Ho Chi Minh City

I am on the final night of two weeks in Ho Chi Minh City. I love this place for it's dirtiness, noise and 'ordered' chaos. Where do all the bikes come from - I am convinced there is a factory somewhere that spits them out in vast quantities on major roadways and at major intersections.
My first week was a work week where I stayed in a five star hotel, got waited on hand and foot, and trudged off every morning to an airconditioned office. I had to cross two major roads to get there and that was at least hair-raising! I have never seen so many small motorbikes, cheek by jowl, 10 wide and 10 deep - and there's me trying to cross the road between them all without getting flattened.
The second week started when I finished work about lunch time on Saturday and Simon arrived.
For the first time in my life I did a tour - ouch! It made me feel like an old lady. We were herded onto a bus, driven along merrily to our stop, hunted out of the bus to gawk at the poor hapless 'peasants' making / doing something and get hassled to buy things, and then repeat! There were a few variations - herded onto a boat instead of a bus, for example. We saw 'traditional' coconut candy being made, 'traditional' rice noodle manufacture, listened to 'traditional' music and singing, visited a minority village (the Cham people), visited a fish farm and an orchard, and all where the people were paid between 25,000 and 30,000 Vietnam Dong per day (about AUD $1.75 to $2.00 at current exchange rate) - so they don't quite fit the definition of living in absolute poverty.
It is sad to see the large number of small children selling things and working with their parents rather than going to school. We visited the Cai Rang floating market on a Monday and almost all the boats from the rural areas had small children on them who should have been at school. Makes the difference between the haves and have nots here seem all the more stark, because the have nots don't even have a basic education - and so continues the vicious cycle.
No photos yet - have no way to download them off the camera - so they'll come later.

I just bought an iPhone (yes I have become one of the millions that have joined the bandwagon) and am playing with it. It is a pretty thing - and hopefully I will use all the fancy stuff at some point to make it worthwhile. Wouldn't have bought it if I wasn't at the point of upgrading my phone and if it had been more expensive then... no way!

Most of the 'apps' everyone raves about are garbage, but there are some useful things. Will be using the grammar ones for my weekly English tutoring with my student. My grammar is useless and I am learning as fast as I can so I can help her with her questions....

Wasted all afternoon on it, but...

Alsa have a fabulous 'in town' style vegie patch that is about 1m wide and 1.5m long. It is in the front yard because we don't get enough sun in the back yard. Put one compost bin full of beautiful compost in the patch to give the sand some substance and nutrition. Planted red cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower and some Chinese broccoli. They are absolutely thriving - no grubs and one broccoli is starting to set a head already! About a million (slight exaggeration) tomatoes and capsicums have come up as well (compost surprise!). Have pulled most of them out, but left some growing at one end of the patch where I put some stakes for them to grow up. Not expecting any tomatoes until late in the spring, but hopefully I can keep them alive through winter and they'll produce late in the spring. Am so pleased with my little patch :)

My Silver Princess's also have three buds each! They are such beautiful little trees and starting to bend over in their usual habit already. I have some pics of the bark which is absolutely beautiful - see right.

Nothing else for the moment.

Just stuff...

No photos this time, just some stuff...
Off to Adelaide tomorrow for a bit of R&R (need it already and it's only the middle of Feb!)
Planning on a good food and wine weekend - how can one help it when we are staying at Normanville on the edge of McLaren Vale. Also catching up with the parents who are finally on their way to Perth (it's only taken them 5 years to finally come and visit).
Will upload more pics in the near future. Have just about finished making my series of panoramas from our last two trips down south (over the past two Christmases - 2008 and 2009) and also our trip out through what's called the Granite Belt over the October long weekend in 2009.
The Granite Belt is full of fabulous granite rock structures that just stick up out of the flat, salty and essentailly treeless wheat belt that cuts a big swathe through the inland parts of WA (before you get to the gold mines)!
The southern coast between Albany and Esperance is one of the wildest and most beautiful places in the world. Full of untouched beaches, beautiful rugged coastlines and national parks. In so many places (except the caravan parks, which were busting at the seams) we were the only people as far as we could see. The heathy scrubland that is the Cape Arid and Cape Le Grande National Parks is amazing. Not a tree to be seen (just like the wheatbelt) but with much more soul and variation and character (of course) and for a totally different reason... Designed and built by nature instead of ploughs and massive combine harvesters / headers.
The south western forests have to be seen to be believed. There is one spot along Caves Road south of Margaret River where the road rounds a bend to the left and the view is just too amazing not to stop and stare for a good long while. The beautiful karri forest is so stunning and no photograph, or series of photographs, can ever really show the colours and the huge gentleness of the long straight trunks. Trees are the most beautiful things in the world and every time is see big old grand ones, I can help but think how wise they must be, all the change they have seen and heard and felt.
Anyway, enough ramblings. The next series of photos will punctuate this few paragraphs.
xx