The Last Supper

I had a fabulous dinner with my friends the night before leaving Hanoi. It was sad to see the last of everybody, but that's the way it is when you travel. You meet wonderful people, you get to know them, and then you have to say good-bye.

Thit Cho in Vietnam

I debated with myself whether to put this photo in my blog, but what the hell, this is part of the meat market in Vietnam. Thit cho (dog meat),

Dog eating began in northern Vietnam as a result of famine. Now it's a delicacy in Vietnam and usually not on the menu at the small street vendors (or so I've been told), but keep it in mind the next time you order: Is it thit cho?

While I was staring at this table, the woman picked up the dog's head and barked at me and then laughed. She had a weird sense of humour!



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This dog meat was at the veggie market up the street from where I lived on Le Thanh Ngi Street. I lived in a house with an elderly couple, and the house was beautiful but oh, so sterile. When I was teaching at Hanoi University I stayed there, along with another woman from New Zealand, who had a sterile room on the floor below mine. Throughout my first night in the place I listened to the guy in the opposite room from mine throwing up all over the floor. Why do I know he continually threw up on the floor? Because I could hear great mounds of it splashing on to the floorboards. Yuck. I don't know whether he was drunk or had been poisoned, but whatever............glad that him and his co-star moved out the next day.

One day I was walking around and I saw dude passed out on the road. Evidently, he had collided with someone while he was riding his bike and his head hit the pavement. This woman was smacking him right side the head and pinching his toes to try and bring him around. Eventually, he got up and blundered on, minus a few brain cells I imagine.

Water Puppet Show - Saigon

Visit the water puppet show! These puppet shows are in every village and city. I saw two, one in Hanoi and one in Hoi-An. It was very small and informal in Hoi-An, but every bit as entertaining as the professional show staged in Hanoi.




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The puppeteers and musicians.

Saigon Art Gallery - Vietnam

Loads of great stuff at the Saigon Art Gallery.



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Saigon, Vietnam - Nam Bo Women's Museum

I visited the Nam Bo Women's Museum in Saigon and I think if you're interested in the history of the country and who proved the most proficient at kicking butt, you need to visit this fascinating place. After seeing the different aspects of women's lives in Vietnam, I've come to the conclusion that every war was probably won on the backs of their incredible strength and ingenuity as support and back-up.



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What leads me to this conclusion are the many pictures of the women who contributed to the war effort. They show women bringing supplies to the frontlines, sewing uniforms, making guns and artillery, digging trenches, nursing troops, housing and feeding troops, helping dig out the tunnels, tending the ricefields, sharpening bamboo sticks for booby-traps, signalling the Viet Ninh with lights when they were crossing rivers, sending radio messages, and mining the roads the American GI's used.







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And if one of their own didn't get with the program, he might lose his life, too.
This is the "shortgun colt 7.65 that Mrs. Nguyen Thi Goc Linh, a female Saigon ranger, used to kill unpatriotic Hien Si, on 18th February 1946."

Gorgeous Women in Vietnam

Gorgeous women are ubiquitous in Vietnam. Here are some recently crowned beauty queens flogging household goods.


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Fish soup for sale, magazines for sale.


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Bananas for sale, too.


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Merry-go-round


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Ho Chi Minh Traffic

Ho Chi Minh City traffic is a tourist attraction onto itself. Scooters weave through the teeming boulevards sometimes carrying tremendous loads which can be four to five times the size of the scooter. I thought I'd never get to cross the street because there is no break in traffic, just a continual stream flowing past. Cars do not stop for pedestrians, motorbikes do not stop for pedestrians, nor do bicycles stop for pedestrians. So how to get across?

An ex-pat told me that the way to cross a street in Saigon was to not make any eye-contact with any scooter driver, and to continue to walk across once committed, and heaven forbid, never stop. Indecision and eye-contact could create a game of chicken between you and the scooter driver, and you would get run over. If you look straight ahead and keep going, the drivers would stream around you and keep going.

It felt like a barrel heave over Niagara Falls, but I decided to take the plunge and try my luck. I waited until there was a tiny gap in traffic, then without looking sideways nor stopping, walked forward at a slow to medium pace. It takes guts my friend, but just as the ex-pat told me they would, the scooters flew by both behind and in front of me, like a swarm of mosquitoes darting around a telephone pole. I can't think of another country I've visited where I would dare do the same.

Check out the bottom left photo. What the hell is that guy carrying? And which way is he going?





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Not only did you have to watch out for the traffic, you had to watch out for the giant tree roots that hung everywhere, or what could be mistaken for tree roots but were actually telephone wires. I shrieked and ran away from one I got tangled up in because I thought I was going to get electrocuted. No-o-o-o-o-, I'm not an electrician, but you never know!




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Small food stands are ubiquitous and I never worried about food poisoning, but about whether I would be homo erectus ever again after sitting in their lilliputian plastic stools. I couldn't get enough of "pho," a Vietnamese breakfast soup that consists of beef and noodles. The noodles are made from rice and are often served with basil, lime, bean sprouts and peppers that are added to the soup by the customer. I loved it.