| Frazer's Australiana Page Cont ... |
| HOLIDAYS - VIETNAM/CAMBODIA Cont.. |
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| This piece is describing the scene in a Saigon street: Kiosks hedge the street, no sidewalks, catching the drift of humanity churned up by the traffic. The sandwich makers, old ladies with oily hands, dusty skin like yesterday's bread, lather pork fat onto tiny loaves. On the curbs, the shirtless men of sun-jerked sinew in boxer shorts and rubber sandals, squatting on their hams, grill meat over coals in metal pans. A dog patchy fur over ribs, sniffs the droppings of another. In an alley, a mother and daughter fry dough cakes, selling them wrapped in dirty newspapers. Next to them, laborers hunch on plastic footstools slurping noodle soup from chipped bowls. TV's squark, flickering foreign images to a score of spectators each. They're watching an American travelogue dubbed in Vietnamese. Tonight, we tour Yosemite and luxuriate in the hospitality of the Alwahnee Hotel. |
| I was going to write a little of our feelings while we were in Vietnam. We found the words in an exerpt of a book we read when we returned. If you are interested it is a must read: Catfish & Mandala ... by Andrew X. Pham |
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People shout, curse, barter, laugh, whine, edge words into the traffic, hustling for money. The buildings press narrow, ten feet wide, and stretch thrice as long, every other one a storefront, open for business, selling, selling, anything, everything. Food, paper, spare parts, clothes, candies, colour TV's, fake watches, cheap Chinese fabric, screwdrivers, wrenches, rice dishes, Coca-Cola, cigarettes, gasoline in soda bottles, penny-lottery tickets, imported tins of biscuits, and everything has a buyer, everyone is for sale. |