Temples Everywhere

One of the interesting things I found about the southern parts of Vietnam is their great ethnic mix. Apart from the many ethnic groups native to the region, there are peoples from China, Cambodia (Khmers), Thailand, Malaysia, India and countries further afield. Accompanying this ethnic mix, is an equal mix of religions and we found Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic, Christian and other temples or shrines, some in lovely locations.

For example, there was a Hindu temple close to my hotel which was open to the public to stroll around, although we couldn't enter really sacred bits without removing our shoes and wearing more modest clothing!

Pictures of various gods festooned the walls; people prayed at shrines; and a replica of a sacred mountain added to the interest.

Nice, eh! And, in a nearby park we saw what I interpreted as Buddhist shrines like these:

Me immodestly dressed!

If I remember correctly, this is a mosque.

And a church ...

These temples and shrines were very appealing! Artistic, evocative, and so on.

As

Saigon's Market

Not far from the Vanouva Hotel where I've been staying in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City), there's the huge Ben Thanh Market, which is all under cover and has a massive number of stalls. The vendors try to accost visitors with a hard sell on their merchandise, so progress can be hazardous as it was today, Sunday 23rd April, when I went to purchase some gifts to take home. There are sections for meat and fish, fruit and veges, arts and ceramics, dried goods, confectionery, cosmetics,  clothing, jewellery and so on. It's a bit like the bazaars I'm used to in the Arab world, though furnishings and electronic goods were thin on the ground. All told I've probably spent two to threes hours ambling through it.

Here are some images I captured of the bustling market with its thousands of tourists and locals:

Here, for example, is an array of seafood, including frogs, shell-fish, lobsters, shrimps, slugs etc. - all alive as far as I could tell.

And the vendors were selling off just about all known parts of animals: legs, tongues, intestines, and many more!

You can gauge the size form these photo, and how crowded it was with people.

All up, a fun place - fascinating in its diversity.

AS

A Stroll Through Ho Chi Minh City's Gardens

I and my colleague, Roy Jones, whom I've known for years had an opportunity yesterday, Sunday, to stroll around this city and came across some lovely gardens in the heart of town - not far from the Sanouva hotel where we're staying. I was surprised to see so much greenery in Vietnam's largest and possibly most congested city, but it took us an hour and a half to probe its delights and, perhaps being a Sunday, it was crowded with families, children's groups, and overseas visitors.

Someone perhaps practising martial arts.

There were heaps of kids who looked like boy scouts or girl guides all kitted out in similar uniforms and we got the possibly mistaken impression that some jamboree was taking place.

We came across this lovely Buddhist temple after having just visited a lovely Hindu temple - more about that later.

This looked like a replica of a sacred Hindu mountain we had seen earlier. While, in the next picture, I posed at some structure of apparently religious significance.

 A pile of motor bikes!

The park had many sculptures like this one - believe it or not an image of Beethoven, although his name is misspelt!

Here's a tiger prowling the lawns.

And this guy was playing his saxophone beautifully!

Here's the Hindu temple I mentioned earlier - a mixture of the plain and exotic externally. 

Inside it was a great delight with ornate images of a constellation of gods around the walls, people praying to various divinities, images of sacred mountains, and so on. We were allowed to wander around with our shoes on and parts of our bodies exposed provided we did not enter the really sacred bit behind some pillars.

I've been around many Buddhits temples in Japan, but I cannot remember previously being in a Hindu one.

AS