Previous Entries: Part 1

Well I am just relaxing so I thought that I would write another diary entry. After I had dinner yesterday which was bun Bo hue (my favourite) I relaxed for a little bit and then at about 8:00 I went with about 10 of Dylan’s friends to go and play tennis with them.

 I’m not very good at tennis but I thought it would be fun. So we got back on the motos again and headed on about a 15 minute journey to the tennis courts. I played a little bit but as I imagined my skills were lacking and I wasn’t very good. So the rest of the time I watched and drank beer. Then by the time that we left the tennis courts I saw a different side of Saigon that I haven’t seen before. We left at about 10:30 and as we were zipping through alleyways dispersed in-between I managed to see prostitutes soliciting their trade in-between people sitting on little stools drinking iced coffee, shortly after that experience we arrived home.

Then I was feeling a bit gross so I had a shower and went up to the roof and joined everyone there for some drinks, I started to drink and as usually happens I started to get hungry. But food was never too far away, so the food that we had was;
• Steamed sea snails, which you dunk in a little lime and black pepper dipping sauce.
• Steamed clams, the juice in the clams was enough of a sauce so you just open them and it’s good to go.
• Deep fried mud crabs, these you just tear apart and dip in a little bit of tuong ot chilli sauce.

Everything was delicious, especially the crabs, it was one of the best things that I have ever eaten. So the whole while my glass was getting refilled with beer without even asking, in the end I ended up crawling into bed at about 1:30am. I didn’t sleep very well at the time as I was sleeping on a mattress on the floor that was about 3cms thing. But tonight I can sleep on a normal bed. Then I woke up and had an iced coffee made for me and I read for a little bit. Then I went to the local markets with sindi, duc and his mum and we got some breakfast. Duc’s mum ordered for me.

I found out that what was presented in front of me was some dry noodles which had crab meat, some lungs, some tongue and some prawns. It also came with a little bit of hedgerow on the side. It was delicious! The lungs were a bit tasteless and I didn’t really care for the texture but the rest was great, in particular the tongue which was like eating pork meat intercepted with bits of sweetbreads. Then we had a walk around and I realized that the markets are a real community for the Vietnamese people. As we were walking around picking up different veggies and stuff duc’s mum was talking to everyone! Then we ended up at a pork stall and we got some roast pork for lunch. It was great watching her cut up the pork in front of us; it was like she had been doing it for 20 years. Then we got home and I had a little sleep as I was just so tired! Then I woke up and had some of the aforementioned pork and some rice. So that’s the next entry.