Monday, February 25, 2008

A Day in Saigon

How you get your bags to the 8th floor
Saigon River
The squeegee guys
The cyclo guys
From on top of Independence Palace
No more busses for me, thank you!

Xe what?



On the menu

Wake up the chef!! Time to eat!

Little ones
Big ones
"Nice squiddy squiddy" slimy ones
Grilled ones
Ones with sharp ends
And the corn guy, aha, something easy to eat. Notice the car radio on this guy's cart, blasting Christmas carols for blocks...
Vietnamese fighting fish
Tamarind, mmmm
Lichee, rambutan, or maybe the other way around I can never remember
And the 'that hits the spot' coconut of the day!

Mũi Né beyond the resorts

Mũi Né is, of course, a fishing village, complete with a seemingly endless supply of basket boats.
I'm guessing they make those boats out of, say, the bamboo shoots that are too tough to eat, and sort of sautée them in fish sauce to make them waterproof...
Some fisherman thoroughly amused by my ngư nghiệp vocabulary!
One more happy fisherman, with a BP shirt on!



This last one is a Cham Tower just outside of Phan Thiet. That is from the Champa Kingdom, the same civilization that built all the towers at the Mỹ Sơn site.

Plodding Fishing Boats and Flying Kite Surfers


There are lots of things that I don't know, and exactly how a kitesurfer actually jumps very high is one of those things. It looked like you get some speed and then sort of hit a wave and pendulum-ize yourself to swing under the center of your kite and then you just hang for a little before Isaac Newton catches up with you. However you do it, it looks like a great deal of fun ... maybe in my next life!

The Sands of Mũi Né

Mũi Né, in southern Vietnam, is where the sand dunes are... Vietnam's sand dune spot.

It is a kind of hot windy spot, as you might expect, which based on the pictures we got there, seems to provoke an unusual amount of frivolity.

Aside from sand dunes, Mũi Né has beach, of course. A quite long strip of very nice beach, which is the attraction of the place, although the actual town of Mũi Né is a couple km away. In any case, the beach is a good thing, that is why we went there!





Sunday, February 24, 2008

Hội An - in search of sun

Ca phê, nem cuốn và tờ báo ven sông.


Cousin and tailor friends

These are - the noodles bit of mì quảng.
My seafaring cousin