We didn't spend nearly enough time in Saigon, but in our two days there managed to immerse ourselves in the city's smells, tastes and legacy. Our hotel, the Continental Saigon, dating back to 1880, was located just across the street from the opera house in an area dotted with architectural vestiges of the French colonial days. The double room I shared with my mother was cavernous and stately with ceilings of church-like proportions and a dainty sitting room area. At the same time, crossing the street away from the opera house brought on aggressively modern skyscrapers, designer stores, locals selling everything from street food to knock-off sunglasses, as well as hip new purveyors like the Gingko concept store. The city's disparate identities is perhaps best reflected in the fact that it has two names: Ho Chi Minh City and Saigon.

Like many other Southeast Asian metropolises, Saigon can best be described as organized chaos. Millions of motorbikes sort of, mostly, obey traffic lights and laws, at night forming an endless, slow-moving sea of lights amongst the honking cars. The bikes congregate ahead of the other vehicles at red lights, surging forward like an angry swarm the moment it turns green.

Despite the many many marks of history on the city's geography, it's also decidedly cosmopolitan - we passed many European designer stores, ethnic restaurants representing cuisines from around the globe, and even a subway project in conjunction with a Japanese company.

Photos below.

Our first meal in Saigon - noodle soup at Pho 2000, made famous by Bill Clinton's patronage back during his presidency.

Our hotel, another vestige of the colonial era.

A saleswoman portions coffee beans for a member of our group at a local market.

Before visiting the lover's house, we passed through Sa Dec Market - a mostly covered and narrow marketplace bustling with activity. Scooters and bikes constantly zipped through, weaving their way between local shoppers. Baskets of sedate chickens sat waiting to be plucked, while at the seafood stalls shallow pans of water showcased shellfish, snails, frogs, eels and fish - most still wriggling and occasionally even leaping into the air. The vast majority of stalls were tended by women in conical hats who filleted and butchered with deft hands. While as outsiders we felt the most drawn to the meat and seafood vendors (because they made the farmer's markets back home look oh so tame), there were plenty of others hawking exotic fruits, fresh vegetables, spices and a larger variety of rice than I knew existed. Some photos below. Not for the squeamish or vegetarian.

Little girl accompanying a parent on a shopping excursion.

The ladies who run the market stalls can butcher and filet as fast as the cooks in Michelin starred restaurants.

After walking through the lively and vibrant Sa Dec Market, we visited the former home of the eponymous lover from Marguerite Duras' famous novel. This semi-autobiographical tome draws upon her experience growing up in Vietnam where, as a teenaged girl, she became romantically involved with a Chinese man twelve years her senior. From what I understand, the novel - despite its Lolita undertones - is largely romantic and tragic, because ultimately the literary couple doesn't end up together. But throughout her life, Duras - as many of us do, changed her own story multiple times.

Displeased with the film adaptation of The Lover (which our guide screened in the dining cabin one night and a fellow passenger subsequently deemed "soft porn"), she later published The North China Lover, which was billed as a more detailed and "truer" account of the relationship. Notebooks that were posthumously made public, however, paint an altogether different portrait, with one passage describing the "revulsion" she felt after their first kiss (see: Wartime Writings). These lesser known writings hint at possible sexual and emotional abuse, even prostitution.

Duras passed away in 1996, and with her left the truth regarding the nature of the affair. Undoubtedly, how she felt about it as an adolescent, as it was unfolding, differs from how she must have felt as an adult. She was seventy when the first fictionalized iteration was published; seventy-seven when the second came out. Both novels probably served as attempts to come to terms with the relationship; to figure out and clarify her feelings, perhaps even find some profound conclusion.

As we toured the beautiful old home, with its floors warped with age, intricate craftsmanship belying aristocratic wealth, and black and white photographs of both Duras and Huynh Thuy Le, sipping jasmine tea while listening to our guide wax romantic about the ill-fated lovers, I was reminded of my own failed relationships.

Each time things doesn't work out we want there to be some deeper meaning or lesson learned, so it's not just time wasted and feelings spent. But maybe a solution or antidote doesn't exist. Maybe the leftover pieces are just a burden that remains with us. For as Duras' experience seems to suggest, even a lifetime is not enough to make sense of something so raw and intimate.

Having grown up in Seattle, I'm used to living by water. But seeing the lifestyle that its proximity fosters, even from the very window of our cabin, was another matter entirely. As we got closer to (and finally reached) the Mekong River, the economic activity that our ship passed only intensified - at one point there was enough boat traffic it was like driving on the highway back at home during rush hour! The color of the water is a result of the rainy (read: muddy) season. Some photos below.

Sacks of rice being unloaded via conveyor belt.

We passed many barges practically weighed down to the very water level with soil.

A woman taking a break at a floating market.

A little boy grins at us from the back of a vendor's boat at the floating market. These boats have long bamboo poles on which they hang examples of what they're selling. (Although a hat affixed to the pole means that the boat is for sale).

Saigon in Photos

Sa Dec Market in Photos

The Lover

A River Economy