Sybille, Quyen and I went into Ho Chi Minh City to the District 12 area. The streets are very narrow -like alleys, as you can see in the photo- and the homes are narrow and high. The person we visited lives with three other girls on the fourth level, in a 'studio' apartment about the size of a bedroom - 10'x12' with a hot plate for a kitchen, a 4'x6' bathroom and a small balcony just big enough to hold a fold-out clothes drying rack.
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| Road level spaces are shops - selling anything you can imagine. |
The above picture shows how the alley just keeps going and going, turning left and right - like a maze! It has only one 'roadway' into the area with lots of twists and turns. I am glad Quyen was with us...just in case we got lost she was the only one who speaks Vietnamese! Both of these pictures were on the 7-10 minute walk to Thu's apartment. Sybille's driver could not come into this area since the road was too narrow. He had to wait on the side of the major 2-lane road which wasn't THAT MUCH bigger!! We walked from the car to her apartment. I really did not mind because this allowed me to observe the people of the country going about their daily lives. The sights and smells are so very different than what I am used to.
The above picture shows how the alley just keeps going and going, turning left and right - like a maze! It has only one 'roadway' into the area with lots of twists and turns. I am glad Quyen was with us...just in case we got lost she was the only one who speaks Vietnamese! Both of these pictures were on the 7-10 minute walk to Thu's apartment. Sybille's driver could not come into this area since the road was too narrow. He had to wait on the side of the major 2-lane road which wasn't THAT MUCH bigger!! We walked from the car to her apartment. I really did not mind because this allowed me to observe the people of the country going about their daily lives. The sights and smells are so very different than what I am used to.
