Saigon - a night in the memory

By one life, live it
The evening was Saigon hot and the humidity, although bearable, was just enough to pop-out the sweat. The restaurant, on a darken side street, was croded and cloudy with BBQ smoke from legions of charcoal pots being used at the tables of families, tourists, locals and lovers cooking their meat selection....be it  beef, pork, shrim, goat ... or even field rat, but the smell was sensational and alluring.

There was no pretense of style or decor, this place was about eating and the menu reflected page upon page of every consumable one, or at least I, could think of to eat, and more. We passed on the roasted goat, pork, and of course the roasted chicken and ..., but we did go with a quarter of a young pig ... roasted over hot coals at the front wall of the eatery. There along the sidewall walk, young sweating men worked at the art of roasting the pink porkers and turning the days old piglets into a taste treat beyond caring about the death of such a young animal.

The eatery was not more than a high wall enclosing a large place full of tables where children could come with their parents and noise it up, ex-pats could proclaim their independence and foreign cultural integration and tourist ventured into eating things that would bring forth many laughs at their cocktail parties once they returned to wherever home was.

I looked at the menu severl times, whishing I had a pen with me to record all of the offerings, but I settled for some of the easy choices. With all of this joy of the five senses, I sat there, looking at my daughters  observing the pig being roated over hot coals.  They were waiting the pig done to have the 1/4 we ordered.

On the way home we were caught in a thunderstorm while riding on a Honda motor bike with my two daughters .... and what a ride it was.

Zooming in and out of the swarm of motorbikes along the roads, raindrops few and far between announce the coming storm. Soon enough we were stopped and slipped on bright red ponchos and remounted the bike to continue the road back home. Within moments the rain poured from the sky and lighting added weirdness. The roads suddenly became small rivers and we kept moving even though my glasses were a washed.   I must have seemed somewhat mad to anyone who saw us, for our laughter was loud and our joy unbounded. And then arrived the 1/4 pig and dipping condiments galore.

tpthao

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