Goodnight Vietnam, Good Morning Thailand

With reluctance, I left Vietnam yesterday to arrive in Phuket late last night. I say goodbye to:



- musical garbage trucks that emit jingles like an ice cream truck to

let you know you should bring your trash to the curb


- using the street rather than the sidewalk because the sidewalk has

become a motorcycle parking lot


- crossing the street without waiting for a break in traffic, because

that won't happen. Instead you just slowly start walking across and

traffic goes around you. It works!


- women wearing full face and neck masks and long evening gloves to

protect their skin from the sun. Also, whitening products rather than,

as we have, products to give a "healthy glow."


- amazing variety of cheap tropical fruit: mango, rambutan, pomello,

guava, mangosteen, litchis, starfruit, dragonfruit, durian, bananas...


- friendly, relaxed, good-humored people


- Vietnamese men drinking coffee and smoking on little plastic chairs

on the sidewalks everywhere


- crazy motorbike rides through throngs of motorbikes, scooters, cars,

buses, bicycles, people


- vendors selling all sorts of yummy and/or questionable wares...

dried squid, steamed buns, entrails, fruit shakes, sea snails...


- iced coffee with sweetened condensed milk


- sweet grandpas and dads making their little kids giggle


- ladies in their ao dais, flowing silk pants with long matching tunics


- taking shoes off before entering homes and businesses



- crazy misapelling of everything. Julie had every version of one of

her favourite dishes, morning glory, morning glorious, mornig glory,

mourning gloree...


- being woken at 6:30 am by loudspeakers broadcasting what o can only

assume to be communist propaganda


- uncle Ho (Ho Chi Minh) and his image everywhere from every bill to

posters to statues


- going to a restaurant with a group and having all your food arrive

at totally different times


- pajama sets worn by women as popular and completely acceptable

streetwear


- dog as cuisine


- only being able to use "Facebook Lite" as regular facebook is censored


- incredibly fresh and delicious food for under two dollars a meal


- cockroaches and rats the size of small children - I saw a gecko at Nathan and Cindy's gleefully catch a huge cockroach and watched the ensuing battle


- vivid green rice paddies in my favourite shade of green and women in straw conical hats (yes, they really wear them, even in the middle of the city)