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And now, day 2 of our Asian Adventure!
This morning we woke bright and early. And I mean, EARLY. I never thought I'd hear M-P say "Okay, let's get up!" at 7 in the morning. You may not believe it, but it's true! We didn't get to bed until 1 last night and didn't sleep very long because of our bodies not having adjusted yet, and ended up sleeping from 11 to 3 today. So much for our grand plans of visiting the Canadian Consulate, the bank and the Emperor of Jade Pagoda.
We did, however, do something worthwhile. At the end of the street our hotel is on, there is the Ben Thanh Market, a huge building filled with rows and rows of stalls selling anything you can imagine. There are clothes, shoes, bootleg designer watches, candies, food, beauty products, household goods, everything. At first, we just walked around, in awe of the activity of the place, the people everywhere.
In the food part of the market, especially, you get the feeling you really are far from home. (A-L, c'est comme au Gua-Gua!) Live fish swimming around in buckets, trays of little crabs, various parts of animals being washed, skinned, hung up or chopped up, fruits and vegetables of every description, and people everywhere.
I'm actually surprised that I haven't yet encountered any really bad smells. Sure, it smells dusty and hot and humid, and the food smells are different, but I hardly notice it at all. Certainly less than I did in Guatemala, anyway. Perhaps because the people here are cleaner. Like in restaurants, they always give you a moist towel to wipe your hands before you eat, which is really nice since it doesn't take long for dirt to accumulate under your nails.
We breakfasted in the market, eating pho from a stall, there. The meal for both of us, plus drinks, cost us the princely sum of less than 3$Cdn, which left us lots for our next activity, shopping!
The outer "layer" of the market (it's like a series of concentric squares, with little alleys between the stalls) has mostly clothing, and an incredible selection of silk pyjamas. Cheap, gorgeous silk pyjamas. I think we'll soon need to find more friends, to justify buying more silk pyjamas. Silk pyjamas how I love thee, let me count the ways... This also means that we're going to shop around for courrier prices tomorrow, to see just how much it would cost us to send a box home.
After all that shopping, we had to go back to our hotel to try our purchases on. We decided to take a little nap before heading out again, but ended up sleeping half the afternoon away. No matter, there's no need to hurry. And it's better to rest now than to exhaust ourselves and end up getting sick.
M-P's been having fun with the Pristine she brought along. It's a solution that purifies water, so we can drink the tap water without worrying; you just have to mix the two parts together, then put the yummy-looking yellow result into a litre of water and let it stand for half an hour. That means that we waste less plastic bottles, and we don't have to leave our room for water. Although our room does have a little fridge that was stocked with drinks (winter melon tea! water! Tiger beer!) and snacks (dried squid! shrimp chips!) when we arrived. We're wondering how much they'll charge us for those, but no matter.
We're going to go looking for a cheaper hotel to move into tomorrow, and we're pondering the noise factor. Where we are now is on a (relatively) quiet street, and the fact that we have no windows keeps the outside noise out (can't do much about noisy people in the next room, though). The internet cafe we're at is on a street with lots of very cheap hotels, but it's also incredibly noisy. Anyway, we'll have to go look around at the rooms and see.
Come on, people, write to us! We want to know that you're missing us and like reading about us!
This morning we woke bright and early. And I mean, EARLY. I never thought I'd hear M-P say "Okay, let's get up!" at 7 in the morning. You may not believe it, but it's true! We didn't get to bed until 1 last night and didn't sleep very long because of our bodies not having adjusted yet, and ended up sleeping from 11 to 3 today. So much for our grand plans of visiting the Canadian Consulate, the bank and the Emperor of Jade Pagoda.
We did, however, do something worthwhile. At the end of the street our hotel is on, there is the Ben Thanh Market, a huge building filled with rows and rows of stalls selling anything you can imagine. There are clothes, shoes, bootleg designer watches, candies, food, beauty products, household goods, everything. At first, we just walked around, in awe of the activity of the place, the people everywhere.
In the food part of the market, especially, you get the feeling you really are far from home. (A-L, c'est comme au Gua-Gua!) Live fish swimming around in buckets, trays of little crabs, various parts of animals being washed, skinned, hung up or chopped up, fruits and vegetables of every description, and people everywhere.
I'm actually surprised that I haven't yet encountered any really bad smells. Sure, it smells dusty and hot and humid, and the food smells are different, but I hardly notice it at all. Certainly less than I did in Guatemala, anyway. Perhaps because the people here are cleaner. Like in restaurants, they always give you a moist towel to wipe your hands before you eat, which is really nice since it doesn't take long for dirt to accumulate under your nails.
We breakfasted in the market, eating pho from a stall, there. The meal for both of us, plus drinks, cost us the princely sum of less than 3$Cdn, which left us lots for our next activity, shopping!
The outer "layer" of the market (it's like a series of concentric squares, with little alleys between the stalls) has mostly clothing, and an incredible selection of silk pyjamas. Cheap, gorgeous silk pyjamas. I think we'll soon need to find more friends, to justify buying more silk pyjamas. Silk pyjamas how I love thee, let me count the ways... This also means that we're going to shop around for courrier prices tomorrow, to see just how much it would cost us to send a box home.
After all that shopping, we had to go back to our hotel to try our purchases on. We decided to take a little nap before heading out again, but ended up sleeping half the afternoon away. No matter, there's no need to hurry. And it's better to rest now than to exhaust ourselves and end up getting sick.
M-P's been having fun with the Pristine she brought along. It's a solution that purifies water, so we can drink the tap water without worrying; you just have to mix the two parts together, then put the yummy-looking yellow result into a litre of water and let it stand for half an hour. That means that we waste less plastic bottles, and we don't have to leave our room for water. Although our room does have a little fridge that was stocked with drinks (winter melon tea! water! Tiger beer!) and snacks (dried squid! shrimp chips!) when we arrived. We're wondering how much they'll charge us for those, but no matter.
We're going to go looking for a cheaper hotel to move into tomorrow, and we're pondering the noise factor. Where we are now is on a (relatively) quiet street, and the fact that we have no windows keeps the outside noise out (can't do much about noisy people in the next room, though). The internet cafe we're at is on a street with lots of very cheap hotels, but it's also incredibly noisy. Anyway, we'll have to go look around at the rooms and see.
Come on, people, write to us! We want to know that you're missing us and like reading about us!
