Monday, July 26, 2010

Remembering Ba Ria - Part 2

This posting is about the part of town where the orphanage is.  If you look at my sidebar, there is a Google map titled 'Where Molly Lived in Vietnam'.  The marker shows that the orphanage is in a township on the outskirts of town.  It took about 10 -15 minutes by taxi to get from the hotel to the orphanage everyday, and cost 50,000 dong, about the equivalent of $3, one way.

The gate of the orphanage

I didn't see more than a block or two any direction from the orphanage.  Just about every day I would go out to buy water, coffee and fruit.  There was a 'convenience' store kitty corner from the orphanage, Sic Cafe across the street, and I bought fruit at a stand from some very friendly people a block down the street.  I wandered a block up once or twice - I ate lunch at a street restaurant, drank sugarcane juice from a cart, and bought fruit from another vendor up that way on occasion. Again, I wasn't out long - it was too hot and humid to walk more than a few blocks.

Goats wandered freely in the neighborhood, along with some really ugly chickens.  I didn't get any good pictures of them.

The 'convenience' store where I bought water

These cows were wandering past one day - shepherded by the guy on the motorcycle.

Cafe Sic.  I drank lots of their coffee.  Sometimes I sat there, but often, the nannies would phone over an order, and they would deliver iced coffee to us in the baby room.  We shared the ice-cubes with Molly and the other toddlers.

My favorite fruitstand.  The ladies were very friendly.  There was also flowers, meat, vegetables and seafood offered in the street stalls.  Just like the grocery store...

Sadly, I see that I didn't take many pictures of the town, or my surroundings.  If I had written this posting while I was still there, perhaps I would have wandered out just to document the area more completely.  I wish I had more to share with waiting families, but hopefully someone else will take more pictures when they go there, and fill in the blanks that I've left!?!

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