checkin’ out the nam

Alright – here’s the last of Vietnam – I’m working on getting photos of Romania, Turkey, and London up. But this is the first free night I’ve had in a while.
Anyhow – looking back at the photos I have from Vietnam reminded me of how many colours, smells, and sounds there were. It was fun to see – so here are a few samples of what I saw. Traffic is insane – motos everywhere, but crossing the street could be a death defying experience. Money – for the first time in my life I was a millionaire – too bad that only lasted a weekend. Bundles of incense. This was a door front that opened into a torn-down wreck and was right next door to buildings in good condition. A little bit of the arts – of course I had to add that in – I wanted to sit down and learn how to do the eggshell and lacquer art, but I don’t think the tour bus would’ve waited for me. But here’s a bit of the supplies and process of that Vietnamese specialty.
And there you have it: a weekend in Vietnam (there are far more pictures, but these will have to do, haha).

checkin’ out the nam (pt 1)

On request, here are some photos of Vietnam… When I get a bit more time I’ll finish the post and toss up the rest. Hopefully I can squeeze some more time in this week…

Turns out Ho Chi Minh City has some great buildings… who knew the Post Office would be a tourist attraction? And due to the French influence, they even have a Notre Dame cathedral. We also went to the Reunification Palace.

Here are some of what we saw at the Reunification Palace. There were all sorts of nice conference rooms and what not, but this was the basement. I stopped to take a few photos and walking down that hallway alone definitely had some creepiness going on. It was interesting to see some of the equipment they used back in the day, as well as the barrenness of the rooms.

We had a tour of the Cu Chi Tunnels that are just outside of Ho Chi Minh. Our guide was demonstrating one of the entrances into the tunnels… pretty clever. What makes it even sneakier is how little you have to be to fit in there, I think you couldn’t have a waist size above 34… The Vietnamese are small.