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| Streets are quiet as people prepare for Tet |
Greetings from Saigon... aka Ho Chi Minh City... aka motorbike capital of the world.
I'm writing from a quiet cafe along the banks of the Sai Gon river (all written Vietnamese words are monosyllabic). "Quiet" is relative, of course. There's a construction project a few hundred yards upriver of me, sending the sound of metal beating on metal echoing toward me along the muddy river water. A ferry service chugs hoardes of motorbikes back and forth a few hundred yards downriver, making the unmistakable spitting sounds of what I think is a Soviet era water cooled riverboat engine. Behind me, horns tap continuously along the busy waterfront road. All in all, though, it's pretty quiet as Saigon goes. None of it is enough to drown out the chorus of songbirds on the patio all around me... or is that the squealing of river rats? I choose not to discover.
On the opposite bank I can actually see the shoreline and there, like an oasis, a grove of lush, green tropical trees thrives below a collection of monolithic billboards advertising Siemens, Mercedes-Benz, SK telecom and other up-and-coming symbols of this country's entry into the modern world.
The newness has worn off for me here in Saigon as compared with my last visit. Instead, I'm starting to feel at home... which is good, and not so good. Good because it is nice to be welcomed like family by people like Vong and Huong. Not so good because my craving is for the unfamiliar. Fortunately, there are plenty of unfamiliar places for me to go in Southeast Asia, and I have nothing but time on my hands. So... after I finish my already-warm beer, it's off to consult the travel maps for me.
Til then, chuc mung nam moi - happy lunar new year!
Patti
I'm writing from a quiet cafe along the banks of the Sai Gon river (all written Vietnamese words are monosyllabic). "Quiet" is relative, of course. There's a construction project a few hundred yards upriver of me, sending the sound of metal beating on metal echoing toward me along the muddy river water. A ferry service chugs hoardes of motorbikes back and forth a few hundred yards downriver, making the unmistakable spitting sounds of what I think is a Soviet era water cooled riverboat engine. Behind me, horns tap continuously along the busy waterfront road. All in all, though, it's pretty quiet as Saigon goes. None of it is enough to drown out the chorus of songbirds on the patio all around me... or is that the squealing of river rats? I choose not to discover.
On the opposite bank I can actually see the shoreline and there, like an oasis, a grove of lush, green tropical trees thrives below a collection of monolithic billboards advertising Siemens, Mercedes-Benz, SK telecom and other up-and-coming symbols of this country's entry into the modern world.
The newness has worn off for me here in Saigon as compared with my last visit. Instead, I'm starting to feel at home... which is good, and not so good. Good because it is nice to be welcomed like family by people like Vong and Huong. Not so good because my craving is for the unfamiliar. Fortunately, there are plenty of unfamiliar places for me to go in Southeast Asia, and I have nothing but time on my hands. So... after I finish my already-warm beer, it's off to consult the travel maps for me.
Til then, chuc mung nam moi - happy lunar new year!
Patti
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