Sadly, it's our last day in Vietnam. We flew home from Phu Quoc pretty early this morning and reinstalled ourselves in the Spring Hotel. Once again they were very polite and hospitable. We had planned to make this our souvenir day, so we marched down to Ben Tranh Market and entered into the melee. There's a reason why we've been avoiding this, and that's that Doobie and I are terrible with crowds and even worse with shopping crowds. There was a lot to look at for sure, and everything you could want was for sale in this place. So we shopped until we ran out of money and then headed back to the hotel for a while. Got some pho to recharge, and then went back for a second round. Good thing we did. In the heat of our shopping spree, we had forgotten several people whom we meant to get gifts. But as we were wrapping up, the rain started coming down in buckets. The metal roof of the market was a drum upon which millions of drops played. Every time we tried to exit, the flooded streets would force us back in. We decided to find coffee. Much like other shopping centers I've visited, Ben Thanh has a food court. Only this is a shouting and running around kind of food court. On the outskirts, we were timidly surveying a menu, when a woman came up to us and asked in heavily accented English what we would like. We said coffee. After shouting back and forth at each other over the pounding of the rain, the order was taken and we were ushered to a couple of seats that stuck precariously out into the mass of shoppers. After some time, we realized that the lady we ordered coffee from didn't actually sell coffee at her stand, but was obviously getting it from another vendor. But it arrived, incredibly sweet and only lukewarm, but I was very happy for the refreshment. While sitting there, we met a nice lady from Malaysia who was in Saigon for business. Once again, people were chuckling as I brought out the camera. I was trying to be subtle, but the lighting was so terrible I had to take a lot of shots to get one in focus. This will probably be our last coffee here. Which is sad. Good thing I stocked up on makers and coffee for souvenirs. Now everyone will get to try!

While I have enough trouble even being awake first thing in the morning- my husband is busy in the kitchen preparing his first cup of coffee for the day. Nothing makes him happier first thing in the morning than his stovetop espresso maker!