Rowboats slip silently between gigantic ferns in the Delta
memorable experiences this week:
* Editing a monk's english writings on Buddhist statues in his pagoda, Sam Mountain. He spoke with a pronounced French accent, though claimed not to understand French.
* The barefoot dentist at a Pharmacy who left his patient under the lamp to sell me a bottle of water.
* Hundreds of swiftlets' nests swarming with wings under the eaves of a waterstained colonial building-turned-karaoke bar/massage/sauna in Ha Tien
* Laughing in Vietnamese lessons on the beach in Mui Nai
* Being invited to teach an english class to ten-year-olds, Dragon Island, Mekong Delta
* Getting a friendly dose of hustling in Khmer once a local kid found out I spoke a little (Thach Dong Cave Pagoda), while in Kampuchea Krom
* Drinking "weasel coffee" on the To Chau River. Somehow smooth and bitter at the same time.
4 comments:
OK. I'm convinced Vietnam is not at all like Cambodia with its touts, beggar children and taxi girls or Laos with its goffy frat boy backpackers getting buzzed on happy pizza and tubing indolently down a muddy river. After reading your comments and looking at your photos, I think I have one more SE Asia stop to make. After we seal the deal on a house in Greece.
Glad to see the hints, eagerly awaiting to hear them stitched together in the future.
I have a present for you, will email.
Sigh. David, Vietnam has all of what you mentioned and more, complete with institutionalized higher rates for foreigners - for everything from chewing gum to train tickets. Backpackers tend to take it personally, while old asia hands view it as par for the course.
But of course Vietnam's got plenty of wonderful bits, too - and that's what I try to stick to here. (the rest I'll send you in an email!)
Hi,
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