Tomorrow we move to our new studio apartment.  These first 5 days have been extremely fun, exhausting and definitely interesting.  Here’s a sampling from our day.

Step out our door, walk down 10 steps, into this small courtyard.  From inside, we can hear just about everything from our neighbors.  Coughing.  Chairs moving.  TV.  And they can hear us talking, practicing our Vietnamese words.  Surely they can hear our fiddle playing.  Privacy is definitely a luxury.

 

This view is past the courtyard, out into our alley, while standing on our stoop.  The stoop usually has an old man sitting on it, who leaps up when we come out, saying “hallo” and smiling.  The food stands and scooters belong to the residents here.  Lively sounds, like chickens, children, radios, horns, engines revving, barking, yelling, laughing are non-stop.  Ngoc Ha is the main street in the distance.    See the central section of concrete blocks on the ground?  That is the gutter.  Some of the blocks are pried up on a daily basis after hosing off the alley.

 

We had lunch in a building today instead of a food stand; a beautiful 2 story place, with fresh, perfectly prepared dishes.  So perfect that we forgot to take photos.  204,000VND.  Under $10.  They even had scooter valet parking.

 

Military building with flags and guards under the trees.  It’s 80 degrees F.    Wintertime.

 

While standing still for just a moment, this woman came up and put her twin baskets of bananas on my shoulder and her hat on my head.  She was fast.  We had a quick laugh, then to avoid the inescapable haggling I handed her a 2000VND bill (10 cents) for the photo before she asked.  It worked.  Still getting used to the tenacity of the vendors.

 

Improvisational skills.  Check out the ad hoc stove hood.  He’d carry a few coals inside to put under the cooking pots.

 

The revered and respected Ho Chi Minh is embalmed and observable in this mausoleum.  This is a few blocks away from our apartment, on our evening walk route. Motorized vehicles are banned here, so it’s a much needed, quiet respite.

 

The mausoleum is in the huge Ba Dinh Square.  In 1945 this is where President Ho Chi Minh declared Vietnam’s independence from France.

It’s 7pm.  The sun sets every day at 5:30.  Dinner is typically early, between 5:30-7pm.  There’s a midnight curfew, but, like many other rules here, that, too, seems bendable.