The world has officially gotten less interesting. Vietnam was one of my favorite ports back in 2006 because it was chaotic and lawless. Now street vendors have been replaced by fancy watch stores, and the old mind boggling traffic is controlled by stop lights. It's also not the bargain it used to be. A massage at our hotel in Hue would have cost around $80 for a hour, more than one would cost back home. Six years ago it would have cost around $5. I suppose it's good for Vietnam that they now live more comfortable, albeit less interesting existences. But the one thought that kept coming back to me in our time there was, "We can't all live like we do in the US". This is not selfishness, but rather pragmatism. The world simply can't support billions of people consuming resources at our rate. Whoops!
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