More street scenes

An almost full moon -- it was a like a scene out of the movie The Letter! Except Bette Davis did not have to deal with all the droopy, dangling electrical wires all over the place. (Here they are relatively taut and straight.)


A shrine still smoking in someone's doorway. The shrines to ancestors, or perhaps a god or two, are set up in the middle of the month and the end of the month, on the full and half moon. Last night was the full moon, but sometimes the incense smokes for two days, according to my source. The fragrant smoke cleanses the air, allowing for renewal and better luck next time.


A woman preparing a few bagfuls of che, which should be lighting these girls' faces up with anticipation, but they are unmoved for some reason.


All different types of delectable che ingredients (che being a good synonym for the ability to turn any food into a dessert), from chestnuts and water chestnuts to rice balls filled with mung beans (I think), to rice and beans, everything loaded up with sugar! Good thing the Vietnamese eat so many herbs and drink so much green tea to counteract the possibility of contracting adult-onset diabetes!


Rice probably absorbs extra glucose. (I mean, to be fair, our diet contains oodles more sugar.)

These young boys play Vietnamese music loudly from a pushcart filled with discs in hopes of selling CDs to people who, inspired by hearing the tunes blaring outside their windows, come running out in their nightgowns to snatch up a newly pirated CD for 5,000 dong. The brothers say they're 17 and 18, but they look younger. And they mentioned their parents live in the country, so they're not technically "street kids." They make about 70,000 to 100,000 dong (17,000 dong equals $1) a day. Lena and I bought some hardcore dance numbers.


The banana lady down the alley. Actually, she's not just a banana lady, she's got all sorts of specialties, like little shriveled eggs that look like miniature yellow boats that are really boiled eggs fried with herbs and meat. And she cooks up a good and greasy banh xeo, the Vietnamese crepe, which is made from rice flour, turmeric and coconut milk, and filled with shrimp, fatty pork and bean sprouts before being fried. She also makes fresh spring rolls; a thick banana-and-coconut pancake that fits into your palm and only hints at sweetness; and a roasted banana treat that's wrapped in sticky rice and banana leaves before being set on a portable grill. Often, she's grumpy. But tonight she's in a good mood. By the looks of it, she has very little nibblers left after a successful day of feeding!


The ladies who run this stand -- they cook up fried rice and stir-fried stuff -- have the best display around. Although those leaves could use a bit of refreshing.

Street scenes, night, Binh Thanh district

Down the street from us, and across the big thoroughfare, is a couple of lanes with cafes and pubs strewn with Christmas lights and lanterns.

A study in blue!

And a study in green.


A study in red.

Oh fruits!

The fruit line-up: miniature mangoes in a bag, milk fruit, gauva, rambutan, sapodilla.


The syrupy sapodilla. Sapodilla tastes like canned pears, or like melon marinated in maple syrup and honey for weeks. But you have to be careful, because if you eat an unripe one, it will dry your mouth out, as if it were a thick paper towel.

Milk fruit has juice in its rind that's a creamy liquid, like coconut milk, which you have to massage into the fruit before cutting it open. The fruit is wet and sweet, but not memorable.


The rambutan, here placed on a flower for cheesy effect! The name means hairy cherry, and tastes a bit like a lichi.

The market and street scenes, around 4:30 p.m.

The dark truth about fruit

Here's some more delicious Vietnamese fruits:

The dragon fruit, which grows from a cactus vine. The pink skin is rubbery, with green scaly spines, and the flesh is watery and light, almost flavorless, although it has a bit of a tarty zing. The best part of the fruit is the many crunchy black seeds inside, like poppy seeds, which make eating the fruit akin to the experience of munching on a bagel, almost. Perhaps there is a better metaphor. There are supposedly antioxidants in dragon fruit as well. They are beautiful to look at, inside and out, more beautiful to look at than to eat, really.


The custard apple, below. In Vietnamese, this fruit is called Na, and Lena explains that her name is made up of two fruits: the Asian pear (Le) and the custard apple. The custard apple is delicious, but somewhat hard to eat because of its many hard black pips. Around the pips and underneath the bumpy, green rind the custard apple contains surprisingly creamy flesh, softer than a coconut, which tastes mildly sweet, much like a coconut does, but with a dash of apple butter and lemon meringue mixed in. Quite yum!


Coconuts. Riding my bicycle around the streets of Saigon, inhaling all the fumes and dust, and getting very thirsty, I often stop by a roadside stand to drink the juice of a young coconut for a burst of revitalization. The seller chops open a hole at the top and I slurp down a cup or two of the barely sweet liquid through a little straw. (Flickr photo below, and random web photo of custard apple above. Will get my own on photo jaunt I'm going to take this evening. The coconuts I drink from look a little different.)

Coconut water is evidently very healthful, with all these life-affirming properties:

1. Keeps the body cool and at the proper temperature.
2. Orally re-hydrates your body; it is an all natural isotonic beverage.
3. Carries nutrients and oxygen to cells.
4. Naturally replenishes your body's fluids after exercising.
5. Raises your metabolism.
6. Promotes weight loss.
7. Boosts your immune system.
8. Detoxifies and fights viruses.
9. Cleanses your digestive tract.
10. Controls diabetes.
11. Aids your body in fighting viruses that cause the flu, herpes, and AIDS.
12. Balances your PH and reduce risk of cancer.
13. Treats kidney and urethral stones.
14. Boosts poor circulation.

But the dark side of fruits is that I have been eating so much of them that I have broken out, and Lena says if I want my pimples to disappear, I have to stop eating the fruit and all the sweetened coffee with sugar-laden condensed milk. All of which is "heating" my body and causing horrible disfigurement. But I only have a few more days left, and there is still so much more fruit to eat. Dilemma.

Street scenes

This woman pushes her talking scale through the streets, weighing and measuring people for 2,000 dong. The hat comes down on your head, and the machine reads your measurements and then gives you its verdict. It thought Lena should gain 20 pounds!

Women tending to flowers for a garden in the super posh area of District 7.

Architecture, straight and crumbing

Here are some of Saigon's colorful buildings, wide enough for a small room per floor. (I like the one that is teetering a bit.) They remind me somewhat of Dr. Suess cartoons. And by night.


These houses have been abandoned, taken over by the river.

A church that looks like it wants to be a pagoda, or vice versa?