Phnom Penh and touring Saigon

Catching up from Cambodia, after Siem Reap I took a boat to Phnom Penh, a fast boat across a big lake, not all that interesting. Phnom Penh was just too quick for me to enjoy it. I got there, went to my guesthouse and dropped my backpack, then hurried off to the Tuol Sleng (S-21 Prison) Museum which I wanted to see, after that went for an even more interesting motorcycle ride in the daily downpour 12 km out into the countryside to see the memorial at the Choeng Elk killing fields, after this I was exhausted and feeling rather sick. That was, judging by the symptoms, something that I ate, not from riding motorbike in the rain. Nor from the stomach-churning nature of the only two places I went to see in Phnom Penh, I wanted to see someplace else to bring my experience in the country up to the present, but did not have the energy. So that night I laid in my bed trying to figure out if I had enough energy to ride the bus the next day, which it turns out I did. I took a bus to the border (which was a long and very bumpy ride) and walked across the border to another bus which brought me the rest of the way to Saigon where I got a room and drank great quantities of water and fruit juices and started taking my traveler’s diarrhea pills, which seem to have worked, mostly.

My friends got here fine on Monday. Tuesday we tried to get them adjusted, and took a tour on a procession of three cyclos to some sights in Saigon - a temple, some old French buildings like the Notre Dame Cathedral (NOT the one in Paris...), and the former Presidential Palace. Wed. we took a group tour up to Tay Ninh province and saw the place where the Cao Dai sect started and their big temple, then in the afternoon we toured the old Vietcong tunnels at Cu Chi - where during the war communists just kept popping up out of nowhere and nobody could figure out where they were coming from. Thursday we went to the history museum here in town and the War Remnants Museum. Today we took another tour to the Mekong Delta, rode a bunch of boats, big ones, little ones, and in-between ones, and ate some luscious fruit and saw lots of water and other amusing stuff like a bee farm and our guide walking around with a python around his neck offering to plop it on anybody who wanted a picture (it was a fat python, not very hungry I would judge). They are amused by the downpour that happens most every afternoon, and the geckos you see on every wall, and the way Vietnamese people put pickup truck loads of stuff on bicycles. So I feel old and experienced ‘'cause I had forgotten about all of that stuff. Anyway, it is really fun to hang out together, I have not heard so much about home for a VERY long time. Tomorrow (Saturday) morning we get on a bus to Dalat, in the central highlands.