Vietnam adventure continued

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I posted pictures on the previous Vietnam post, so you can go back and check those out too.

Just wanted to share a bit more on Vietnam and what we’ve noticed so far. There should be a video here soon...check back if you are an early reader. They take a long time to upload.

People are very nice and seem a bit less aggressive than in Shanghai. There are people selling the same stuff as in China but we had no fear or hesitation and we’ve said no more often than we’ve said yes. We have seen many people selling vegetables and fruit by walking around with baskets balanced on their shoulders. Often women, these people take the store on the road and sell things like oranges or sweet potatoes while walking through the streets of Hanoi. I was particularly awed by the fact that most of these street vendors are women and they are often quite small and thin. The baskets don’t look easy to balance or haul but the people we’ve observed seem to have a great deal of physical strength. At one point, a woman selling bananas and mini-pineapples (which are common and super cute) tried to sell us fruit in exchange for the opportunity to photograph our kids carrying her pole/basket setup. We took the pictures and insisted we didn’t want food but offered her some money in exchange; the equivalent of about fifty cents.

The Vietnamese wave with both hands rather than just one when waving hello and Emily has quickly adopted this practice. She’s good about going local and also bought a traditional, cone hat so she could more easily blend in. I should note that this hat has been a pain in our collective butts as we have dragged it from place to place. Those hats don’t pack well—in case you are thinking of going to Vietnam. Be warned.

The food has been excellent. We had pho (the soup with noodles, spices and either beef or chicken) twice in one day. It is delicious and consistently flavored from place to place, though there were some differences in items found in the various soups. For example, my second bowl of chicken pho had a ball in it that may have been a boiled egg yolk or it may have been something else. I didn’t eat it. There were a few other chicken parts I chose to pass on and leave as unsolved mysteries. More dramatic and exiting that way.

Having been more and more comfortable in China and communicating with Chinese, it has been a harsh reversal to be in Vietnam and speak no Vietnamese. I hear the language and it could not sound more foreign to me. I recognize nothing—not even inflections in speech. I am just totally lost. Fortunately many people speak some English; especially at hotels, shops and restaurants. Also, the written language is in Romanized script rather than traditional characters. This means we can “read” maps and show addresses to taxi drivers quite easily. We can’t pronounce anything but we can navigate the cities quite well.

I bought a guide book in Shanghai the day before we left. It was the only book on Hanoi in the shop. It has been a great resource and we used it for several restaurants and cafes we visited in Hanoi.
Our guide told us that 90% of Vietnamese are Buddhist and the government does not discourage religion. People burn money (fake money as well as real) to honor their ancestors and I believe to promote luck. We saw a woman burning fake US dollars in the street during one of our cyclo rides around town. Motorcycles are the primary means of transportation in Hanoi since cars are too expensive for most people. The pollution from the motorcycles is horrifying, but the locals all wear face masks as the motor about town. Helmets are worn and the law is enforced. This law was passed a couple years ago and the fines are high enough that people don’t tend to break the rules. There are some really cute helmets for sale at the many hat/helmet stores around town.

Like China, we noticed the stores are often specialty stores and the streets are often themed. We saw a cooking street where the stores sold pots and pans or cooking utensils or particular types of food. We also passed a street with party and gift themed shops. One store had all sorts of plastic junk and Nathan joked it was the 17,000 Dong store (as opposed to the 1 dollar store in the US). I think I mentioned the currency is absurd here. 1 USD=17,800 VND (Vietnamese Dong).

The boat trip was magical. I will devote the next blog to that trip but I'm posting a teaser photo of the kids from the boat. You can see a bit of the scenery we experienced for 2 nights and 3 days. For now, I must sign off as we are in Hoi An at a lovely hotel we enjoyed this morning. Now we are about to go bike riding ($1 per bike for the entire day) to explore the town a bit and find lunch. I get to haul Emily around on the back of my bike (it has a cushioned seat) so this is sure to be more successful than our aborted bike trip in Thailand. I already asked to borrow a cute pink helmet for miss Emily. Nathan has his own green bike and we are all very excited to get out there and see what’s what.

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Photos

toys galore
luckily we rode by on a cyclo so no time to stop & shop

oranges, get your oranges
green=orange in Vietnam