So! There we were, about 18 of us in a Mercedes Mini bus – which for some totally unknown reason the Vietnamese call a ‘Limosine’ – travelling from Ho Chi Minh City to the hill resort town of Da Lat when the vehicle breaks down in a small town about 3 hours out of Saigon, 2 hours out of Da Lat. out of sheer boredom I took these photos in a local rural pharmacy / chemist.
The two stuffed animals were on top of a sideboard type unit.
Not sure whether you buy the whole jar or whether they sell you some of the liquid or what you do. Medicine / health in rural areas is still quite ancient / traditional with implicit faith in totally irrational concoctions. One ‘cureall’ is a green fluid sold in a small glass bottle which is nothing more than Eucalyptus tree oil (smalls like vick). When my little daughter was smaller she experienced regular ‘growing pains’ at night causing her to wake up crying. My partner would rub this green oil on her tummy believing it would make the pain go away.
Another strange ritual I have witnessed is a new mother will urinate onto hot charcoal embers in a coconut shell. special green leaves are then held over the rising steam then the leaf is rubbed over the new born baby’s head. This ritual is to protect the soft spot on the babies head (Fontanel) and encourage it to become hard. Of course it cannot work, but the belief system embedded in it probably goes back hundreds if not thousands of years.
OR MAY BE!
Da Lat is a super-cool (meaning you need to wear a jumper at night) hill resort town used and made popular by the French during their occupation of French Indo-China, other wise known as Vietnam Cambodia, Laos and a bit of China. It has a very pretty lake you can walk around, paddle around in a big plastic swan, or simply sit beside and drink delicious Ca’phe Sua Da, an iced coffee drink sweetened with condensed milk. It’s a bit like drinking a cold, liquid mars bar. Definitely not good for your waistline or teeth. It also has a copy of the Eiffel Tower and some beautiful old french colonial buildings.
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