Each morning began very early with women on the streets, gently sweeping with their brooms made of stiff grasses dried in the sun. It was a rhythmic drag of the grasses on the pavement as the throbbing hum of motorbike engines echoed down the street. I spent most of the month we had waking up in Saigon. The first morning I had woken up at 5am and in the house hung a strange aura. I was the only one awake and it gave me time to reflect about where I was – standing on a totally different space on the earth. I was certainly not the first to rise in the district. Downstairs a pot of Bun Rieu (a classic Vietnamese Street food dish) was brewing and the children’s rides park right next door began playing its nursery songs to the near empty street. Standing there I absorbed the way the foot paths were endless pavement without a spot of grass and no parked cars, the children in their scout-like uniforms hugging their parents in front as they were driven to school, their feet dangling with sandals and multiple doors opening everywhere like an arcade game for their owners to wheel out their bikes. I was very far from the Sydney streets I called home and it was unreal just thinking of what could possibly be in store for the day.
The Cafe Culture was something to behold in Vietnam giving Newtown and Balmain in
Sydney a run for their money. Cafe Sua Da (Iced Coffee) was served everywhere not with fresh milk but condensed milk since it was first introduced into the country by American Soldiers fighting in the War. Here was where you could catch up with family and friends as one ALWAYS had time for coffee. It was enjoyed in various ways from lounging on your motorbike to knocked knees on a low stool. Most importantly was to enjoy your drink while facing and watching the street. This was what it meant to watch the “day go by”. There was no need for the time-lapse option; the streets were an endless whirlwind of passing motorbikes and taxis, chickens strutting around their shop fronts pecking vigorously at the seeds in crevices and street sellers laying the pavement with their wares awaiting the night to finally pack for home.
Crossing the road abides by a few rules.
1. Besides looking for gaps in traffic you must walk with confidence like the locals next to you.
2. Women are more likely to show signs of slowing than men.
3. No designated pedestrian crossings in the outer districts so good luck finding one.
Even in the street, traffic pedestrians crossings still beg lone motorbikes to make the final break.
4. Traffic never stops just for you.
This is the thing - traffic immediately changes the second you step onto the road, a thousand internal calculations erupt around you as engines hum a little less and wheels slightly veer to the sides.
As amateurs we waited for locals to cross alongside other locals – a life skill I had yet to master on my own.
Every morning my dad would walk to the markets only to stop short at a little glass stand by the road where a woman would be selling the juiciest jackfruits a Vietnamese Australian like ourselves would ever taste and see. By the time we left the country (we said our good byes), she had known us to be her regular customers. Dad would come home with the produce and mum and I would begin the tedious and sticky deseeding process and eating the “less pretty ones”. You couldn’t help getting strange looks on the street when you wore shorts, a t-shirt, your sneakers and tried desperately to cross the heavy traffic like a local. Not even the traditional straw hat could conceal the fact that you were a tourist returning to your roots and my did I reek of it.
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| Your average homemade dinner of wholesome food |
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| "Embodying" a local next to the Jack fruit stand |
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