Theiving Monkeys

 I am not a huge fan of monkeys, thieving little primates that they are.

The Husband however is enthralled by them so when around monkeys I usually snap a few pictures of them to pay him back for the hours he hangs around waiting for me to take pictures of things that he has no interest in.  Above Batu in Indonesia he was as happy as could be with frolicking monkeys stealing food from tourist:

This little monkey liked melon,

  This little monkey liked rice

 

This little monkey liked sweetcorn

 ... and this little monkey masterminded the entire raid.

Thali ho!

I live out in the sticks and benefit from having a lot of greenery outside the flat so slightly better air quality.  On the other hand we don't have the wide range of entertainment options of the more developed suburbs but it's not all bad.  Our local mall has a Starbucks and Cafe Moshe and a couple of decent eating places too and we have the Westin Hotel within walking distance too.

I'm still not eating after a thali blow out last nigh at Oberoi Mall's Maharaja Bhog.  Six of us stumbled out stuffed full of delicious Gujurat/Rajastan food and wandered in a food induced daze to BBC, a British themed pub.  We could do little more than look at the beers we ordered and take turns in sighing contentedly.

Beware the surreptitious bowl fillers who sneak up on your blind side and replenish everything - often.

Mangoes for Mayday

In what's turning into a mini thread of fruit related postings I present The Mango. A friend brought us some from her family's garden in the Delta and they were the sweetest and most perfumed I've ever eaten.

Fruit here is excellent, there are a lot of imports available but the locally grown produce is seasonal and unpredictable and all the better for that. A million miles away from the supermarket "every apple is identical" stuff I got so frustrated with in the UK.

On a fairly unrelated point, here's what greets arrivals at Tan Son Nhat airport:

Not Tesco but it looks close enough to make me look twice each time I see it. I think we're safe from them at the moment, Lottemart has corned the market in foreign owned supermarkets so far.

Fruit day part 2

In the second fruit related post of the day Stephen makes orange juice.

Hand processed is apparently best, it takes four green oranges to make two glasses of juice.

Oranges - Fivimart

Glasses - free with Lipton Tea

Squeezer - model's own.

Coconuts

I like coconuts. I particularly like the way they're trimmed here into a handy container shape and how sweet the southern ones are. I usually buy them ready opened but today invested in a coconut opener.

I was too scared of the machetes so went for the wimp option. I wasn't particularly confident but managed to get the coconut opened without loss of digits or dignity. In fact it sliced through the top as easily as taking the top off a soft boiled egg. Now I can stock up and indulge my coconut whims whenever I feel like it.

Coconut costs: 4,000 VND to 5,000 on the street, 7,000 to 8,000 in the supermarket, 10, 000 to 20,000 in a cafe and 30,000 and upwards in a posh restaurant. This one cost me 28 pence or 42 US cents.

Street Food Images, Saigon

Dong Du, District 1, this area is a tourist hotspot and high end stores and hawkers selling fakes abound but side by side to street restaurants and temporary tables.


Banh Mi Mackerel, this brightly branded sandwich cart off Hai Bai Trung has caught my eye for a while but this is the first time I've been anywhere near it with a camera and with enough time to wait for a break in the traffic to capture it.