On the hottest day of the year, actually one of hottest on records, I knocked over my tripod while taking a self portrait. Unfortunately, After repeated visits to Samy's Camera and weeks of repair work at Canon my lens has never been the same. Watching the sunrise over the towers of Angkor the focus slipped again and like a fickle arthritic joint it's been causing me pain ever since. I was tempted to check out lenses in Cambodia, but I read horror stories online about fakes. I arrived in Saigon last night, as the sun was getting low. Once again, I was assaulted at the bus depot by motorcycle taxis, not a four wheel vehicle in sight. I hoped on for a 25 minute ride from the outskirts of town to the congestion of District 1. After a hot shower I headed out to the fashionable Dong Khoi street. I strolled by hotels made popular by war correspondents, the French Colonial General Post Office, Notre Dame and the impressive People's Committee of HCM building before finding the restaurant I had chosen from online recommendations. Two Dutch businessmen sat to my left and I was unaware of their curiosity until they approached me mid-meal with a host of questions, mainly about why I was dining alone. After a lovely conversation we said our goodbyes. Getting ready to leave, I put my camera in my bag, and my bag on the chair which promptly tumbled to the ground. I'm still cursing the moment. My lens was shattered or it least that's how it sounds. The cap was so bent I couldn't remove it. Still cursing. On today's agenda: The Jade Pagoda, Chinatown and a new lens.
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