CHICAGO: MAYOR DALEY’S BOOK CLUB
Sorry to take time away from the Vietnam/Cambodia tour, but hey, I've had kind of a busy weekend I thought you'd like to know about -- namely a trip to Chicago and then off to Cannes! First off, I flew down to Chicago, Friday -- like you couldn't tell from the photo...
VIETNAM: THE CRAZY HOUSE
Welcome to a Tim Burton movie set in real life! Dalat's Crazy House may not follow socialist architectural principles, but luckily it was designed by a daughter of a local Communist head honcho so it's Wacadoo Wackadoo all the way to the land of multi-coloured birds....
VIETNAM: MONASTERY RETREAT
After the hustle and bustle of Ho Chi Minh City, a trip to the Buddhist monastery/teaching complex in the hills surrounding Dalat was just what the doctor ordered. What a joy to wander/wonder the grounds, free of our "guide" who happily texted his way through our...
DALAT: VIETNAM’S NIAGARA FALLS
Dalat is Vietnam's Niagara Falls. There isn't a falls but there is a beautiful lake for honeymooners to paddle around in. Apparently. When we were there it was being drained for sludge. Aside from that, the town is pretty and has a bunch of neat stuff like tacky...
VIETNAM: FROM DICTATORS TO DALAT
So last post I said we'd be in Dalat today, the Niagara Falls of Vietnam -- minus the falls. But I thought I'd be remiss if I didn't show you ANY public buildings in Saigon. (Or Ho Chi Minh City as they say in the North, or if they work for the Vietnamese government.)...
INSIDE THE VIET CONG TUNNELS
So here I am in Cu Chi one of the 163 miles of tunnels north of Saigon that let the Viet Cong appear and vanish as if by magic and led to some of the fiercest bombing and defoliation in the war. It's weird down here. So come along for the tour. I guarantee you'll see...
SAIGON: UNCHARTED TERRITORY
So here we go -- into the Big Muddy -- a.k.a. the tiny waterways of Saigon's District 2 which take us out of the urban core and into, well, a whole other world very much like the Mekong Delta.We found this boat by accident. A guy at the dock was hawking a trip but he...
SAIGON BY NIGHT
Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) at night is a wonderfully garish spectacle. Here's the big night time market. (Check out the last post for a shot of the death-defying gauntlet of mopeds you have to face to get to the market.Here's Daniel wandering a line of stalls.And...
THE HEAT IS ON IN SAIGON
Whee! This is the start of a series that'll take us from Ho Chi Minh City (still known as Saigon to most people who live there) up to Hanoi and over to the 11th century temples of Angor Watt, Cambodia. Watch out for the mopeds.There's not a heckuva lot to see in...
CHANDA’S SECRETS: OFFICIAL CANNES FILM FESTIVAL SELECTION
I interrupt the blog posts on my trip to Vietnam/Cambodia to bring you some truly exciting news. I am, like, dancing on air. The film version of CHANDA'S SECRETS that I blogged about all December from the set a few hours north of Johannesburg is an OFFICIAL SELECTION...
