Last week, we heard about a music festival coming to Ho Chi Minh called Loretofest with headliners Ratatat.  We pretty much all shit ourselves as Ratatat is a Jet Set Zero favourite.  So last night, Kris, Serene and I managed to see them live from the front row AND meet the band after.  I can now die happy, I touched 50% of Ratatat.

To Brian and Rob, it’s a crying shame you missed out.  :)

Front row! That's Ratatat on stage behind us.

Serene and I with 50% of Ratatat

Every time you drink at a pub here, you’re pretty much guaranteed to be approached by someone trying to sell you something. Sunglasses, lighters, lottery tickets, cigarettes…. The list goes on and on. There are a ton of kids running around wayyyyyy past their bedtime trying to sell little packs of gum (for those of you have been to Mexico, I guess its similar to the kids selling chiclets). Little did I know, apparently whenever these kids come around, you basically adopt them for the evening… Both of these kids hung out with us for hours. Cute little boy? He likes to play the game of poking you under the table with a stick and putting sunglasses on upside down. Cute little girl? She likes to play games that she always wins, and apparently has no problem whatsoever with groping mine and Jen’s boobies, trying to make out with Ben, and sitting on strangers laps. The question has to be asked, but where in the hell are these kids parents?

Serene, our cameraman Evan and I join a dog meat feast to celebrate a Korean friend’s birthday…

Serene, Evan, notre caméraman, et moi nous joignons à un festin de viande de chien pour fêter l’anniversaire d’une amie coréenne…

(Version française plus bas)

On Sunday, Serene and I decided to check out Vung Tau beach, a nice touristic place about two hours south of Ho Chi Minh City. We had a great day, except that we didn’t actually get to hang out on a beach!

We left our guest house around eight o’clock in the morning. It took us about 45 minutes to get to the main bus station where we took a second, very uncomfortable bus- it felt like the bus wasn’t equipped with suspensions at all- to Vung Tau.

A great day ''on'' the beach!

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My friend Kelsea lived in Saigon for awhile and one piece of advice when we arrived was to visit Lush on Tuesday nights for ladies night.  When a group of new local friends invited us to the same bar last Tuesday, I didn’t clue in right away. Serene and I thought: “Ladies Night = Free Cover. At least that’ll save us the 100,000 dong entrance fee but we’ll probably end up paying 85,000 dong per drink (close to $5)”. Of course, we were still willing to do that…

But much to our surprise, not only do ladies get free entrance, but they DRINK FOR FREE until midnight. This totally blew our minds – really something that needs to catch on more at home. I made a short video of our escapades…keep in mind that cameras are NOT allowed in the club so this was all done on the sly. And, in true Kris and Serene form, there was a meal of street noodles afterwards followed by me falling off my chair, but, well, you don’t need to see that.

We are all aware of how noisy Ho Chi Minh City is at any time of the day: horns, street vendors, Christmas songs, people shouting at you to give you a motorcycle or a cyclo ride… Turns out, it’s also very noisy at night. Sometimes extremely noisy…

MINUIT DANS NOTRE RUE

Nous sommes tous conscients du bruit qui règne partout dans Ho Chi Minh Ville à n’importe quelle heure de la journée: klaxons, vendeurs de rues, chants de Noël, habitants qui crient à votre attention pour vous emmener faire une balade à moto ou en cyclo. Il se trouve que c’est aussi très bruyant pendant la nuit. Parfois extrêmement bruyant…

The one thing I said I would NEVER do when in Ho Chi Minh was eat dog.  I’ll eat snake, mouse, crocodile, anything else but dog.  I just couldn’t do it.  I’ve had a couple canines in my life, and most recently I semi-adopted my landlords/coworkers/homies pet, Neptune, as my own.  Something about the idea of eating your pet just felt morally wrong.  
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I finally found something that I could not bring myself to eat…..

…roasted tarantulas!  I have an irrational fear of spiders (even little ones) so there was no way I could eat a whole one.  We saw these at a roadside stop on our way to through Cambodia.   I told Ben that if he broke off a leg a fed it to me I would eat it but I couldn’t even bring myself to pick one of these tasty(?) morsels up.

(Version française plus bas)

As I am leaving the central post-office during one of my numerous walks in Ho Chi Minh City, a group of students comes to me.
”Would you like to buy this dessert from us? It’s 20,000 Dong.”

The dessert looks a like a yellow jelly plate.

A group of students selling food for a class project.

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