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Published: January 31st 2006
Happy New Year
Amita and me (so cute)This means Happy New Year in Vietnamese, which by the way has to be one of the hadest languages to learn in the world. I tried to pick it up, but in the end my 6 words or so were never really good enough, that's if I ever pronounced them correctly, which wasn't often.
Sin Jao-hello
Tham Biet- good bye
Didi Mau-get a long (go away)
Mot, Hai, Ba- 1,2,3
Cam Uhn- Thank you
I said goodbye to my parents, checked into my new hotel, watched about two movies and then wandered the streets by myself, ultimately getting really really lost but finding my way back to my hotel and passing out. Along the way I met some Vietnamese guy who took me to this little "tea shop" which was actually a little lady sitting on a the sidwalk with plastic stools that I could barely fit my butt ont. We talked for a while but pretty soon I had the feeling that this guy just wanted me to by him and his friend dinner or go drink cobra blood (for $100) so I said peace out and went to bed.
Next day, I was woken up
My Ride
Phuong and I riding in style. (imagine this little asian guy and this huge white guy on the back of his scooter) at 7:30 to take a full day tour of the perfume pagoda, which wasn't really worth it. I had images of this amazing pagoda on top of a mountain. It turned out to be a cool cave that took 45 minutes to get too but all in all I was pretty unimpressed. Two vietnamese people were on the trip who were just married and had come to the cave to pray to have a son. They shared their sticky rice with me that they had brought from home but little to no englisth was spoken. I did meat a nice Vietnamese family who live in Monteray, Ca. The dad (Phuong) instantly took a liking to me as soon as I told him I Played tennis.
He told me he was picking me up the next day at 9 am and we were going to hit. I hadn't played tennis in about 6 months but we had a reasonably good match (he beat me 6-2 6-4) and oh yeah I couldnt' walk for about 4 days afterwards, because I was so soar. Phuong also took me to his parents home and then to a Veagan restaurant, because he's Buddhist and
The Meal
That's pork or soemthign on the left, onions with hot sauce, and "King Cake" not really sure but one piece was enough they don't eat meat. We ate imitation fish, pork (which was amazing), little fake sausages, and so much other food. I was so so stuffed. His Daughter, Amita, is the cutest four year old I have met and she slowly took a liking to me. She showed me all her toys and we played with this little babushka doll for about an hour.
The next day Phuong picked me up again and road me aroudn the city. We had lunch at his house but this time the food wasn't so great. He kept offering me all this traditional Vietnamese food that umm I had to eat to be polite but ahhhh it was pretty difficult. He kept saying eat more eat more. Finally I just said I was too full.
We took a taxi to West lake where there were all these ridiculious little photo shoot booths set up, for New years pictures. We took some photos with Amita and then said our goodbyes.
Travelig on my own has really been a great experience so far. Though somedays I say little to no words, there are so many people out there to meet and who are willing
Huan Kiem Lake
Center of Hanoi. Lit up at night to meet you back. I'm really excited for Laos and can't wait to share my experiences.
miss you all
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Heller
Joshua Heller
i ll take the frog
or maybe the dog.