This was a wierd show the Vietnamese were putting on in the old city center.
Saturday, September 03, 2005
Independence Day celebration
This was a wierd show the Vietnamese were putting on in the old city center.
River people
A lady walked out ona this two-log pier to a small house (with tv antenna). Note the giant dip net in the back used to catch fish in the river.
Souvenirs anyone?
Lots of tourist souvenirs are for sale in Hoi An. It's like the Chiang Mai and Luang Prabang of Vietnam.
Crossing the streets in Vietnam
At a slow and steady pace, Robert crosses a busy road in Nha Trang. If you wait for an opening, you'll be waiting for a long time. You just have to make a committing step and slowly walk across the street. Make eye contact with the drivers, and you'll do fine. Traffic in SE Asia is much slower than in the Western world, but you can't assume they operate by the same rules. At first it seems like chaos, but slowly you realize their system works just as our system works back home.
Hot pot dinner -- before...
We found this noisy open air eatery full of drunk Vietnamese men. The waitresses were wearing one-piece Tiger beer uniforms and poured your beer for you (like the Hooters, baby!). The menu was in Vietnamese, so we just pointed at tables. For $4 we had this seafood hot pot. A crab, squid, shrimp, fish, scallops, clams, and vegetables.
Noodle stand
You can never find a pho house when you need one. We ended up at this stand for some noodles that sucked. But they were 30 cents, so what are you gonna do?
Po Nagar Cham Towers
The Cham civilization was in Central Vietnam a billion years ago. They left brick towers for their Hindu gods. This tower complex was just across the bridge from Nha Trang.
Tell me a bedtime story
Between diving days, we rented a scooter ($4 a day) and visited sites in the surrounding area. This is the reclining Buddha at Long Son Pagoda. We were followed by a couple of "tour guides" selling postcards. They were living at the monastery and going to school through the generous tips of tourists. They wanted us to buy postcards from them, or at least give them a tip, but we didn't want their guide services, and I wasn't interested in giving money away. They were pretty disappointed after following us around for a few minutes.
Hey man, this is supposed to be a Communist state, right? Isn't the state supposed to provide for those "have-nots"? Why do they have to pay for school? What the heck is wrong with Communism around here?
Dinner for $9 (and another plate coming)
We went to this al fresco restaurant and just ordered a bunch of stuff off the menu. It was great, but we could have fed a couple more people with the food left over. It's fun finding a restaurant for locals and ordering random things at $1-$2 a plate. Here we had fried noodles, crispy fried noodles (with seafood), barbecued beef, fried calamari, and french fries.
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