I spent some time gathering up pics to share with you. You have most likely heard me mention Little Saigon. I use it as a setting in my book Naked Alliances. We have a thriving Vietnamese population here in Orlando and their shops are seen all around, but Little Saigon, situated on Colonial Drive (highway #50), is where they are concentrated. Colonial Drive is a major east-west thoroughfare. Many cities and towns have a Vietnamese village and ours looks like this:

The buildings are painted in carnival colors. It’s hard to see just how busy it is from still pics, but it’s a hub of activity. There are tons of restaurants, soup spots mostly, Asian markets, and import shops. The aromas of stir-fries and fragrances of mixed herbs permeate the air. There is a lot of neon at night, but I don’t have any night shots. It’s all very colorful.

One of my favorite shops is an Asian market where they split jackfruit to share samples enticing people to buy. The little children (like me) gather to slurp up the slimy, sticky, yellow fruit. Not to gross you out, but it’s like a huge wad of phlegm that tastes like a cross between cotton candy and bananas, with a little tang and a creamy but firm, rubbery texture. If you have never tried it and run across one do give it a try. I highly recommend it. (Just don’t confuse it with the durian fruit which looks similar, tastes just as sweet, but smells like horse manure.) The jackfruit sections have a seed in the center about the size of a chestnut that you have to spit out.

We don’t grow jackfruit here. We import it from Indonesia where men climb thirty to forty feet high to wrap a sling around the fruit and cut it down. One of my characters has a brief encounter with this exotic fruit in my story while on a mission to Little Saigon.

This is where we were today, just thought I might bring you along on a tour. Later this week, I will show you more of our beautiful downtown area.