I think I'm going to see that being in a new country is always exciting. Getting to Vietnam, you are hit right away with the rush, hurry of the scooters and vehicles on the street. Babies without helmets, children standing on their parents laps, full families of 4 on a scooter, and they move with each other. As one mind.
The first day in Saigon we experienced a fruit market and tried what felt like hundreds of strange, sweet, sticky, prickly, bumpy, delicious fruits. So muchflavpr, so much beauty. So much action in TW market. Little Vietnamese women sitting on the ground in their traditional straw hats, their goods spread out before them on thin blankets, cutting the fruit for eager, hungry customers like ourselves. Wry small market, but so full of life. A different kind of life, too. One with purpose and reason, not choices and indecision.
Following the fruit market, we found an indoor market with different trinkets and odds an ends for sale. They ranged from beautifully woven clothes and bags to chopsticks and fans and keychains. It never ceases to amaze me, the amount of things- mainly people- Southeast Asians tend to fit in one area, car, scooter, building. There must have been a maze of a few hundred little shop stalls in an open building the size of a football field.
Later on we were lucky enough to be invited to a Vietnamese family's home for dinner. An extremely modest place, 2 main rooms- one for living or dining the other a kitchen with the matriarchs sitting on the floor happily creating our meal. . They used as much space as they had to fit about 20 extended family members and a few foreigners. All smiles everywhere. Children running throughout, laughing and playing, staying outside in the streets without a care.
In the kitchen floor, the women were preparing rice paper spring rolls and steamed prawns cooked in banana leaves. Incredible food outmatched only by the atmosphere.
Men sitting around one table, each with a beer in hand, laughing, enjoying one another's company, happy to be with family. Women walking in and out of the room, making sure everyone is happy, bringing plate after plate of delicious food.
The simplicity is inspiring. The happiness infectious. The family beautiful.
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