Arrival in Ho Chi Minh City

Twenty + flying hours between LA and Vietnam, with a brief stop in Seoul. Just long enough, in fact, to run from gate to gate for the transfer, making sure that my new monk friend had was able to keep up managing his bags and his monkly togs. It's actually not fair of me to say that he needed help. He and 2 other Buddhist monks whom I met in the "real people" line to check in at LAX were helping lots of other people - who may or may not have felt they needed assistance - cart their stuff. I was in charge of my own bags, but I did enjoy watching them, and they me. They honed in on me for a chat in line and this one declared that he would be going all the way to Ho Chi Minh too, and that he would look out for me. O.K.! Seemed like a fine omen to start when a saffron-clad monk wants to take you under his wing.

After an uncomfortable 14 hours flight, and an unconscious 6 hour flight, we arrived to a steamy Ho Chi Mihn shortly after midnight, 2 days after I'd left LA. My monk gave me about 7 ways to reach him here, and offered to teach me monkly things, but I waved good-bye and took off for the posh Park Hyatt where Alison had a room. Ah... 5-stars.

*****
The next morning we had a nice breakfast at a little coffeshop near the hotel. Had our first Vietnamese coffees of the trip. SHAZZAAM!!!! breakfast consisted of baguette with jam (baguettes are a leftover item from the "French Domination" as they call it here. Gee... I wonder how they feel about that era.), dragon fruit cubes for me, and so cold cuts and pate for Alison.

Then... Then..... on to our first Marketplace experience! The Ben Thanh Market is a large, covered, central market with a bit of everything. Some syrupy treats, spices, live and cooked animals, clothes and textiles, sparkly sparkly things, plasticky things, and mounds of exotic fruits and veg. (More on this later as I've got to run in a moment.) Alison and I bought some sticky sweet cherries gooped in syrup, some dried persimmons, and a small wrinkly item which th evendor insisted was "lamb". Looking at it, called over by Alison, I questioned the seller. "Lamb? Baaaaaaa?" I mimicked.
"NO" she rolled her eyes at me. "LAMB". Like I was deaf, not merely perplexed at a potential language glitch.
Still and all, we did buy some "Lamb", an assortment of spicy and non- , which I remain convinced is some sort of dried plum or other stone fruit. Yes... I tasted it. No.. it's not meat. We may never know what it is.
An on THAT note.... I haven't yet eaten anything unidentifiable or particularly unusual.. but I'm set on it, and will disclose more soon.

Now... Day 4 . Still in Ho Chi Minh and off to.... brace yourself for it... the CuChi Tunnels. (snicker). The story when I return.