VN5- My Son

 VN5 - My Son (GET FANCY LETTERS SO IT DOESN"T LOOK LIKE I HAVE A CHILD)

Do you know how great it is to sleep for 8 hours? In a room your only sharing with a single person, and that person is a chill old-dude who doesn't jump on your bed or stay up all night texting? We can't speak to each other, but me and step-dad get each other on a level far deeper than words. 

After a continental breakfast, we went over to the shopping district "because there's no cars allowed early morning so it won't be crowded".  And when we got there... there was a professional photographer waiting for us! Surprise! Well, I was surprised. Stepdad may have been, he was wearing the shirt from yesterday, but he may also not give a fuck. Which I respect. Mom had her wig though, so I don't think she was surprised...

I was initially amazed that I was replaced less than 12 hours after I quit, then slightly resentful, but as it wore on... it was actually awesome. We got all the instagram done in an hour, I didn't have to do any of it, AND this is his specialty - he has connections with local business owners that have the colorful instagram friendly displays, he knows all the spots (this wall, that alley, the elementary school doesn't open until noon and has a huge mural behind the basketball court...) I think he even got a good shot of me, sitting on the railing of a coffeeshop's roof-bar, but I haven't seen the images yet.  And of course, he'd pass other photographers, en route to all the same spots. I think they have a cartel. Regardless, 5/10. Any insta-boyfriend who is sick of it should absolutely call in a pro and take the demotion to porter.  

Now that the priorities are taken care of, time for the main event of the day - My Son.  Our driver took us out across the rice paddies and farmland (I saw cattle-egrets... with Cattle! REMOVE THIS MAYBE), out to the ancient city of My Son.  When I was told we were going to an old city I was picturing 1940s, maybe 1800s... and I was off by a Millenia. My Son is essentially Angkor Waat (SPEELING) writ smaller. The same indian-buddhist-shivaist methswa (FIGURE OUT THIS WORD) peoples who built the temples across India, Thailand, and Cambodia built those same temples here. 

What was most interesting to me is everything I've ever seen anywhere near this old has all been stone (except for that one mud-temple in peru?), and the XXXXXXXX peoples were brick-builders. So these temples are made of bricks laid between the 8th and the 12th century (CHECK DATES). They're also pretty run-down, damaged by rain, time, and the vietnamese war, but it's remarkable they're standing at all.  Many of them have been rebuilt, and we spent an few hours walking between them, into them (They're not that large... Lou asked "How can they live in a house so small?" I asked "isn't this the same size as your apartment in HoChiMinh City?").  At one point, we veered slightly off-piste to an unexcavated structure. It was outside the temple wall, so maybe it's not important enough to restore, maybe it's too damaged, or maybe they just aren't there yet. No matter why, it was still cool to go climb this 1000 year-old heap of rubble barely distinguishable from a hill, and see what they started from before the restorations. <SOMEWHERE SYNONYM RESTORE>

It was a lot of walking, but anything old automatically gets points, and when the clouds lifted you could occasionally get good views of some beautiful mountains - which is what My Son translates too. Not only did it not rain, despite the constant threat, I didn't told to take a single picture. 7.5/10

Lunch was "Tuna with rice", I didn't know what to expect, but a plate of rice and a bowl of soup with a slice (widthwise, not lengthwise) of fish definitely wasn't it. No complaints though. Maybe delete this I don't even care why would anyone else. 

Then, back to the hotel for naptime for the older generation, and catching up on blogs for me. Lou is off trying to do a drone thing maybe? Lou is back! She needed wifi to log in to her drone, so she had to come back to the hotel to configure it, conveniently giving me time to finish this!

<Break>

As the sun was setting, we headed back out to see all the boats, much earlier than last night.  Not only did the bars have their music at reasonable levels at this hour, the boats were out in force and looking fabulous. (SYN FLOTILLA? FLEET? Already used those too much). An Hoi is truly beautiful at night, even if you have to weave through the crowds for the views. We got down to the park where the boats started, and Lou launched her drone and immediately handed me the controls. My previous refusal to be her photographer was immediately FANCY WORD FOR DISSOLVED and I took to the skies. I decided about a month ago that drones were going to be my next hobby, so I've been practicing flying virtual drones... but hadn't yet done any real flying beyond a few laps in the hackerspace, but it stick time is stick time, even if it's virtual. For my first-ever big-boy flight, I immediately headed out over the river, and piloted the drone about 100 yards down river over hundreds of people, and started getting low battery warnings. I was so comfortable I even canceled out the auto-return-home and flew it home manually so I could control the camera angle.  Then we swapped out the battery and went out for a second flight, and took the drone way down the river, out of our sight, but we had great signal and great views.  Lou requested a few shots, and I did some nice complex-movement shots coming back in.  Hopefully the footage looks great, because I'm gonna drop it here:

Droning completed successfully, we all walked down the river, retracing our flight of a few minutes in about a half-hour through the crowds. We wandered the night markets and eventually stopped for dinner (despite a very late lunch), and on our way back we played a traditional vietnamese game... You pay a dollar for a card with 3 numbers on it, and then they sing a song, drawing numbered stick periodically. If you have a match, you get a flag, if you get three flags, you win!  So basically... vietnamese bingo.  After a detour to a PICTURESQUE? CONTRASTY? BEAUTIFUL? fountain Lou found on her failed attempt to drone, we made our way back to the hotel.   It's an early night, but I think we'll all appreciate it. 

Tomorrow, some mountain!