Bridge nearing completion

The cable stay bridge connecting Mỹ Tho city to Bến Tre province over the first branch of the Mekong river is nearing completion. This will be the second bridge over the first branch of the Mekong, after the Mỹ Thuận bridge constructed nearly 10 years ago

Best grass in Saigon - Park Hyatt

Storm brewing

The wet season is now here in full force. Currently there are unpredictable rains continuously throughout the day, upsetting the majority of commuters who travel by motorbike and bicycle. Planning travel around missing the rain has been a challenge

The United Nations Day of Vesak 2008

In Theravada countries, the day that celebrates the Buddha’s birthday is more affectionately known as the Vesak day. However, the celebrations extend not only to his birth but also his enlightenment and commemoration of his passing away. Vesak is actually the name of the fourth month in the lunar calendar and the day that celebrates Buddha’s thrice sacred events occurs on the fifteenieth day of the same lunar month. As such, there are Buddhist flags, flyers and posters all around the city, but mainly concentrated outside of temples. More info can be garnered here

The East European language school

I would love to know how this place came to get its name - "east europe" is not a place that springs to mind when wanting to promote your school as a place to learn English. I also seriously doubt any eastern European languages are taught here

Up the garden path

Boat in a light bulb

Potatoes

Helmet, newspaper and HP laserjet 1020

A struggling public telephone

With very high mobile phone subscription and usage, public telephones seem a thing of the past. This one has been damaged for sometime now and no one seems in a rush to fix it. I would not be surprised if it is removed altogether rather than repaired.

The 69 Hotel

Umm, this aptly named hotel does seem to rent rooms by the hour

Demolition on Hai Bà Trưng st

There is plenty of construction and redevelopment happening all over town. Many are on thin blocks that are relatively deep such as this one, requiring creative design to let in natural light. Not sure what this one will be, but the redevelopment of choice downtown seems to be mini hotels at the moment

Meet me in your drerms

A strange thing about fashion apparel here is that most of the slogans on t-shirts are written in English rather than Vietnamese. The majority focus around the theme of "love" and usually make little sense or, like the one above, are misspelt

Mother and child sculpture in District 1

Taxi fare

The taxi has travelled 2.6 kilometres for VND 24,800, which is less than US$2

Percentage cacao at Jeff de Bruges

Continuing this months numbers theme, a chocolate shop in town sells blocks by the cacao percentage. The wife is a big fan of the incredibly dark 64% from Peru. As you can see below, they do not exactly give the chocolates away here. Apparently departing with such funds are well worth it

Exorbitant numbers

In need of a renovation? Then please call...

This month's theme is numbers. Just about everywhere in Saigon you will see stenciled mobile phone numbers advertising home renovations. I tried calling one once to ask them to come and remove the "advertisement" from our office wall. Unsurprisingly, they never showed up. This picture is from a wall around a site about to be demolished, and I am pretty sure the guy who answers the phone number 0908 386 120 did not get the construction gig.

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Timber and wrought iron staircase at Vasco's

Yum cha at Huy Long Viên

Or the remnants anyway! There are a lot of top places to find yum cha around Saigon. This one is about middle of the road for the food, but the atmosphere is quite good

Looking up last night

This was taken late yesterday afternoon at a noodle stand at the end of the street. Shortly after the sky darkened with rain clouds and it poured

Paella night at La Habana

Heritage Arts & Crafts

Through the trees to the Park Hyatt