We are docked for the day at Phu My, Vietnam, in the Mekong River delta downstream from Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon. To our port side is the river, broad, muddy, flowing seaward past a landscape that must make any residents of New Orleans feel right at home. To our starboard side is a large and completely empty storage space for containers, looking very peculiar with its container-sized spaces delineated by slightly raised sidewalk slabs and its forlorn container-moving equipment stranded with nothing to move. Beyond it is some major electricity-generation facility with transmission lines radiating out into the smoky distance. I have no clue as to why the lot is so empty, and the person I can ask won't be at her desk until later. I will probably stay onboard and inside, since it's (a) hot and (b) humid and (c) smoky outside, plus which I'm having another "what am I doing on this stupid ship anyway?" day. I think I will spend the day pouting and writing stuff like this reaction against the PR we get for every single port we stop at:
"This hellhole has nothing whatsoever to recommend it. Full of pickpockets and muggers, its markets offer overpriced, plastic trash and bubonic-laden, tasteless garbage hawked by ugly, hostile vendors with open, running sores on both hands. Guerrilla warfare attacks are common, and current political theory here blames all the country's problems on western tourists. If you could see the scenery through the smog, you would wish you hadn't. My advice is not only to stay on the ship, but to remain inside and to stay away from the windows."
There. I feel a bit better.
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