Working for a living...

Food is something that we take for granted in our life. To my recollection there has never been a day in my life when there was any doubt whether or not I would have food. I suppose that food, shelter and clothing are the main reasons people work for a living. We, and most of you, are among the privileged few in the world that have a steady income, and, wait for it, also have a steady income AFTER you quit working! [Farmers do not fall into that privileged category].

Most people in the privileged part of the world can predict, within a few dollars, the amount of money that they will 'earn' in a week, fortnight, month or year. That is not the case for most people in the world, including the 85,000,000 people in Viet Nam.

Today we went ashore in a port in Viet Nam, the closest city being Vung Tau. [See map photo].


I suspect that today of all the hundreds of people that we saw or came into contact with, only a tiny fraction had a predictable salary. The rest have to get out and scramble and hustle and peddle, and do it well or there is no income. No income means no food, there is no social safety net here.

We took the shuttle into town, [supplied by the ship]. The drop off place was the 'Palace Hotel', centrally located in this bustling little clean city. Within minutes of the bus pulling in, there were about 20 cleanly dressed young men trying to catch our eye to offer tours or taxi rides. After we got away from them we were approached by pedal-car drivers.


After escaping them we then found ourselves being hounded by women who patrol the streets on scooters, two on a bike, loaded with huge bags of silk garments for sale.



We sought sanctuary in a store to gather our composure. We had a meal later in the day, in an Italian restaurant, run by an Italian. A persistent gentleman stayed at the open window most of the meal tempting us with goodies from his seemingly bottomless sack of goods to peddle, he has to eat too.


I for one realize that this is their work, competitive, endless and completely unpredictable. How fortunate we are. Later in the day we engaged the scooter crowd and did our bargaining right there in the street.


We had discussed ahead of time what we wanted from them and in a matter of minutes everybody was smiles and they departed, sort of, some followed us down the street as we headed for the bus. Once at the bus, there was another lot lined up along the side of the bus holding and draping their wares to potential buyers who occasionally negotiate and then buy through an open bus window. The pedlars cannot give up as long as there is a chance of a sale, after all they have to eat!


End of my lesson on cultural differences.

Our mission today was to get pack-sacks that we can use as carry-on luggage for our domestic flights in India next week. We figure that there will be enough things to deal with on the planes and the trains without suitcases to bog us down. Would anybody like to do a packing list for us for two nights on a train and three nights at a game lodge in India?

COMMENT: Some time ago I published a picture of "Canadian Grain Fed Beef" 12oz, $210 dollars. Please note that is Hong Kong dollars, [C$27.00.] Pleased that they recognize good beef.