Just three hours of touring this morning was enough to make me so tired that I chose to nap rather than eat lunch. A rare occurrence indeed. But it was a rough three hours. First, the "Chinese" market in District 6 (Cho Binh Tay Market), a place that makes the more-visited market in District 1 (Ben Thanh Market) look sedate and orderly. It is a two-story structure, so densely packed inside , with such narrow aisles that even we, fearless travelers, were daunted and felt claustrophobic. So we just went around the building examining the stalls on the outside, only occasionally venturing a bit into the interior.
Then we went back to the center on a fruitless hunt for a type of hairnet Emma had seen the hotel women wearing. We couldn't find it in the stores, markets or department stores. Only later did we find out it is a special order item supplied by the hotel to its female employees. Anyway, this search, important as it was, could not be continued in the midday heat. We retreated to the hotel pool, then an unsuccessful hunt for a restaurant in the immediate hotel area (nothing looked good to us) a rest period and a trip to a recommended restaurant followed by a dance/acrobatic theater presentation on Vietnamese culture at the Opera House.
The recommended restaurant was so authentic and non-touristy we had tremendous communication problems. The relatively high quality of the food was negated by the unbelievable difficulty of conveying simple matters like, the dish we ordered has not arrived and, bring the beer with the food, not before. English language communication has been extremely difficult here.
Tomorrow, on to hopefully cooler climes in Taiwan.
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| "Chinese" Market - Maximum interior density, particularly due to low ceilings. Structure is about two or three blocks square. |
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| Dried sea cucumber? Definitely dead. |
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| Eatery |
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| Dried edibles. |
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| Tree ears fungus, I think - I like this |
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| Vendor's child concentrates on coloring book. |
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| Tight squeeze and it wasn't even the busy period. |
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| Common carrying method |
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| Market eating alcove. |
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| Crocodile and snake leather shop |
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| I could say this shows men trying to get a cheap thrill by touching a department store ad of Gwyneth Paltrow? but it was actually workers squeezing the air bubbles out. |
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| U.S . Presidents sell cosmetics here. |
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| Department store interior - Merchandise and displays were not attractive. |
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| Sidewalk manicure |
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| One last sidewalk vendor |
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| Bye Bye Vietnam! |
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