2010-2011 travels: 9th Feb, Tuan Phan's home, Ho Chi Minh City aka Saigon.3363.3km

fried carrot cake, viet style. with shredded veggies and chili splattered on top

my host in Saigon(the 2nd one from left). like any vietnamese gathering, i was brought to drink again...

Cho Ben Thanh! would have bought lots of clothes if not for the fact that i am cycling and lazy to carry extra stuff cause there were freaking cheap.

now u gotta figure out a way to cross the road. dun stare at the zebra crossing in the middle of the road, it wun do you any good if you think u can use it. prob the only help it has is that it will assist you in claiming insurance when you get knocked down by a car cause technically, you were in the "right path"

the travelling book section has NTH in relation to travelling at all...

and they lump all the books as Fiction & Non-fiction... Duh?!

went for a day tour to visit Cu Chi Tunnels & Cao Dai Holy See. as usual, the travel bus had to conveniently stop at a handicrafts factory for a "toilet break" the toilet was situated at the end so you had to walk past the whole assembly line and see the entire manufacturing process before you could pee in peace...

to be honest, it was pretty nice but no originality at all. there were mayb hundreds of the same design all over the shop and they lose the "hand-made" status cause they are all produced in bulk. there were some ppl who specialised in chipping the tiles, painting the tiles, adding colour dyes, glazing etc...

those in colour were supposedly of a higher rank though i forgot which is the highest colour.

every few years that you are a member, you ascend in seniority and get to move up 1 step/platform and closer to the front.

boys on the right, gals on the left. you can see there are much more gals than boys. i think i can safely say that about 70% of the members there were above the age of 60yrs old.