Ho Chi Minh City 2104

Saigon - for me - is featureless.  But I passed time by visiting some places I skipped last time.  One was the former Presidential Palace, shown above with the curtains.  There is a photo there of Richard Nixon sitting in the row near the curtains, 5th seat from the left with the Viet president next to him and General Haig on the other side of him.  In the next room, Kissinger visited six times trying to get the president to accept the Paris Peace accords.
Kids today instantly sit for photos because they want to see the back of the camera to see the results.  These two were wild about their own photos.
It is amazing what some Asians will do in terms of work to make a little extra income.  These shaped orange trees are that way because each little orange has been delicately and so carefully wired with something like chicken wire to neatly and evenly manicure the tree.  Incredibly, some oranges are double or triple wired from different directions.  This is all part of the annual Tet hysteria celebration of the Lunar new year.
The motorbike mistress in the heels was dressed to kill in a James Bond sort of way.
The workman up on the wires is dialing his cell phone, probably calling Mama or else to tell the pizza place he forgot to add anchovies.  All wires in Asia, except for Singapore of course, look like this - and these are both fewer and neater than most places.  Yes, yes, these very wires are where your call travels when you call a 800 number today and it goes to Asia.  Nice thought..
The currency situation in Viet is what you could call lengthy.  A Cdn or U.S. dollar is worth roughly 2,000 Dong. Hence, once you change $100 you are a millionaire - in Cdn. you get 1,942,620 or U.S. 2,107, 926 Dong.
  I was walking and saw a small piano store which - believe it or not - sold $100,000 Steinways, Fazioli's (usu. $150,00 and up) and Bechsteins.  I went in and had a nice talk with the owner.  Obviously there is some heavy money in Vietnam to spend that much on a piano (but understand, it takes a full year of labour to make a single Steinway concert grand).  The prices on the pianos were almost as big as the instruments themselves.  A Steinway was 1,990,000,000.00.  You should see the numbers at the Rolls Royce dealerships.  But you ill be happy to know that you can still buy a house in smaller towns or a rural area for $15,000 U.S.
I was looking in some awful art galleries where they repaint famous Asian and Western images.  One was a huge Da Vinci Last supper.  Shockingly, St. John was shown as a woman; a woman wearing kind of a drapery, fairly low cut dress.  This is a matter frequently mentioned in some texts but I have never seen Da Vinci's work adjusted to convert John into a woman.