Out: Phnom Penh

In: Ho Chi Minh. It's good to be back.

My Anh guesthouse welcomed us back; the (unofficial) Lotus Salad Place around the corner - inexplicably closed for a period before we left for Cambodia - is open once again; and it took just 20,000 VND ($1.25) to buy an alarm clock, available at 9:30pm on a Sunday night at the clock&watch shop three blocks away, to replace my CELLPHONE, which I LOST on the EFFING BUS TO SIEM REAP (and which I had been using as an alarm clock).

Anyway. Much blog backlog ("backblog"? "blogback"? "blacklog"?), and still no photos of Ha Noi posted. I will save a Very Special Post for Ha Noi's Tay Ho Hotel, a place where it is always New Years Day, and which sheltered us for a week in its weird, weird Social-Realist arms. Also other stories as I remember them.

In the meantime, if I had only one photo to illustrate urban street life in Vietnam, this is it:
Shot in Ha Noi. Note the bullhorn on the front of the bicycle, out of which comes a looped jingle a few bars longs that I couldn't capture on film, but that everyone who has spent some time here will immediately know.

I haven't processed Cambodia yet, but while I'm grasping for Essentials, the following is on the right track:

The single largest age bracket in Cambodia right now is ages 10-14 (though this guy looks maybe a little younger). Gad Khmer children are cute. Midori suggests it's their flat noses.