Day 4

Today I stopped by a poor farmer's shop and saw dog-tags from American soldiers in the Vietnam war for sale. They might have been fake, but it didn't matter. I read the names from my deceased soldiers and, with the cooperation of Vietnam's unrelenting grey sky, fell into a temporary sadness. But it's hard to stay down for long in a place so poor that it treats you like royalty. And, even more uplifting, is observing the poor shedding their poverty and finding ways to enjoy a life of dirt, rubble, erosion and bamboo. Life as usual; this is what I wanted and needed to see.