Winding Down in Can Tho

I know that we've complained some about the heat, the noise, the crowds here, but we really are going to miss it. Can Tho has become our home; it's the only home that Lily has any recollection of. And there are good things here, some real beauty if you are willing to take a look around.

I don't think this will be the last post from Can Tho, but we're getting close. We leave on June 13, which happens to be Anne's and my 15th wedding anniversary. She and I have lived in the tropics for five-and-a-half years, dating back to 1988. She swears this will be the last time. I think she's right, but I know I'll miss the abundance of fruit, the soft ticker of coconut fronds, the sudden monsoon rains.

Here are some photos from around Can Tho, taken over the past month or so. I hope you enjoy them.

I'm sure you've heard us mention "baby," the little girl in our hem whose grandmother walks around feeding her all day. "Baby" has inherited many toys, Lily's outgrown shoes, Lily's little green ride-around toy. . .


Although most motorcycles and scooters that zoom around, crash into each other, and cut us off daily in crosswalks and on sidewalks are utilitarian Hondas and Yamahas, there are some sweet old European-styled ones as well. Here are two I found in front of a florist's shop:


Just around the corner from the scooters, I saw these grave markers and house signs posted on a wall opposite the stone carver's shop:


I like to think that one of Lily's most primal memories will be this glare of neon from the Kymdan sign across the river from the Ninh Khieu district of Can Tho where we often eat here:

The sign glowed out our window of the Golf Hotel, where we spent our first ten days in Can Tho. I took this photo last night from my table in a riverfront restaurant. (I ate spaghetti carbonara and drank a Foster's draft.) A heavy rain had just passed through.

Although most music in Vietnam is sappy pop songs about lost chances for love (most with a vaguely class consciousness), there are some signs of hip-hop culture, too. I saw these guys practicing their break dancing moves in the park:


That's it for now. Time to pack, sort, give-away.