City of Lanterns

Outdoor market.

Wednesday, June 14

Candles floating down the river.

Hue is the city of lanterns, and a textile and tailoring centre for Vietnam.  Cindy questions the legitimacy of the advertised 100% silk scarves, and noted that the surging is not the straightest she has seen, but if you want a suit or shirt made up, this is the place.  Today we took Luke's backpack to the shopping centre to get fixed.  The first flight of our trip on Iceland Air had shredded a couple of straps that were deemed non repairable.  After finding a translator in the sewing area, a lady agreed to sew up the straps.  Although we overpaid at 50 000 dong (told it should cost no more than 40 000 dong), paying $3.00 instead of $2.40 will be absorbed by Luke's quickly dwindling university fund.  The outdoor market stretches outside the shopping centre and is a very interesting, and busy, place to walk along.  Narrow, with lots of people walking and pushing through on bikes and motocycles.  Always enjoy the ladies with the slabs of meat on a crate with their homemade swatters keeping the flies away.  What is additionally amazing is that the women working outside in the heat are all wearing jackets.  The inside of the shopping center is a big warehouse packed with vendors selling their goods in crowded aisles. 


Thursday, June 15
A quiet day at the hotel.  Cindy is busy working at arranging flights to and from Laos and Cambodia as we realize that bus travel into that area is going to be slow, uncomfortable, and slow (yes, I realize I said slow twice).  What we would have done in our 20's and 30's no longer seems that attractive.  The boys will have to miss out on the long uncomfortable bus ride until they are can do it on their own.
We went back out for dinner at the same place as last night.  Twice a day for one hour each the national radio broadcast outloud what I assume to be propaganda on the benefits of communism.  We timed our meal today to avoid having to listen to the show, as this nice little restaurant has the misfortune of being next to one of the broadcast speakers.

Ordered chicken for dinner, but it escaped.

The hydro poles are an electricians dream