On our own in the big city...

This is the post office in HCM City; it used to be an old train station and is spectacular inside; this is just one of the arches and a big map of the city.  We all got stamps and then had to stick them onto our postcards with the big glue jars - what a mess!

A little focus on the brick work on Notre Dame, which really is lovely in afternoon light, but, of course, this is not afternoon light; in fact, it poured rain about an hour after this!

Here is room 214 in the our hotel, The Continental, and do you know who lived here?  Graham Greene when he wrote The Quiet American.  Of course I had to go photograph it; I am down the hall in room 204!

I love that the Vietnamese are BIG into Salsa, according to one of the Vietnamese women who is serving as our guide, but what I really love is that the class goes "Every Monday since 6:30"!  She didn't really get it, but then, neither do I.

This the People's Committee building, rather ornate and non-Communist in architectural scope.

I walked long and far yesterday afternoon to find the Fahasa Book store, yet another one with NO Vietnamese fiction in translation...  The rains came pouring down, and I was fortunate to have stumbled into the dry heat of a car dealer - Kia, I believe it was.  Isn't this FASCINATING?  

We ate at the Beirut Restaurant last night, and we all toasted the people of Beirut and watched male models on the television.  Despite the absurdities, I did have a delicious salad, but after having to drag my face off the table a few times, I walked back to the hotel, fell into bed and slept myself into a coma until this morning when I got up and ran, shuffled, leapt and hopped over the uneven pavements, the broken bricks, the mud and the chains across the roads.  Today we have lectures this morning and then on to the Ben Tahn Chinese market where I can only hope that I will see again whole roasted DOGS, as I recall seeing when last in Saigon, which was all of about 6 years ago.