Ho Chi Minh City: Ben Thanh Market

I love me a market tour.  

In Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), one of the big markets is Ben Thanh market, built in 1912 on the site of a previous informal vendor market.  It's become a little bit touristy- lots of t-shirts and souvenirs- but it still has a food section, complete with produce, meats, fish and dry goods.

 

The tofu lady... how many types of soy product can you count?:

Chicken nut sacks:

Shellfish sorting:

I don't know if you can tell from these photos below, but this lady is engaged in an act you don't see everyday... first she beheads the frog, dropping the head in the yellow basket, then she skins the frog, dropped the skin into the green basket, then she drops the recently denuded frog body onto the ground to her left where it continues to jump and flop around for several minutes afterwards.  I wish I had video.  

Also, I love the woman crouched on the counter behind her... why is she standing on the counter while the other woman preps food on the floor? 

 

 

This lady, butchering fish, made me laugh because despite the fact that she is wearing essentially pajamas and rubber boots and is coated in fish guts, she has a full face of makeup on, pink lipstick and all:

I love the blue color of these crabs:

Veggies ahoy:

Piles o' fish:

Hanging meats:

Offal!!  Stomach in the front, various organs to the left, pig ears to the far left, brains to the right, and in the center in front of the vendor, dark cubes of congealed pig's blood (which Tim and I ate in a chicken and rice soup in Hue one night when we were feeling adventurous... at the time, we thought maybe it was liver, but in retrospect it was clearly blood jello):

Dried goods, including more dried shrimp and dried sea cucumber than you can shake a stick at:

Narrow aisles full of goodies:

Shrimps:

Betel nut paraphernalia:

The coconut lady, with coconut in its various forms:

Bali: Miscellaneous Quirks and Assorted Shenanigans

Here is a series of quirky Balinese sitings as well as some of our shenanigans while on Bali.

Each afternoon at about 5 pm, I'd look around the backyard of the villa and notice that I had been surrounded by these croaking guys.

Monday was a work-from-home day.  It was pouring.

Workin' hard for the money, so you'd better treat them right.

Tim, working less hard for the money.

Just because Tim's 32 doesn't mean he doesn't keep up with trends on the internets.

All of them.

Tea party leisure dive?

Keep your wax to yourself:   Bali is the spa capital of Indonesia.  We were surrounded by ads and people shilling for massages, pedicures, and every spa treatment you can imagine, as well as some you wish you had never heard of, including the third treatment up on the left... ear candle??!!??!!  No thanks.  Tidak.

The traffic in Bali is literally nothing compared to that of Jakarta.  Any yet the motorbike loaded up with god-knows-what is common to both locales.  This guy, with his portable restaurant on his bike, is a pretty tame example.  On my first night in Jakarta, on the way home from the airport, I saw a guy with at least 30 throw pillows strapped onto his motorbike.  Indonesian seatbelt?

Absolut Petrol:  While there are plenty of traditional gas stations on Bali, most of the petrol is distributed to motorbikers via these rustic roadside stands where the gas is typically stored in Absolut vodka bottles.  They just stick the funnel in your bike and dump it in for the equivalent of about $3.  I don't know if my former colleagues at OTAQ would approve...

Speaking of motorbikes... we rented 3 of them for our jaunts around Seminyak. Erin and Ben usually ride together, but I was hesitant to ride with Tim based on our experience canoeing, which involved several near-capsizing moments.  I don't know about Tim, but I had never set foot (or butt) on a 2-wheeled motorized vehicle before.  And it showed. Within about 2 seconds of getting on my bike, I accidentally got a little, umm, zoomy, while the cab in front of me simultaneously and inexplicably stopped short.  My bike tapped his bumper and an international incident almost ensued.

But all was well in the end and we zoomed on.  I also tried sharing a motorbike with Tim and it went fine.  He drove very well.  I don't think that bike will ever recover from the 400 lbs of white person that it carried around, however.

Remember how I told you there were random (well, random to me, but probably very strategic to others) shrines and offerings everywhere in Bali?  I wasn't kidding.  This one was on a busy corner in shopping area.

The offerings were everywhere- in front of every shop, house and shrine.  Little woven palm baskets filled with flowers, leaves, incense, rice, and occasionally other things like cigarettes, candy bars, crackers...

Even in front of our pool!