Good Moooooorning Vietnam!

The Old Quarter in Hanoi, Vietnam.

Hey, it's always the morning somewhere, right?!

At the end of February, I took a one-week trip to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

Vietnam is beautiful in many ways. From being there only a week however, I could not sum up the country in one word, not a sentence, not even a few blog posts. But I can do the best in sharing the experiences I had during my brief trip. I'll also try to scatter some interesting factoids and anecdotes about Vietnam that certainly set it apart from so many other countries.  

I went to see Hanoi and Halong Bay and spent time with two good friends who are now there working as teachers. If you've been following my posts since 2011, you know Amanda and Tyler 1.

Being our usual dorky selves.

I met up with Tyler and Amanda when I arrived at the airport. We took a cab out to a province about 45 minutes north of Hanoi, called Bac Ninh. Bac Ninh is an up-and-coming manufacturing area. In fact, Samsung's largest manufacturing plant in the world is based right there. Tyler and Amanda had been living in an apartment on the 3rd floor of a restaurant building.

Right from the get-go we were off for a motorbike trip around the countryside: the rice fields, abandoned villages, old Chinese temples and -- well you know -- the usual.

Here's a quick video:

Factoid #1: In the countryside, the Vietnamese don't have official cemetery lots. When a person dies, they are buried in the fields among the crops. A grave is dug and then a Chinese-styled tombstone is built over it. On one of our drives we witnessed a funeral service happening way out in one of these fields.

Tyler and Amanda had been living in this town for about 3 months. They had done a lot of aimless driving of their own so there were some interesting spots they wanted to show me.

One of our encounters was at a nearby lake. We ran into a group of youngsters mulling about. Because we're considerably far from Hanoi, these kids don't see a lot of white people. And they certainly weren't afraid to stare in curiosity. This was my attempt to make it interesting.

Real men walk their buffalo, not dogs.

We drove through a small farming community to get to a 900 year old Chinese temple at the top of a hill. It was the late afternoon and the kids were coming home from school!

Otto from the Simpsons would be jealous.

Then there was this adorable little guy...

"Oh pretty prease, can I come out and play?"

Factoid #2: In my earlier "It's High Time for Thai Time" post, I wrote about the stray dog (aka "soi dog") situation very abundantly prevalent in Thailand. Well, not so much in Vietnam. I actually never saw one stray dog.

Tyler 1's theory is that the Vietnamese handled their dog problem a long time ago by, well, cookin' 'em up (pardon the bluntness). I didn't find "dog" on any restaurant menus, but I was told that it's something of a delicacy; they still definitely serve it.

We arrived at the temple, which was actually over 900 years old. There was a large crew of women (though the women were not large...) excavating at various spots around the temple. They had recently uncovered some old pottery and stone.

900 years and still holding -- who needs Home Depot?

The inside.

We descended the hill and made our way back to their house. After a few kilometers, hunger got the best of us and we stopped at what appeared to be a convenience store (certainly no 7-11, that's for sure!).

"Honey, can you pick up a chicken on your way home?"

An older Vietnamese gentleman approached us. He was very friendly. After we said hi ("Sin chow!") he wouldn't stop talking to us. Of course we didn't understand him, but we shook hands and smiled and nodded. It was a great example of exchanging affinity without the use of language.

Tyler 1 wanted to try the theory of, "If you laugh at something, the other person will usually laugh with you, despite not understanding any of what you're saying." So we gave it a try with our friend.

We believe his name is Gwan. First I was testing his English. I threw out some very random things. Then I told him my name was Christopher and I gave a big laugh. His reaction says it all.

I had trouble uploading the file, but here it is via YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQPEAbcUMfM&feature=youtu.be

Later, I had to exchange my money for Vietnamese Dong.

Factoid #3: The Vietnamese Dong (VND) is the 3rd most "Least valued currency" in the world. 20,916 VND will get you $1 USD.

I was a millionaire in minutes!

Of course this is only about $100 USD -- haha. But it went far, let me tell you. A beer for 50 cents. A delicious meal at a restaurant for $4.

That night we went out for dinner with the restaurant owner's wife and a co-worker. It was like a street food/restaurant thing. We were kind of half inside and half on the street. It worked.

The food was similar to what the Thais would call "sukee". Mix a whole lot of meat and veggies into a big boiling pot. It was actually reeeeeally good. Oh, and don't forget the boiled frog!

Sorry, Kermit...

As you would expect, it tasted like chicken, just a bit more tender.

The next day we were bound for Halong Bay...

Helluva panorama shot!

We had an excellent tour package. A bus there from Hanoi, a tour guide, 1-night stay on an island and a 1-day trip to a entire theme park for $100! You simply CANNOT beat that. We were accompanied by a friend of Amanda's named Javiera, from Chile. I had a lot of opportunity to tap into that crummy Spanish vocabulary of mine.

Oh, and it was pretty damn cold.

Halong Bay is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It's comprised of 1,969 islands. Our boat tour took us around some of the most popular islands and into two of the famous caves. Our Vietnamese tour guide was super nice and spoke surprisingly good English.

We met a Vietnamese-American couple spending a few weeks in the country. They lived in Texas and California. We swapped stories about life in America and how different Vietnam was.

Fun crew.

Gorgeous!

Outside one of the main caves.

No decent, discernible shots from inside -- sorry, guys. It was very interesting though. And very large inside. I think that's what amazed me most.

In the evening we were brought to our hotel and then given tickets to the theme park.

Now, the theme park didn't really have a theme. Maybe a better name would be "recreation park". There was a seal and dolphin show, bumper cars, haunted house, arcade, a light and pyrotechnics show and other miscellaneous things...

...and the place was virtually EMPTY. Really. The dolphin show had, maybe, 50 people for a crowd size of 500. The light/pyrotechnics show had, again, about 50...for a crowd size of 1,400 (Oh, we counted those seats). Deserted is an understatement.

So what do 4 grown adults do with this kind of opportunity? Throw every ounce of maturity out the window!

We saw all the shows, did the bumper cars for about 2 hours straight (no lines of course), played in the free arcade, the kiddy ball pits, the haunted house -- everything. Good times indeed.

We returned to Bac Ninh the following day.

The trip was great. I spent another few days around Bac Ninh and Hanoi. I walked around the Old Quarter and saw the famous Water Puppet Show, which tells the heritage of Vietnam threw these short stories with puppets dancing and moving above water. Quite unique actually.

Wow! Floating, wooden little people!

Here are some miscellaneous pictures taken around Hanoi and Bac Ninh.

A huge Buddha statue atop a mountain.

From a seemingly-abandoned war museum in Bac Ninh:

North Vietnamese fighter jet.

It's either some kind of transmitter or a bird catcher.

And this was one mammoth of a Rottweiler. I know they're generally big dogs, but whoa momma, that's a small horse right there...

He's as big as the man!

If you ever thought Asians were "creative" with their meals, you were right. Check out these menu items!

Now THAT's creativity, baby.

And don't forget the swallow's nest soup -- or drink -- or whatever it is they call it. Check out "Edible bird's nest" on Wikipedia, it's great.

That's my hand and yes, I drank it all.

Well, I leave it at that! Thanks for reading, ya'll.

What's next you ask? Cebu, Philippines. Next month.

Signing off!