We set her up with what medicine we still had and promised to go on a mission to get some more. Studied up the phrase book for diarrhea, headache, fever, antibiotics...and then headed off with Harper for our morning adventure, leaving Lisa in bed and a 'we'll be back' goodbye.
Our destination was the Ben Thant market after a short foray in 29/3 Park where Harper could find some play equipment. The market was pretty intense and BIG! We bought some t-shirts for Harper to take home to his mates. Some fairly futile bargaining yielded no more than a 5,000 dong discount (50 c)! Meanwhile every stall holder within cooee tried to get in on the act. What a circus.
As we wound our way though the very tight aisles, every second smallholder would reach out to touch Harper. I guess they see a handsome young boy as good luck, because no one was reaching out to touch me! We tried to navigate our way through the prepared food sections but Harper couldn't cope with all the smells. That's one thing he has in common with his mother.
After the market we practiced our road crossings for a while - about 12 in succession in the space of less than a km. Getting pretty good at this form of 'Vietnamese roulette'. We eventually found our way to the Museum of Fine Arts, thinking we might be able to see some of Mr Vo's work (our great host in Da Lat). No such luck. Harper helped me scour the place checking every painting inscription and quizzing the attendants. Maybe it was the Hanoi version of the museum (it's a bit like the Melb/Sydney rivalry thing, the two cities seem to have a copy of everything that has political or cultural significance). Anyway, it was a good recap on a lot of things we'd been exposed to and a fair bit of modern stuff as well. The socialist realism stuff is still overdone but this seems to be a bit less prevalent than 15 years ago.
Our next destination was the lotus inspired Bitexco Financial Tower. At 69 stories, it is the highest building in HCM City, although not for long looking at other construction on the skyline. It features a 360 degree Skydeck observation area on Level 49. On the lower levels are retail and a theatre complex. Harper was hankering to see the kids movie 'Croods', but as it turned out we had to settle for 'Zambezi' and come back later in the day - which we did. The theatre had an incredibly good sound system, just a bit LOUD! It was pretty hilarious watching all the pre-entertainment shorts, especially the ones trying to educate Vietnamese about what was acceptable behaviour in the cinema (no smoking, gum, phones, outside food, etc).
When the movie finished, we bought tickets to the Skydeck and spent time ogling the HCM City skyline and distant districts. By now it was getting near dusk and the city's lights were emerging. The Mekong river and traffic flows stood out along with some of the neon lit buildings. We could see our hotel and lots of the landmarks we had visited. it was sobering to think all this will look very different in 5 years time when the undeveloped area on the east side of the Mekong becomes the new CBD.
Meanwhile, back in the hotel, Lisa suffered on but slowly started to recover. We got her some more medication and some dry bickies. Things were looking up for our last day in Vietnam tomorrow and travel homeward.
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