monagustafsonaffinito   CONVERSATIONS

I promised more color this time, so here it is. Nha Trang.

Please remember you can click on the photos to make them larger. It’s especially impressive, I think, when you get to the embroidery.

Already Things look more affluent. The header is a photo — cropped to fit — of one view across the harbor from the ship.

And a busy harbor it is.

Look down to the right at the buses lined up on the pier, ready to take us off to our day’s adventure. Notice the red dots near them – musicians just finishing up after welcoming us.

First visit, the Po Nagar Cham Towers where Buddhists come to pray, leaving their shoes outside, though I didn’t choose that photo. This one is clearer, so just imagine the entry steps at the bottom, littered with shoes. Wikipedia can tell you more. Po Nagar Cham Towers

Interesting and colorful things were going on around it, like this woman weaving.

And Doug being interviewed by a member of the local media. By the way, Doug’s hat blew off during the Tuk Tuk ride in Thailand, so he bought himself a new one in Cambodia. You may also be able to see how he celebrates vacations by letting his beard grow.

Long Son Pagoda was our next stop. I was satisfied with viewing the giant white Buddha from below, while Doug, of course, took full advantage of the opportunity to explore. I chatted with a lovely lady of 89 on tour with her daughter. And I bought two drawings on silk, done by the monks, sold by a lovely young girl who explained that the profits went to supplies for the school. Very inexpensive. I should have bought more. Sometimes I get ridiculously stingy; other times I get ridiculously spendthrift. And so it goes when traveling. (By the way, isn’t “spendthrift” an oxymoron?)

I loved seeing the Buddhas from the time we arrived in Singapore.

But now we moved on to something quite different. An embroidery factory. According to the guide’s report, the women work 10 hour days 7 days a week. Reported very matter-of-factly. One woman gave us a lovely smile as we walked past, but I didn’t act fast enough, so I got a photo of her after she turned her attention back to work.

The final products are beautiful — and expensive. I just looked.

At the end of the day, back aboard the ship after dark, I got a photo of one of the cable car stanchions. Indicative of the advanced economy of Nha Trang, the cable cars run regularly, carrying people back and forth from the mainland to a reportedly top-notch resort hotel on an offshore island.

I’ll be back in a few days with the next stop, Da Nang, Vietnam.