Alrighty, a blog post finally! The wireless connection here is pretty spotty and our iPad is on the fritz, so the blog has been non-existent 'til now!
The flight here started out great, got to see my sis and my cutie niece Ella for lunch in Seattle then hopped onto a Korean Air jet bound for Seoul, Korea.
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| family |
Got all settled in to a bowl of some bibimbap and other yummy Korean foods and began the first of 5, yes 5, movies. And then...every waking hour was living HELL thereafter. You can only watch so many Zach Efron/rom-com type flicks before you get absolutely stir crazy, and to top it off my feet swelled up like pork sausages and were throbbing for some reason. Start to finish it took us 27 hours to get to our hotel and we maybe got two hours of sleep in the process. Me thinks our 35 year old bodies aren't what they once were!
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| fupa pack |
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| two grannies and their paper slippers |
Popped into a rainy, balmy Hanoi around 11 p.m. and we were instantly rejuvenated by what we saw and couldn't wait for what the next day would hold. Cracked into some bia (beer) Ha Noi on our balcony and watched some world cup versus hitting the town and potentially staying out way too late.
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| local brew |
Somehow we woke up 5 hours later, ate our first bowl of pho (amaze!) for breakfast and were ready to go...or not. OMFG OMFG OMFG...the HUMIDITY. The humidity here hits you like a brick wall the second you step outside. We knew it was gonna be bad, we mentally prepared, but this was something neither of us has ever experienced in all of our travels. It is hard to breathe, hard to function. You are soaked head to toe within minutes.
In other words it is change your undies several times a day weather. But it was go-time and the sights, sounds and smells of the city will make you forget that you look and feel like a drowned poodle. Complete sensory overload is all around you.
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| bamboo shoulder pole |
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| chatting over lychees |
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| typical storefront |
Another immediate observation was the power line situation...or lack thereof.
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| powerlines for days |
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| very organized |
Rule #1: The Art of Crossing the street. Unless you want a moto running up your backside you must always be on point crossing the streets here. It is chaotic, there are no apparent rules/traffic laws, no rhyme or reason. Horns are honked every 3 seconds or so as people charge the narrow roads and roundabouts. We probably looked like complete dear in headlights that first day, dodging motos, bike cabs, women on bicycles, cars, dogs etc. from all directions. Red light? No problem, ignore it! One way street? No problem, just honk and act like you have the right away! Traffic stopped? No problem, drive right on the sidewalk! By day two we just walked behind locals when crossing and in perfect harmony everything just zips right around you and by day 3 we just stopped even looking anymore and now laugh at the sight of the newbie tourists to town trying to perfect said art.
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| beep beep |
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| nobody was harmed here |
Note about the motos here. They are EVERYWHERE! Think Amsterdam with the bikes everywhere. Somehow anything and everything goes on these things. 5 passengers? Fine. Texting while blazing through an intersection? Fine. Girls in skirts riding side sadlle with no helmet? Fine. Dogs riding? Fine. Carrying a stack of 10 toilets or 48 brooms? Also fine.
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| motos, motos, motos |
Started off our morning wandering around Hoan Kiem Lake, crossing a bridge to a pagoda in the middle of the lake, and stumbled upon a lively group of women doing some silly modern dance tai chi sort of thing. Just the first of many odd Vietnamese song and dances we encountered.
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| visiting a pagoda |
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| Hoan Kiem Lake |
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| reflections |
Headed to the Old Quarter which is where we ended up spending most of our time in Hanoi. There is so much to see there. Every sidewalk is filled with pop-up food stands and plastic stools. Some people don't even sell anything, they just chill out with family and friends drinking tea, eating street food and smoking out of bamboo tubes what we later found out was called 'thuoc lao' and taking a hit of it will knock an inexperienced user on their arse. We passed.
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| he asked for his pic to be taken |
The streets in the Old Quarter are named after what that particular street is selling. So entire streets
sell one thing: copper, baskets, silk, stuffed animals, kitchen items, tea, lanterns, weasel poop coffee, birds in wooden cages etc. You name it, there is a street selling it.
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| beef skewers |
The women here seem to be complete workhorses. The sheer weight that they carry on their bamboo shoulder pole is astounding, adding to the fact that they must walk at least 10 hours a day to peddle their goods. The women here also cover their bodies from head to toe. From what we hear (and the advertisements we have seen) the women like to keep their skin as light as possible and I am guessing the face masks are for smog protection. A lot of the soaps in the bathroom (if there is any at all) tend to say "whitening" on them. Not sure if this is some new trend or what.
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| fresh herbs |
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| undercover ladies |
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| old quarter |
A very popular item here is 'bia hoi' or fresh beer. Local fresh brewed beer all for the amazing price of 70 cents a glass! Grab a plastic stool and a spot on the sidewalk and enjoy!
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| fresh beer spot |
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| more fresh beer |
Rule #2: Don't trust the fruit ladies!!! These women are ruthless and force you to sample their fruit, you say "yummy, i'll take a few pieces of your sweet and exotic fruits"and the next thing you know they are trying to make you pay 10$ for a handful of lychee, you of course refuse and endure a Vietnamese beat-down. *This rule applies to the mung bean donut ladies as well. Avoid eye contact
at all costs!
Food wise, Hanoi has been a dream and we have survived solely on the amazing street food, and shockingly no trips to the toilet have resulted! TMI, sorry, but this is a first while travelling abroad for me as many of you know and I am very thrilled about it. A lot of the street food vendors specialize in one dish and have been making and perfecting that dish for years. The trick is to either research where the best of each dish is located (which is a needle in a haystack on these confusing streets) or to just choose a stall where a
lot of locals congregate.
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| baby pineapples |
We tried to seek out the best dishes from Hanoi and tried out the Bun Bo Nam Bo and Bun Cha on day 1. Both to die for...however the experience eating the Bun Cha is not for the faint of heart. After searching for what was deemed the best in Hanoi we finally found the vendor. For some reason they quickly ushered us upstairs to the dirtiest, stuffiest room ever where about 4 employees were just napping on the tables. These tables contained plates of noodles that were to be served to
us. Not wanting to miss out on this fab Bun Cha we perserveared and ordered. In the corner under a dirty window was a basket of herbs we were served with an employees bare hand. We then got several plates of pork and various sauces and had to ask how the hell do we eat this and the woman grudgingly got bowls of which she forgot in the first place and then slopped all the items in the bowl and said "see like this". Okie dokie lady. So Jimmy made his bowl and we dug in to the awesomeness only to look up to see the woman who barehanded our herbs was now digging lord knows what out of the scalp of her sleepy coworker of whom was laying on the plate of noodles we were served! Yummers!
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| bun bo nam bo |
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| bun cha set-up |
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| the lady sleeping in our bun cha noodles |
Favorite drink so far 'mia da' or fresh pressed sugar cane juice and kumquats. Makes you forget about the heat just for a second. Another way to beat the heat for a second or three is to take a cyclo or a 3
wheeled bike taxi with a seat basically. It's a really nice way to get locals to stare at the pompous Americans acting all regal by paying a poor man a couple of bucks to peddle their lazy gluttonus souls across town. We felt like total a-holes and will not be taking one of these again.
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| sugarcane juice |
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| say 'lazy americans!' |
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| cyclo |
We were warned about the 'shoe people' here. Guys who run around trying to glue or fix your shoes up any way they can. Apparently they will bend down and try to rip your shoe just so you can pay them to fix it. Well my shoes I brought were beyond a mess anyways (my mom is highly embarrassed of my shoes as she should be when you see them below), I always ruin shoes on trips, so I just duct taped them up and brought them to Vietnam to die. These shoe guys were like hawks on me when they saw my shoe situation, I am fairly confident they have never seen such a wretched mess on a woman and I finally gave in and now am the proud owner of a new pair of tire-soled sandals for 'very cheap price'!!!
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| before: poor cockroach didn't know what hit him |
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| during |
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| after: should have gotten the snow tires for extra traction |
Rounded out our first night planting it on various plastic stools around town drinking fresh beer and watching the 'fun police' harass the local bars. The bars put tons of the plastic stools and tables all over the street in front of their place and every 45 min or so chaos ensues...the police come barreling down the road and the bar staff come running out making all of the patrons get up and they try to round up all the stools they can and throw them back on the sidewalk...if they can't get them all out of the street in time, the police grab the stools and throw them into the back of the police truck and steal them! This scene plays on repeat down the whole street all night.
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| another local fresh beer |
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| mj was here |
So this was Hanoi in a single day for us! Bye!
