I woke up feeling pretty poorly today. I’m still shaking something off from last week, and mornings are the worst.
Last night I had a bowl of pho at Sao Mai and chatted with Uyen and Thanh – two women who work there, who remembered me from my last visit. Today or tomorrow, I’ll try to make time to go back and photograph them.
Across the alley, beside the river, a man and a young girl (his daughter?) were processing sugarcane – shaving the outermost skin and hacking it into arm-length stalks. Another woman collected the stalks and – when she had a customer – passed them through a press to deliver a fresh glass of sugarcane juice.
I’ve had this a few times in Singapore, and it’s not nearly as sweet as you’d imagine. It’s especially delicious on ice, with a slice of lemon.
Uyen caught me watching the sugarcane sellers and went to fetch us a stalk. She peeled it and cut it into bite-sized bits, and the three of us chewed and chatted for a while.