A visit to the country

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From Hoi An we moved onto Hanoi. This was the first time that we have flown direct! That didn’t mean that it was easy. Our flight was right in the middle of the day, so we missed out on lunch. That doesn’t bother me one way or another if I miss a meal. But for growing children it’s a big problem. By the time we reached the hotel it was coming up to 4ish and they hadn’t eaten since 9am, so they were both cranky and tired. We even had tears from HB on the drive over when I gave her ‘the look’ for being rude. So when we got to the hotel, I took them straight for something to eat. It’s amazing to think that most tantrums and bad moods are caused by 4 things - being hungry, thirsty, tired or hot. Once they have been taken out of the equation most people normally revert back to their normal selves. Obviously if they are grumpy people then nothing will help. Thankfully these guys turned back into their usually selves, so all was well. The rest of our travel day was spent chilling in the room watching English TV.

The next day was a pretty busy day, lots to see and do and so many things to take in. The day started off with a drive out of the capital and into a village to have lunch with a local. This was something I did and yet didn’t really want to go and do - not because it wouldn’t be interesting, but it seemed such an odd thing to do. Would someone from Vietnam coming to England, drive into the countryside just to have lunch with local farmer? From an Anthropological view it was very fascinating to see how they lived and their culture. To get to this village we had to cross a river by a local bike (instead of car) boat, as soon as we stepped onboard the locals became very interested in us. This place was really off the beaten road, and I doubt many of them would have seen people with such pale skin before, esp. someone as young as HB. I had pre-warned them that they would get people coming up to them trying to touch their skin. I knew this would happen. How did I know this? Well my family used to live in South Korea and, according to Mum and the videos from the time, the people used to come up and try and touch my skin. Apparently it is lucky. Funnily enough all the females we had come across wore long selves so when we asked our guide why they did this his reply was - they want to have light coloured skin. So the funny thing is that the large majority of westerns love to have sun tans, whereas those with darker skin want to have lighter skin as they think it is beautiful. I have to agree with that - not that paler skin is more beautiful, but it doesn’t age as quickly. That is why I always wear factor 50 or 60 and stay out of the sun. Sorry random tangent. Anyhoo, I had warned them and on the boat I reminded HB that they were just being friendly because they thought her to be very beautiful. Her response to that was ‘I wish they weren’t so friendly, I don’t like it’.

As soon as we got off the boat, we were mobbed. Everyone kept trying to touch us. I didn’t care, but it really freaked HB out. I am sure if I was 5 I would have been rather freaked out. In the end, I ended up carrying her. Again it is kind of hard to describe this village properly. Everything was packed next to each other, the streets where wide enough to walk 3 people next to each other. This place used to make pottery but since they were polluting the river to much (God if the river is cleaner than when they used to make pottery I would have hated to see it when they were making pottery). So instead the WHOLE village makes rice paper! The rice paper was put onto these wicker boards so that it would dry out, but these boards where everywhere. I mean everywhere. They were leaning against every wall; you couldn’t see the walls because of these boards with rice paper. People had put them on their roofs, and on even made roofs out of them over the streets. I won’t be looking at rice paper the same way again, plus I think I will check where my rice paper comes from as when they are left out to dry there were covered in insects - gross.

We eventually made it to our host’s house. His name was Mr Viet, like 75% of the population who have the same surname (original huh?), and was nice I guess. He didn’t really look or talk to me. But that’s okay, I didn’t really want to look or talk to him either. You can certainly tell that this country still values men way more than women as Mr Viet really only talked or paid any attention to F and Mr G. I think I may have mentioned that we were having lunch here, and that well I wasn’t really looking forward to that. After seeing into the houses while walking here, hygiene is not something that they truly value here. It makes me queasy just thinking about it. I wasn’t expecting a huge spread of food, but that was exactly what we got. You couldn’t have put any more on this table. What is more amazing, we were shown the cooking area - it was one stove (like the ones you use for camping) with one frying pan (that was full of flies)! It was incredible how Mrs Viet, who didn’t join us for lunch, managed to prepare such a banquet. I have enough problems making one dish with one saucepan. The food was rather tasty -I stuck to the spring rolls and this sticky rice cake. Thankfully, I have that get out of jail free card called HB. When she was finished and ready to get down from the table I was ready to get down from the table (whether I like it or not). So we did what we always did - we coloured. Good thing I like colouring, otherwise it would be a bit of a nightmare.

We were at Mr Viet’s house for nearly 2 hours then we headed back to the Hanoi for our trip to a secondary school. The school we visited was a middle school for children aged 11-16. Children here either go to school for 4hrs in the morning or afternoon. There only a few children that go for the whole day. This school was meant to be one of the best in the country - it wasn’t a private school, just a normal government run school. They have over 2000 children that go to this school in 48 different classes. That may not seem a lot to some of you but that is HUGE to me. At my school, which went from 2-18, we had around 1000 in total, in the senior school, which was 11-18, we had around 600! So 2000 is a big school to me. One of the teachers gave us a little introduction to the school and how wonderful it was. Then we were led around to a waiting class room. Before I was allowed to go in I had to cover up! I wasn’t exposing myself. I had long trousers and a strap dress on - but still I had to cover up. Never mind. I think this school must have a few visitors come to this school as they seemed very prepared for us; they even had a welcome sign up for us -welcoming us from Australia. G’day mates, I’m now from Oz. Mr G gave them a brief talk about us. Which probably none of them understood or listened too, because, hey if I couldn’t understand what he was saying they had NO hope. We also had a Q&A session where one girl asked ‘I’m going to Berlin in the summer, what do you suggest I see’, to which Mr G said something, which seemed only to confuse the poor girl rather than give her any hints. To end our visit they gave us a quiz on the history of the Hanoi in a Who Wants to be a Millionaire style. When HB shouted out the correct answer to one of the questions (we had told her the answer, she isn’t some child genius) the quiz master seemed totally shocked and asked ‘How did you know that?’ HB’s answer - ‘I just do!’ said with all the emotion of a true prima donna. HAHAHAHA, don’t you love the answers children come out with. The quiz master must have been totally stupid or not realised that our guide was telling us the answers. Just before we left F and I got trampled by all the girls asking us for our email address. I could have made up a fake one, but didn’t. So far I haven’t received any emails, that or my junk filter is doing its job. One did ask me to email her a photo, which I may do if I remember to when the trip is over.

So a rather exciting day, which was finished off by watching Madventures on Discovery and a documentary on North Korea. Now that isn’t a place on my wish list to visit.

To be continued ...

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Photos

The kitchen
Mrs Viet in the kitchen (otherwise known as outside).

More Rice
see everywhere!

Lunch
Can you see the look on my face - it says 'do I really have to eat this?'

Shells
I can't remember who asked me to take a picture of the shells, but here they are.

Hanoi Hotel
Our hotel in Hanoi - it looked like the Grand Floridian (if only)

Foggy start
No it isn't really fog, it was my camera lens all steamed up. It was a pic of our pool in Hoi An with floating candles

PE lessons
If only we had martial arts as a normal PE lesson.

The river
nice.

Covered up
All covered up in class.

Production line
Where Mrs Viet makes rice paper

Comments

[Susan]

Fascinating as always, Anita! We had a "dining experience" when we visited an Amish family in Lancaster County, PA. They made the midday meal for us (the chicken was so fresh it nearly clucked) and were very gracious in answering our questions about how they do certain things without electricity. They run almost everything with gas! Its actually one of my greatest memories.

[Mum]

Touchy Feely
Loved the blog, really looking forward to the next one. Back in the 80s in South Korea, out visiting the countryside, if we didn't keep a very close watch villagers would try to put a hand down your diaper as they were unable to work out the gender of western children!

[Anita85]

Diapers - Mum that is very American of you.