visitors

Jens from Bali was here for two days and we’ve spent evenings together out in the streets. It was a nice reunion talking virtually about anything from very philosophic things to making jokes on stuff around. Two evenings we enjoyed the full range of Vietnamese cuisine from simple street stalls to fabulous café’s. It was an interesting mixture. We also went much around and discovered many of what from our perspective seems to be Asia’s very odd things.


On the first evening, there was this alley near my hotel which I have never before walking through. But Jens made attempts to discover the area around and that emerged to be the right decision. Suddenly we stood in that alley between those two massive concrete apartment blocks that were lit by thousands of neon strips. The atmosphere in this alley was incredible and looking up gave you the feeling that a huge space ship with visitors from another planet is hovering above you. In fact, people staring at us signalized that we were the ones who were visitors.



On the second evening we have been to a street with innumerable shops selling kitsch, toys, many kinds of food, Christmas decoration, clothes and so on an so forth. One of the up-market traditional dress shops is used by the owner as a ca park as well. That is nothing uncommon here. But recently I saw a similar photo on the internet and realized that I have already lost sensitivity perceiving such images as something curious from a western perspective. So this time, I couldn’t let it to take the picture. Later we were passing a Christmas fair at the posh Diamond Plaza shopping mall. And this was really laden: they had millions of chains of light, a Vietnamese Santa Claus, snowmen, sledges, artificial snow and all you need for a merry Christmas at 32 degree Celsius. And again we couldn’t let it to join the masses admiring this festival.

Lateron Jens went back to his hotel and I met Tam, Phuc and some friends. We had a lush night out in the club and I went to bed in the early morning. It will be my last full day in Saigon and I will really miss it. Sometimes I think I should have lived here a bit more excessive and enjoyed it all more.