It was one of those days...

...it was one of those days that you crave when travelling....

Our self-directed walking tour around Ho Chi Minh District 1 enabled us to see an almost all-time best top 5 range of activities today:

1. A real-life action movie sequence on a city street
2. Everyday folk going about their days, including a sad balloon seller
3. A military operation/archeaological dig & an encounter with the law
4. A communications-come-bedroom Vietnam war bunker, complete with original equipment & the errieness of wars past
5. Bargain shopping in a whirling deverish of sights, sounds & smells

Sight 1
Picture a French-inspired cafe with alfresco dining one minute.  The next, the wooden dining tables & chairs have been flattened by 3 motorbikes that have purposely accelerated onto the curb; 2 men are bloodied; 3 bikes take off with 3 men & a small boy on each & throw in a couple of hystrerical women & that's a wrap!

Then, a motorcycle paramedic arrives & does an odd job of attending the victims as both of them continue to bleed heavily, but

An old lady clutching her grandson runs off to return with a police officer & a detective driving a ute-type small truck.  They start asking random people (& there are many of them) questions & squirrelling notes.  Then the two bloodied victims are told to get in the back of the truck & they all drove away.

Sight 2
Contemplating a career change?

Overcome by how many balloons he's sold? Thinking about his other shoe? In an empathetic statement, Miss C announced that we maybe we should buy a balloon from him & then he wouldn't be so sad.  We didn't, largely due to our Cambodian balloon experiences which is a story for another time.

Sight 3
Literally hours of sticky-beakness available as a team of 20 Vietnamese soldiers nestled right next to a children's playground and marked the grounds of the Reunification Palace for further exploration.  Fragments of ordanance, a large knife, a big something (below??) were found. The reunification palace (when it was just the palace) was bombed.  It seems to have taken 40 years to dig up the gardens to see if there might be anything of interest, value, or anything dangerous.  While very pleased that the total lack of any safety precautions while this activity was taking place meant we could get very close to the action, one wonders about undertaking such exercises basically within a children's playground which was populated all day.










Sight 4
The bunker - cold, grey, narrow corridoors, small rooms, large equipment, hand-drawn maps punctured by drawing pins.  This was the communications hub from which the Vietnam war was run. Miss C sat behind the desk & directed operations for the briefest of minutes.

Sight 5
Perpetual motion, floor-to-ceiling bolts of fabric, any colour, any design, any weight; rich and ripe smells from fresh and dried fruit, vegetables, juice; sounds of 'Madam. madam.....' as goods were literally thrown at us to examine.  6 beautifully embroidered dresses for $90 - all worth it!