Random Snaps. The Strangeness of Street Life.

After living here as long as we have, we tend to take a lot of things for granted. But every once in a while it strikes us how strange things are here, so utterly unlike the world we came from.

There are the live animal vendors, selling very fresh meat from
their bicycles or shoulder baskets.

Mobile clothes vendors push their bulky garment racks up and down
the maze of alleys, chanting little songs about their wares.
There are always vendors hawking a variety of products.
Each has their own little sing-song spiel, which they repeat endlessly.

Women from the countryside set up pretty much anywhere
on the sidewalk to sell their small baskets of produce.

Attention to hygiene is not a priority. The vegetables for sale
get plopped down on the sidewalk wherever.

Even right next to one of the horrible smelling, hideously polluted
streams that flow through our neighborhood.

The women at our local fish soup restaurant do all their prep work al fresco.

Our favorite bun cha place is set up in a dingy alley.

While you eat, the shoeshine guy comes by, takes your shoes and gives
you a pair of flip-flops while he buffs your loafers.

Mobile trash bins await pickup. Stray dog revels in the many ripe smells.

We often hail a cab going in the opposite direction. They have
no compunction about making a U or even, in this case,
a Y-turn on an insanely busy street, bringing traffic to
a wildly honking halt.
And of course, they never look or signal before doing so.

Most of the small businesses, and even construction sites, have
little altars set up with offerings of food. The gods apparently like
not only fresh fruit, but chips and cookies.

Most alleys have a chalkboard for neighborhood messages.

My little buddy from Ete Cafe.

P.