Monday, May 17, 2010

Quan Lan: Odds and Ends

Here's a bunch of odds and ends from Quan Lan Island:

The island had the oddest looking pineapples I've ever seen:


At the port to go to Quan Lan were dozens of fishermen and little raft-taxis bringing people to their boats:


Check out all the shrimp in the truck behind these two vendors:


This was my favorite "guest house" on Quan Lan. This place is called Robinson and only costs about $8 a night to rent this "three sided tent" right by the water:



On a very serious note, on the last day I saw a familiar site -- the local war memorial. The girl on the first day told us that Quan Lan had around 4,000 people living on it. Huyen and I drove the whole island and it seemed that 4,000 was a huge stretch. I'd say the real population was a fraction of that. Regardless, there are a lot of names on this memorial for such a small place. It was another reminder of how everyone in Vietnam -- even those on a remote island -- paid a terrible price in the war with America: