monkey island

today was our trip to Can Gio (nicknamed Monkey Island -- because of the thousands of monkeys that live there.)

minus our tour guide, the trip was pretty awesome.

saw lots of monkeys (not contained) and crocodiles (contained). you can pay a buck to buy a piece of eel to feed to the crocodiles. people had fun making them crocs jump for their food. pretty cruel but an amazing experience nonetheless. i took pictures.

i really like the monkeys. they kinda swarm around you if you have food. i sat down to take a picture of a few and two climbed onto me and bit me. i still have a bruise on my back from the bite. later, one of them monkeys stole an ice cream that marlan was eating. all sort of monkey fun.

then they took us canoeing through the mangrove forest. pretty amazing. i'm glad vietnam made efforts to preserve their natural environments.

they took us to a "seafood village"...which is kind of a tourist trap for seafood. i found a candy from my childhood in this area... it's called keo keo, roughly translate to "pulled candy". the seller had a large taffy-like candy shaped like a cone, and inside the cone were grounded peanuts. when you make a purchase, the seller pulls on the pointy end of the cone to make a thin tube with pieces of peanuts stuck to the inside of the tube. when the seller feels the tube is long enough, she breaks it off and ta-da! i get my candy. it blew marlan's mind because he couldn't comprehend how the candy work.

when we got back to Saigon (HCMC), we visited the new Vincom Center and had Pepper Lunch for dinner. and we bought cupcakes and brownies. mwhuahaha...marlan had brownie cravings.