Rush Hour At 4:30 A.M.

Last night I had difficulty sleeping. Instead of trying to force submission that would not come, I let my curiosity get the best of me and ventured outside at 4:30 a.m. in pursuit of any fellow insomniacs I could find.

Instead of the few wandering souls I expected to encounter, I got the whole neighborhood.

Everybody was out - running, doing tai chi, drinking coffee, setting up their food stations for the day. The party was bumpin'. And so was the Vietnamese pop music blaring from the boom box of the Motorbike Taxi Entourage, perched a top a set of handle bars. The men smiled at me as I walked through the gate of campus 1, even more so than they do regularly...probably trying to figure out why I was up.

Here I was, still not having slept from last night, and these people were already at work.

I felt like such a bum!

When I started to backtrack home after my forty-five minute stroll, I noticed two Vietnamese girls (who looked to be about sixteen or so) jogging close behind me, stopping abruptly a few feet short of my heels. Giggles ensued. When I turned around to look at them, they both looked straight down at the ground, in complete silence.

I turned forward and smiled, still never ceasing to be amazed by the Vietnamese fascination with Western-looking people, such as myself.

Ohhh, Vietnam.