5) Sandwiches. The French may have brought baguettes to Vietnam but the Vietnamese have made them their own. A little carrot, a little pate, and a lot of yum.

Conclusion? Yeah, I definitely didn't need coffee to stay wide-eyed in Vietnam--but jeez did it taste good. And that's not just the weasel variety.