Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Saigon - Part 4

Brothers 3 and 4

After visiting 5's house, we went back to Saigon.  There, we did what the people in Saigon call "nhau" with Brother 3 and Brother 4. Both of these brothers were with the revolutionary forces, better known as VC, and went to the north after "reunification".  Both of these guys are old enough to be called "uncle" but because Diep's father was the uncle of these two guys, she calls them older brother.  Actually the youngest one is like 76 years old.  The guy on my far right in the picture is an old comrade of Brother 4 and he is 79 years old. I like 4, and met him before Megan was born at his daughter's wedding.  I also envy him his age, in that he has reached the point in life that he can wear PJ's all day long and no one will say anything to him about it. 4 actually owns the restaurant we went to and he had his own special blend of medicinal moonshine that he shared with the group.  Apparently, this blend included goat testes along with a myriad of other "performance enhancing" ingredients.  I personally could have done without it. Before the end of the night, everyone exchanged phone numbers, and I am sure I will be getting a call in the not too distant future.  I took quite a few pictures during our day trip and I plan on developing some to give to all of Diep's relatives.

Uncle 3 and Diep's Mother

So, that was essentially my 30th of April, 2010.  The following day, we went out to Diep's house to see her mother.  We then visited some maternal relatives, but the day was tame in comparison to the day before.  We took a short ride from Diep's mother's place to Uncle 3's house.  Uncle 3 has asthma and cataracts, but he is a pretty nice guy.  He wanted us to have a small drinking session, but even if I were inclined, I believe his wife would have stopped it before it even got started, giving Uncle's general state of health.

That is pretty much the end of my trip to Saigon. Diep and I went out to one of her friend's bars that evening, but we didn't do much else.

1 comment:

luksky said...

I really loved the visual blog trip this last week. :-) More please!!