When I turn 46, I say "No more nonsense": Bai Bien Cua Toi (II):... Heart thaw ... the Hand of God ... and Chez Chris is taking shape

My neck was killing me half the night, so I didn't sleep well. So 3:00 is a good time to get up and have some coffee....

VN Express has some GORGEOUS pictures of Vietnam ....

...but NO, these are NOT the places you will see by just traveling the Western way to the main tourist hot spots ....

....to see this, you have to leave your physical comfort zone....

.... AND own a camera drone, LOL.

There is an e-mail from Ti/n.....The kid has a heart of gold. I am at a loss for words and have NO idea how to reply ... As I did read in this extremely well-written and VERY perceptive article ....... "Vietnam will at times bend you, break you and put the pieces back together again, sometimes in the course of a day".

Can you even imagine how ADDICTIVE that is?

6:00
I'm listening to Dylan's I and I with a view of the watery horizon which is about to give birth to the sun again.....

and only a little later

Nothing compares to this.... and this brings peace to my soul.

Quite a number of German tourists were taking pictures of the sunrise this morning..... at home they'll be able to show off the AMAZING beach that THEY discovered ...... they're all half my age ...... but NOT a single one of them was loose enough in the hips to pick up the flotsam and jetsam garbage that they walked through .... consume, consume, consume .....that is all they know.... Get a LIFE !

7:00

I wouldn't mind vegging out more, but I have a breakfast appointment at 8:00 and I have to take a shower before then .... so I might as well go swim NOW.

7:50
Time to get going ....

Lobster cages and their owners

Breakfast at Quang is the usual.... but this time with a translator......

and here is one of those AMAZING coincidences again.....

I mention the book Sungs Laden to Lisa.... a book partly about the fate of Vietnamese foreign workers in the factories of the former East-bloc nations......

....she has never heard of the book....

BUT it turns out that her mother WAS a foreign Vietnamese worker in Russia and almost suffered the common fate of having her pregnancy forcibly ended by the authorities....

Asian workers were wanted.... but Asian babies NOT.

Fortunately for Lisa, her mother went underground ....

So she is going to read the book.....

Can this still be called a coincidence? .... or is the Hand of the Universe almost showing itself ?

9:30
it's time to try the old kite string on one of the Phnom Penh kites..... it takes flight beautifully after being kept captive in Grandma's garage for 2 years..... but the SONY camera decides to act up again just at that moment, so there is no picture ;-(

13:00
I've downloaded Sweet Home 3D, a FREE house/interior design software.... and I'm starting to work on the ground plan of Chez Chris !

My palm trees ;-)

14:30

and here is yet ANOTHER of those uniquely Vietnamese moments.... A group of 5 or 6 Vietnamese are at the beach in the finest clothes..... The live in the highlands presumably, because they take selfies and pictures of each other in front of the ocean. I give them room to take those but then the lead male notices me... I bid him Xin Chao.... he doesn't reply but shortens the distance and pats me 3 times on my left pec...... checking whether it's real man meat or a strangely shaped female breast? ..... I really have no clue what that was about .... but we part smiling ...