Last weeks Christmas Bazaar

New Mekong highway

I travel down to the mekong delta regularly and the current road is ridiculously over crowded and congested. It is expected that the new highway will change this as there wont be many on/off ramps. A bigger bonus is that they are planning to not allow vendors on the side of the road either, which will probably make the most difference

Live mollusks

I love Asian restaurants were the seafood is live and you choose your seafood directly. Everyone wins

Rural bicycle parking

Thin hotels

With the rise in popularity of the mini hotel you can see many examples where there are only two rooms per floor (at front and back) and the lift and staircase in the middle. Le Thanh Ton st is full of them

Caravelle and Sheraton hotels

Awaiting collection

One of the things I really like here is the delivery of decent food to your door, in fact there is not one outlet I know of that does not deliver. However the cheapest (and possibly tastiest) are noodle dishes that turn up hot, cost around a $1 and then you just leave the bowl outside for the vendor to collect later. Easy

New Zealand Natural Ice Cream

This is my kind of advertising, so woeful it makes you laugh out loud. Especially the putz on the left sitting on a watermelon, is that even a flavour?

Red Door Deco

Restaurant lighting

Old and new on the street

Prawns in the wet market

Fish sale

Saigon river and District 2

Loaded with herbs

Somewhere in the west of the city

Saigon Paragon

Built in the swamps of District 7, the Saigon Paragon shopping mall (centre) takes up space between the Saigon Exhibition and Convention Centre (left) and the Lawrence S Ting building (right). The top end shopping mall is aimed at the burgeoning market of Phu My Hung but on the day I went inside there was not another soul to be seen.

More glass windows

Another view of yesterdays building showing a the windows tint in a different shade of green

Glass windows

Shisha pipe at Warda

Specializing in boats, plant, motorcycle and mickey mouse

I love these type of stores that sell seemingly unrelated goods. I would love to know how they decided on each

Working at height

It is good to see safety improving on construction sites here. Of the 20 odd workers in this photo, only one is not wearing a hard hat. Although those in the know will probably point to the fact most of them will be wearing some form of plastic open-toed footwear

The Rex Hotel

District 7 and Phu My Hung

The new urban developments such as Phu My Hung in District 7 make HCMC look so organised from the air. Canals, green space, wide roads - its enough to make you want to live there, as opposed to somewhere down in here

Yum Cha at Shang Palace