mrsjono

Vietnam may not be as beautiful as China, but there are lots to see on the streets with so many activities happening at the same time. In Mekong Delta alone, I took 200 shots in 3 hours. We were so busy snapping away at the floating markets at one point in time, I didn't know what I was taking. Here are 10 selects from around Vietnam:

船的眼睛看起来很滑稽

He bought this durian pastry at Can Tho...

ate the whole bar on the boat...

not doing good the next day...

bedridden with broken arm and running a fever...

and back to normal after this plate of fruits ;)

I was so pleasantly surprised when our boatwoman started putting on bracelet bands and rings on our wrists and fingers when we finally reached Phong Dien. She had weaved them using banana leaves while the boat was on auto-pilot mode. We couldn't understand what she was saying, the rings don't cost a cent, but from her earnest expression, we could feel her sincerity. I felt she was trying to tell me "Thank you for riding my boat".

Lord of the Banana Ring

If you're interested in taking a ride along the Mekong Delta, look for this woman at the pier. We realised the agent recommended by Green Hotel (the agent claimed she was her sister) must have swallowed some of the money and wondered if the boatwoman got her fair share of the pie. I wore her handmade gifts for the rest of the day, all the way back to Saigon. I finally understood the meaning of priceless.

more photos on Saigon & Mekong Delta.

They are as strange to us as we are as strange to them...

I duck-walked several hundred metres in the tunnels and came out with both legs half-paralysed. Nontheless, it was a great experience not to be missed. You'll find out how clever the Vietcongs were and why the Americans lost. Impressive.

Caodaism believes in something of everything - Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Confucianism, Taoism and whatever religion you can possibly think of. They believe all religions in the world ultimately sends the same message - to bring love and peace to mankind.

I don't mean to be disrespectful, but it really does not make sense to me. Their hierarchical organization follows the Roman Catholicism. They have a pope, cardinals, bishops and priests and they pray in a building called temple, not church. Bcos they follow occult practices from Taoism, their daily ritual bears a strong resemblance to that of a Chinese funeral.

Sun Yat-sen (Chinese revolutionist), Victor Hugo (French poet) and Nguyen Binh Khiem (Vietnamese administrator) never met each other before. When Hugo died, Sun Yat-sen was only 19 years old. Mr Nguyen was not even from the 19th century. How did they come together to sign a covenant between God and humanity?

There are many strange things in this world. Oddly, this was one of the best shot in the whole trip.

千年老妖树

Of the colonial buildings we visited, this was the most beautiful :)

If you see ang moh carrying a guide book in their hand, 95% of the time it is a Lonely Planet guide book on Vietnam. It's the Vietnam backpacker's bible. Everyone carries different versions of the book which means everyone ends up going to the same places on the same bus, dining at the same restaurant, same cafe and even eating the same food. How'd we know? Rough Guides took us to the same places too.

Before we set off, I had totally no idea about the exchange rate, didn't know how the notes look like and didn't know the notes come in what denominators. It was all taken care of by my Minister of Finance. "I'll take all the Dong and you take care of all the US dollar," he said and passed a stack of USD to me on the plane. He knows I have a poor sense of numbers and worried that all the zeros behind will get me confused. True enough, the first time I tried to pay for something on my own, I handed a 100,000D note to the cashier thinking it was 10,000D and walked away. Luckily, the cashier was honest and called me back. But not everyone is so kind. A sneaky taxi driver told us the fare was 25,000D when the meter box showed 20.5 (x1000D in small print at the side). Minister of Finance confronted the driver and told him off "You tried to cheat us! Shit u!"

We met quite a number of Vietnamese who can speak Chinese and/or Cantonese in Saigon. Their ancestors came from China (Guangdong province) and eventually settled down in Vietnam, forming the Hoa ethnic group. The younger generation can converse up to 4 languages (Vietnamese, English, Chinese, Cantonese) fluently. It's time we stop thinking we're great just bcos we're bilingual...

Wedding of Mr Kim Chuy and Ms Van Hieu. Not sure if I got their names right lol. Looks like a Chinese wedding doesn't it? Nice hat there bride.

This pretty girl looks like a Tibetan to me. She gave the "not-again-why-is-it-people-are-always-asking-me-for-a-photo" face, dragged her feet over and forced a smile.


Auntie said 没有再p-ang di了

Remember someone said I look like a Vietnamese? She was right. Some locals talked to me in Vietnamese but not to RS. For instance, he was asking for directions at a bus station and the staff behind the counter asked me to translate what he said...