Parks I've known

I've been searching for a big park like Prospect Park. It's not here.

My favorite so far is park #1. It's tiny, though there is some green around the Independence Palace. There are a lot of fruiting and flowering trees but not much access to water and no understory--so its pretty lucky for having even just a few birds.

Park #2 has the concrete-rimmed lake and the shuttlecock fields. Awful for birds.

#3 is the zoo--best birds so far. And its pretty lush. But its far and you pay to get in.

I don't think I mentioned #5 yet--a strange mix of derelict kiddie rides, running tracks, and one day they had a huge outdoor book sale.

So I went nuts and went way past the zoo looking for another green spot on the map.

It wasn't easy to spot--even the guards at the entrance didn't know where they were on the map. But they let me park my bike and stroll on in. So now I'm passing resort-style huts with made-to-look-quaint fake shrimp traps on a nice estuary wondering where the hell I am.

And now I'm REALLY wondering where the hell I am.

And now I'm through another gate that says "reception." Here are some water-puppet style sculptures. I figured this is a good time to turn back. Now I'm thinking of what I would do if uniformed thugs started plodding after me, but in Vietnam one doesn't have the same sense of KEEP OUT that you have in America. Once home, Jenny confirmed that I wasn't in a park at all, but a nice little resort.

I took some binocular photos on the way out. This quick little guy is a Pied Fantail.

The reptiles were pretty plentiful here. I found a large skink, sans tail, and there were some well-camouflaged spiny lizards

In the end, I went back to my favorite park. It's not so pretty, but they try.

This is a "mural" made with different colors of moss. In real life it's crap--metal tube framing surrounded by lackluster landscaping. But if you didn't know that, you'd appreciate it more.

Vietamese squirrels. More interesting than ours. Haha, everyone was laughing at the white guy taking pictures of common squirrels! Actually, no, they weren't--with photography, nothing is taboo here.