We started our day at exactly 7:30am when a loudspeaker in the street started blasting a loud, lively song which was followed by animated speeches by at least two people. The fellow we bought our pastries and coffee from (a priority for any civilized folk on holidays) told us it was just information about what is happening in town. It sounded more like propaganda but, what do we know. Our mission today was to explore the market streets and we set out around 10am.

The market streets cater to both tourists and locals. There are food stalls of all kinds, some of which would never fly by Canadian standards, but are normal here.

Many of the streets have a unified focus. For example, there is a shoe street, hardware street, underwear street, etc. Of course our favourite street was Beer Street. Our first stop was a little rooftop bar however, to get to it we had to go into the clothing store and climb narrow chipped stairs to get there. The beer was cold and delicious. I had a draft while the others had a raddler type of beer in this case a Pummelo (a mild grapefruit) beer.

As we wandered, we dodged all the usual traffic and enjoyed the chaos.

We decided a little museum time would be nice and we set off to find the Klimt Gallery. We laughed when we realized that it was a tourist trap and simply a few stalls selling reproduction art, including posters by Klimt.

One of the highlights of the day was sitting at a crossroad on Beer street watching the chaos around us.

We went to a lovely restaurant for supper that served upscaled street food. They also served us ice cream for dessert. They added shaving from a cinnamon stick in the same manner that someone at home would serve Parmesan cheese over pasta. It smelled incredible. Vietnam is one of the largest exporters of cinnamon in the world. Brian bought a $2 bag of ground cinnamon at the wholesale market that will last the rest of his natural born life.

After dinner we strolled around the lake again, enjoying the atmosphere.

Of course there were several people who wanted to be seen with Dale. This little one caught his attention more than most.

We were home and in bed by 9pm. As I write this it seems like we did very little, however, it was a day full of sensory experiences and just being in the moment. It was a good day.