First Love, Fast Love, Last Love

I had another one of those "holy shit, I'm in __________" traveling moments. This one was at the floating market in the Mekong Delta, I had just bought a cup of vietnamese coffee (see above) from an old woman on a rowboat and I was eating a pineapple I had bought from another boat when I realized, "holy shit, I'm in vietnam".

Lovely little moment.

Then, I bought a beer from another boat because I wanted to.

I've read a lot of cautionary tales of scams and crimes committed on tourists in my guide book. But they never really seem realistic to me until I hear about real experiences from other travelers. On the Mekong Delta tour, I met two german girls and they told me one of them was carrying her camera in her hand. Someone cut the cord and stole the camera and she didn't even notice until she had walked a couple hundred meters down the street. I was talking to this other girl in this criminal hostel I'm staying in now and she said another guy in the dorm had lost USD$2,700 in the old "poker game" scam. A local invited him to the family home and cook him dinner. The "rich uncle" comes over and wants to play poker, they play the victim for a little while, then more people come and play and then the victim is suddenly in the red for a couple thousand dollars to a big and menacing group of locals. To be fair, the backpacker was a 19 year old "kid". A little too naive and trusting. Too eager for a story to bring back home.

Did you know 9/11 happened 11 years ago?