VIETNAM: (12/05)-#1- Hello from Hanoi

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(AUTHOR'S NOTE):
I decided to post my past travel journals with a few related pics. They are an interesting, if amusing read. The first set is from my trip to Vietnam in Christmas of 2005. I sent them as emails to my mom and other friends and family. (Please forgive grammar/punctuation errors)


Hi there!!
I am emailing you from my second night in Hanoi...if you count the travel night as the first. My traveling day was not so bad. Twenty-three hours may sound like a long time to travel, but I slept most the time. During the 11 hours to Japan, I was awake about two of them...enough to eat on the plane and play a few rounds of yahtzee. On my six hour layover in Japan, I ate more food...Miso soup cuz I missed kitty. I slept the entire five hour leg of the japan to Hanoi trek. On both plane rides I slept through take off and landings. Chris greeted me at the airport and we went to the hotel and grabbed a few beers at a place called "1/2 man, 1/2 noodle". ?????? my thoughts exactly.

Today was the first enculteration experience...I like it

here, but it is very different. There are a lot of motorbikes honking their horns and offering rides. We ate breakfast on stools on a street corner. Breakfast was tofu, noodles, and leaves...the cost was 30 cents. I exchanged money...$200 ...and received over three-million "dongs". I've never had three million of anything...so it's kinda neat. To give you an idea of prices, one U.S. dollar is worth 15,800 dongs. We stopped on a corner shop and drank three fruit smoothies...it totaled 22,000 dongs (less than 2 bucks).

The rest of the day we have been walking around Hanoi and taking motorbike rides to ends of the city. I've learned a few Vietnamese words like excuse me, thank you, we're walking, and stuff like that. We went to a few pagodas, which are temples. They were pretty. I like all the smell of incense. Our motorbike trip through Hanoi was cool. We each paid 12 thousand dongs and went about 15 minutes to our chosen locale on the back of someone's motorbike. After a brief nap, Chris and I went to the water puppet show...Hanoi's most popular attraction. I liked it, but I'm still a bit tired from the travels, so I slept through a few numbers. (I don't think the puppets minded). FYI...the show was 40,000 dongs (about $3) which included a CD, fan and "1st class" seating. After the show, and right before this email, we ate Indian food, and are quite filled up. This dinner was at a fancy spot...indoors, well-decorated, prime service...which is why it cost us a pretty dong....er...75,000 each...still less than $5 American dollars. Crazy, huh? Tomorrow we are taking a bus to Halong bay where we will be staying on a sail boat and enjoying the beauty and serenity of the region.

Some interesting and different things to note about Hanoi...
-they have big loudspeakers which the government uses to broadcast news to the people three times a day. Kinda annoying and spooky.
-Sidewalk "restaurants" are quite common...You walk up to someone set up on a corner and they pull out these tiny stools that you sit on and use as a table while they cook up an order.
-Women seem to do most the heavy work, carrying big sticks with produce in baskets, balanced on each end.
-The people are ultra friendly...always trying to sell something, but always appreciative when you attempt Vietnamese. Chris knows so many people. We are constantly stopped on the streets and talk and have tea.
-It's bustling here...chaotic, loud and cluttered. There's something very neat about the disarrangement of it all. crossing the street was like playing frogger. You walk at a slow, steady pace and the motorbikes and cars swerve around you.
-there are lots of little side streets which serve as market-like places. Other, larger streets are multiple lanes and around the lakes. Lots of lakes here. The little streets are the craziest and coolest. The buildings are tall, similiar to neighborhoods in San Francisco. There is a disarray of power lines. Shopkeepers sweep trash into piles in the gutter, which is picked up a few times a day. Sometimes you get a stinky wiff of fish and want to barf...but that's only sometimes.
-You can stop on the street corner and have a glass of beer for like seven cents. I've been to that corner a few times to get my dollars worth.

That's my first update. Maybe later I'll tell you how I took a bath in a bucket this morning. It's funny. Feel free to forward this email to friends of mine or whoever. I only have a couple of emails with me so pass on my hello and this message to whomever possible, as I'd like to share my experiences with the people I care about. (Mom, please forward to Chris, and share with Grandma) I hope all is well in the U.S., if not, don't tell me about it until I return...:o)
Love always,
Jason

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Photos

Bath in a bucket
My welcome to Nam