Leaving Saigon tomorrow

Joyce Vandermay
It has been a wonderful 10 days. And I'm so happy that I endured the plane ride here, fifteen hours is a long, long time to sit in a tiny seat. And we had the chorus of two extremely un-happy babies, if the one in the front was quiet, then the poor child in the back was crying.
It is quite an adventure to travel around the city by taxi, lots of horns blaring, and a sea of scooters undulating down the street in a haze of smog. A nice breeze will blow the air some-what cleaner. Most of the scooter drivers wear a mask, and often the women wear gloves that go almost to their shoulders,to keep the sun off their skin. And again a wide brimmed hat under their helmet.Some scooters have a scooter "bed" in front of their handle-bars, and some scooters have them behind their seat, it's amazing how much cargo they can carry.
Shopping at the Ben Than market is over-whelming, tiny stalls and the clerks call out Madame, Madame, you want leather purse, shirt, or what ever they have for sale, and sometimes they grab your hand and pull you into their little stall, "you like this, many color" very aggresive sales technique. The fabric stalls are absolutely packed as high as they can with colorful fabric, one day a man was sleeping on top of the stack! Another day a woman crawled out from under a clothing rack, stretched out and went back to work. Clara was concerned about being rude to the clerks by always telling them no, so we decided that a "no thank you" would work.
Sharon and I found a beautiful silk that will become dresses for Analyse and Clara.
Another grand thing we bought was silk pajamas, How nice to wear those to bed!
The meat market was a "trip" all on its own, everything but the moo. Cows tongue, and also testicles, Sharon wimped out in that section.
Don't be worried about traveling to Saigon, you can get any kind of American food you choose, and through charades you can get across what you need, this has been a great trip.