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Published: July 25th 2011
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Bac Phuc told us that he would be at our rest home at 6AM to bring us to Ba Noi’s and so we were up early after the busy night of celebrating. We waited. And waited. And waited. Finally around 9AM we decided to break down and use Matthew’s phone to make a call. It took a while to get the phone to dial properly and connect, and when it finally did Thu teased her dad for forgetting. The aunts all gave him a hard time, too! In practically no time there were people there to collect us and take us to grandma’s.
This time for breakfast we had noodles with little bits of shrimp and chives and dipped in fish sauce. The table also consumed a lot of pork, which smelled very good. Now, I don’t eat pork and haven’t for years, but being polite and respectful and honoring the work and sacrifice behind the meal is very important to me. That being said, if I can get away without eating it and no one is the wiser, I’ll do that. Pork is the most common meat here and it’s in just about everything, but I eat around, or pick
Fruit for 10,000 dong
Three kilos of fruit for 10,000 dong -- about fifty cents. it out and subtly place it on the plates of Micah, Matthew, or Thu. That is why I much prefer when food is served like it is at Ba Noi’s – each dish is on a separate communal plate, which means that I can eat plenty of noodles and not worry about the meat and no one realizes. If only I was actually walking around as much as I normally do at home, I might actually lose some weight on this trip – everything that we eat is very healthy: rice noodles with mounds of vegetables, plenty of fresh fruit, lots of tea and water. It’s just a bit too hot to do much walking (until we get to Thailand and are on a tour, that is).
After breakfast we jumped into another taxi and headed back to The City to drop off an uncle, his daughter, and her family. From there, we continued (I don’t know in what direction – Saigon is a maze of streets and alleys, filled with people) to Thu’s grandfather’s house to spend a night with him. This is an extended stay compared to last time, when we stayed for just four hours. He and
his new wife were happy to have us – Thu has visited him the most often of any of the family. That is a bit sad – he’s a nice guy, his new wife is great, and he built a house large enough to have family visit.
The house is beautiful: everything is marble and granite. The room that the four of us shared is bigger than the first floor of my first home, or so it seemed. Outside the home, the courtyard is filled with plants and flowers and some very large plumeria trees that smell so good. The stone table outside, which is where we ate our dinner, is positioned in such a way that it catches the evening breeze and allows everyone to stay a bit cooler while eating. Thu’s step-grandmother is a very good cook and made so much food! She says she likes to make extra food to give to the neighbors so that when she goes in to work there’s always someone willing to stop in and check on grandpa to make sure he’s doing okay during the day.
At the end of the evening – at least the end of our evening, since
we headed to bed before 9PM – the sky threatened a great storm, but only followed through with a bit of rain. It has become the joke that Micah is cursed to never be rained on – this is monsoon season and yet we haven’t experienced the heavy rain on this trip.
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