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Is it the antimalarials I’ve been taking in preparation for the Mekong Delta and Cambodia that are curdling my dreams? Was it the snake wine? Or is it the fact that I’m in the Vietnam of my dreams – all of our dreams. Was it Tricky Dick, all those years ago, who called everything we did here – all the waste, death, folly, the legacy of still-permeating cynicism we inflicted on ourselves – ‘our long national nightmare’? In Saigon, walking the streets, it’s hard to separate the real from the fantasy, the nightmare from the wish, a collection of film and video images that have long ago been burned into so many of our cortices. The ceiling fan in Apocalypse Now, the choppers coming in slow with a Whuppwhupppwhupppwhuppp . . . the running girl, flesh hanging off her arms from a napalm strike . . . burning bonzes toppling over . . . the point-blank bullet to the head . . . that lush longed-for green that drove generations of mystics, madmen, technocrats, and strategists insane. The French, the Americans, ruined for decades by tiny little farmers in black pajamas, slogging through those beautiful rice paddies behind water buffalo. Yet it always looked so beautiful, so . . . unknowable.

I wake from yet another nightmare. This one was even worse. I was a witness at an execution. I can almost still smell the smoke and cordite from the guns. Feeling nauseated and guilty, I read for a while, afraid to go back to sleep. I’m rereading Graham Greene’s The Quiet American for about the fifth time. It’s his Vietnam novel, set in the early days of the French adventure here. He wrote much of it – it is said – at the Continental Hotel, just down the street. It’s a beautiful, heartbreakingly sad book. But it’s not helping my state of mind, which is becoming increasingly deranged. I’ve got to get out of this room. Even with the air conditioner on, everything’s wet. Condensation has built up on the windows. The carpet feels moist and smells stale. My sheets have been sweat through. My clothes are soggy. Even the currency is wet; a pile of near-worthless dong sits limp and moist on the nightstand. I head out for the Ben Thanh market, about twelve blocks away.

I stroll past quaking rabbits, squawking chickens, trembling deer mice, past meat counters where vendors squat barefoot on their cutting boards, calmly eating from chipped bowls. The smell is heavy, narcotic: durian, jackfruit, seafood, nuoc mam – the ubiquitous fish sauce condiment of choice all over Southeast Asia. At the center of the enclosed market, past the vegetables, meat, fish, live poultry, nostrums, jewelry, and groceries for sale, is a large area of food stalls selling a psychedelic rainbow of good-looking, good-smelling, unbelievably fresh stuff. My mood begins to improve immediately. Everything is brightly colored, crunchy, exotic, unrecognizable, and attractive. I suddenly want everything. Without warning, I’m happy, exhilarated, delirious with hunger and curiosity. A manic-depressive on a happy jag, I’m on top of the world.

I sit down at a clean white counter with a crowd of Vietnamese and order a bowl of pho, a spicy noodle soup that comes with a variety of ingredients. I’m not sure exactly which pho I’m ordering, but it all looks good, so I simply point at what the lady next to me is eating. Is there anything better to eat on this planet than a properly made bowl of pho? I don’t know. Precious few things can approach it. It’s got it all. A bowl of clear hot liquid, loaded with shreds of fresh, white and pink crabmeat, and noodles is handed to me, garnished with bean sprouts and chopped fresh cilantro. A little plate of condiments comes next: a few wedges of lime, some ground black pepper – which, judging from my neighbors at the counter, one makes into a paste, adding lime juice to pepper and stirring with chopsticks – a dish of nuoc mam, a dish of chili fish oil, some chopped red chili peppers. The proprietor hands me a cold plastic-wrapped towel, which, once again emulating my neighbors, I squeeze – until the air is