On your first visit or two to HCMC you’ll need to acclimate to the differences in personal space; here, lots more stuff is arrayed across every square meter in a mostly agreeable, user friendly way. I’m a laggard though at adjusting to the difference in aural personal space.
We’re staying on the 13th-floor of a 21-floor building and we might just as well have been on hand at the Saturday night invite-only show in the skybar above us, live Viet Pop invading our personal earspace the same way a plane flies over your house’s airspace. With utter impunity.
This morning at 7:00 there’s a live concert down on the street, sounds like it’s right in front of the Eximbank, horns and marching band-drums. Can’t see them and they never seem to march away. Unique hour for a concert, but it’s an agreeable accompaniment to strong ground Vietnamese coffee, strained through a phin cà phê.
