I Miss Saigon
Bridges are wonderful things: They allow an undisturbed, birds eye view onto mayhem below whilst maintaining a safe distance. Combining with an eye level glance through building's windows, they perfectly satiate crytoscopophilia. This thought came to me as I ambled slowly along a particularly wonderful feat of engineering which conjoins Saigon's District Four to its beating heart and epicenter, District One. I looked down and mused that it was like a party that I had not been invited to or did not belong in, yet the superior height of the bridge had the happy effect of not allowing me to feel left out. The artificial superiority gave me access and views that I otherwise would not have got if simply standing and staring. After all, it's rude to stare. That's what everyone says. Not from a bridge, I say. I stood and watched old ladies sitting on their haunches with spilling baskets of vegetables in front of them, they peeled and gossiped, gossiped and peeled; all acc