Early morning discoveries

Early morning discoveries

Sometime between and 5.00 and 5.30 most mornings we dive out of bed, and down the 65 stairs to the bottom of our building and get out in the fresh air with all the other early birds..and there are lots of them! This morning we passed a beautiful old French villa, walked down a leafy avenue past people getting restaurants ready for the morning meal and crossed roads filled with people carrying fresh food and flowers to their respective shops and markets.

We even walked past the Cua Bac Cathedral which I passed several times getting lost a couple of weeks ago.

After watching the flag raising ceremony outside Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum we walked past people making funeral wreaths from tiny flowers.

We stopped for a morning sua chua ca phe da (yoghurt coffee with ice) and then walked around the Botanic Gardens where we came across any number of aerobic and dance classes.

THEN

We bumped into Mme Tien from the UNICEF office 13 years ago and went back to her house for mangosteens and a long chat. Her husband, Le Thanh is a famous artist and we have one of his oil paintings on silk at home in Australia. It was good to catch up with an old friend. Mme Tien walked us back to our apartment and stayed for a longer chat. It was a good morning. I'm glad we walked that way today!