Last full day in Ho Chi Minh City

After breakfast on the trot of a delicious roll filled with goodies by the lady who operates the cart at the end of our laneway, we took a taxi to Jade Emperor Pagoda where people take time out from normal daily life to pop in, light some incense, candles and say some prayers.




For some reason, there's a pond right next to the front door filled with turtles. In fact, at the entrance people are trying to get you to buy one, write your name on it and presumably chuck it in for good luck or something.




There are lots of statues like this guy inside.




We conquered another rooftop for lunch, the Sheraton this time, but first of all, the naughty children discovered a gingerbread house in the lobby with real live ladies inside selling goodies. The house was made out of real gingerbread and was decorated with real icing and edible treats. A few stuck-on bits were not so surreptitiously removed and sampled.



We spent the afternoon at the very good War Remnants Museum then back to the hotel for siesta. Peter chose the excellent Temple Club for dinner tonight, upmarket, traditional-French-colonial-looking room with great food as usual - pushed the boat out, about $120 for 6 of us tonight! Walking back to the hotel, the streets had come alive with the customary crowd on motorbikes.



While we were waiting to cross the road, I made friends with a family who had this little cutie on the front seat of the family bike.



When we go back to Melbourne I'll miss this sight when crossing the road.



This is our little neighbourhood. Jessye and Max discovered the little jazz club on the first night and Rosie and I checked it out last night - very good.



The traffic lack of rules is brilliant. People just do the sensible thing when left to their own devices and things seem to flow effortlessly. I haven't seen one single act of frustration/aggression. Here's an example of people crossing a massive intersection when it seems like a good time and cars and bikes not getting mad at them.




Our little lane way is full of parked bikes up the back and people were coming and going at 10pm when we got back from dinner.


Our hotel looked pretty at night.