Wanderings.

So far I have learnt a few things that will help me with my new life. Firstly, my pale winter skin isn’t ready for sun without sunscreen quite yet. Secondly, that I should do everything I need to do before 11am, then retreat somewhere cool to escape the blisteringly hot and humid afternoons, venturing out again at sunset. Finally, that frozen yogurt is for tourists and rich locals given the dollar for dollar price with Chapel Street.

Today was about finishing what I started yesterday, my street wandering. I picked up where I had left off at the Reunification Palace, which up until the tanks crashed through the gates at the end of the American War, reunifying the country was known as Independence Palace.

The architecture is interesting. Think Soviet style meets Housing Commission in Collingwood and you’ll be part of the way to visualizing this building. Inside it’s like time has stood still since those tanks crashed through the gates in 1975. I’d read that it’s a quiet place, with grandiose, but empty halls, today however was tourist bus day. The place was heaving, perhaps much like it would have in the 1970s when the South Vietnamese were running the show.

Much like Art Deco style, each room had it’s own unique fixtures that set them apart from each other. The different lampshades and light fixtures were stunningly old skool and fascinating to look at from room to room.

My favourite room by far was the library; the room on the top floor with commanding views from its corner vantage point to the circular driveway in front of the building and the lush gardens to the side. The walls were covered in books, with a big desk in the middle of the room. My kind of room!

Back out in the noisy and brash streets I made my way to the zoo/botanical gardens. I’d been warned about the zoo and it very much lived up to the warnings. I paid my 50c to find, Elephant’s chain by one foot to a stake in the ground, pacing back and forth in the direct sunlight. Crocodiles swimming in ponds filled with empty water and soft drink bottles that people had thrown in, no doubt to entice the crocs to snap or move. Snakes putting up with people bashing on the glass, obviously these people haven’t seen Harry Potter. It could happen you know!

It was a disappointment, but I did get to see some Flamingos and also some Storks that have the amazing ability to pose in an assortment of positions frozen as if Harry Potter had shot them with some sort of spell. I’m not sure if this behavior is instinctual or psychosis from being kept in such a small cage.

I ventured out again after sunset to find the streets and parks teeming with people, who are wandering, riding, enjoying. Children playing with soccer balls and an assortment of cheap and nasty toys that you see in the stalls at the Queen Vic Market. Entire streets, in what must have been only an hour between walking through and walking back, turned from busy roadways to bustling markets and restaurants. It very much reminded me of Marrakesh, though here they just set-up on the road rather than in a square that is closed to traffic.