Temples and Markets and Palaces

Today we were bold enough to take a taxi out into the suburbs to see a couple of "Chinese Pagodas". We didn't really know exactly what such pagoda are (I thought maybe something like the one in Kew Gardens in London), so we were slightly surprised to find that they were actually temples.

Not really knowing much about Chinese temple etiquette, we tried our best to blend into the background and take photos rather discreetly. Nobody seemed to mind and the templegoers simply got on with the job of setting fire to hundreds of josticks and planting them at various points. There's quite a few more pictures on Flickr - we're honestly not sure how to describe what we saw, so maybe the pictures do it best themselves.

Having seen 2 temples (what an ace piece of navigation down streets an alleys!), we caught sight of a very local market an went for a look. There were no other tourists and everyone was as nice as pie to us - just smiles. We stopped for a spot of Pho which is Vietnamese noodle soup for lunch. You sit on tiny weeny chairs (think of Primary school) right in the main passageway with the odd moped brushing past your back (you're never more than 3 metres from a moped in this city anyway). We had to be shown everything to do by the locals - they were so helpful and smiled and laughed at our mistakes. A very pleasurable experience. As we walked out of the market, everyone chattered and laughed at us! Oh, the bill came to GBP 1.60 for a Pepsi, Sprite and 2 enormous bowls of Noodle Soup (with us adding herbs and spices ourselves). Cheap or what!

And then a very strange experience indeed. Back in the centre of Saigon, or should I say on this occasion, Ho Chi Minh City, we went to the Palace of Reunification. This was built by the government of South Vietnam as the Government HQ while the Americans were here in the 60s.

After the withdrawal enshrined in the "Peace with Honor" settlement, General Ho Chi Minh's tanks nipped into Saigon and drove right up to this palace. South Vietnam fell and the country was unified under Ho Chi Minh with the government in Hanoi. So the palace was left "as is".

Its very 1960s and the whole place has the feel of Tracy Island about it, Tracy Island being the home of the Thunderbirds. Can't say that we bonded with the place, it was all very peculiar.

And to round off a busy day in Saigon, we collapsed, hot and humid into an open air cafe for a smoothie and some ice cream. Here's a couple of pictures that show what the locals are doing to set up for Christmas... and last but not least, at our cafe, there was Santa in the Snow with Fan.... presumably Santa's just too hot here!