Tree Man and Chicken Wings!

Being a Monday, Josh was forced to fend for himself most of the day.  By lunch, he was itching for his next Vietnamese meal adventure, so Chi and I took him next door to Bun Bo Nam Bo where he tried his first Bun Bo Nam Bo (without peanuts). In a shock to no one, he loved it!  (I think we're 5-for-5 at this point!)

While we were eating our delicious BBNB, Josh and I both complained about our needing haircuts, when it occurred to me that Tree Man was just across the street! What a great chance for Josh and I to the one thing I hadn't yet done in Vietnam: get a haircut from a barber underneath a tree along Xuan Dieu.

Since it was still lunchtime, the barber "shop" was quiet as the barber slept in his hammock next to the chair.  With a little coaxing from Chi, I was in the seat in no time.

Mirror, fan and table, all attached to helpless tree.

Before getting started, he covered me with the barber gown, then proceeded to hook both ends to the table so it both made a convenient spot for him to put his comb and scissors as well as provided me with direct access to the fan below the table he had attached to the tree.

Josh was up next.  According to Chi, no one there could believe he wanted to trim his "curly locks".  But he did, so the barber went to work:

The barber did a great job on both our "hairdos" and after 30 minutes, we were done!  Cost: $4 for both of us  (inflation here is running pretty high; when I first got here, haircuts were going for a buck!)

Later that afternoon, Josh and I were invited to dinner by Tuan and Lan.  Les lent us his scooter again so we headed to "Chicken Street" for grilled chicken wings, sweet potatoes and bread.

"We'll seat you momentarily, sir".

I'm not entirely sure what happened, but the three pictures I took of dinner were inexplicably missing when I tried to download them last night.  I did find this pic online, however, and it's pretty much what dinner looked like:

After delivering the wings to our table, the waitress used a pair of scissors to cut sections of the wing/leg (including feet) off the skewers.  The chicken is glazed in honey, then grilled and it is fantastic!  Add some tasty grilled sweet potatoes and honey glazed bread, and you've got one delicious meal.  Of course, this was just the appetizer, we discovered after eating ourselves full.

Four grillers grilling streetside.  Note the buckets of wings at bottom.

After we finished, we hopped on our bikes and headed to the Old Quarter to "International Junction", an instersection with several bars on each corner where all the foreigners sit, enjoy a beer and watch the traffic.

Eventually we moved toward Hoan Kiem Lake to a street vendor Chi told me about where I had one of my very first Vietnamese Street foods, green papaya and dried beef salad (or Nom Bo Kho).  Yum!