Hanoi again and visiting Thuan's house

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After four weeks on the RealGap Experience Vietnam program we headed back to Hanoi with the group for our last day together. Accomodation was our own responsibility again so everybody checked into different hotels according to their budgets and agreed to meet up for some food and drinks at a cafe we'd been to before, later that afternoon. We had some excellent pizzas and fruit shakes before saying goodbye to Emma, Emma and Doug who had to catch an afternoon flight and then headed back to our respective hotels. That evening we met up with everybody that was left in Vietnam for a final drink at the Rockbilly Bar and drank the night away before some tearful farewells.

The bar also provided us with a fantastic bird's eye view of a large intersection in Hanoi and the utterly bonkers traffic that passes through. All throughout SE Asia the roads have been fairly mad but Hanoi tops the lot. I took this video of just an average night on the Hanoi streets from the bar's balcony:

During our time on Cat Ba Island Thuan had very kindly offered that me and Amy could come and meet his family at his house in the Hanoi suburbs at the end of the program and we had gratefully accepted. On Sunday morning he met us at our hotel in central Hanoi and we caught a local bus out of town. The bus was fairly packed and it was clear that some of the locals were curious as to why we were on a bus that only served very untouristy suburbs. After about 20 minutes the bus abruptly pulled over and everybody was ordered off. We obliged and found out that the right rear tyre had burst so had to wait for the next, already packed, bus. The remainder of the journey was quite amusing as we were standing amongst a crowd of bemused locals and probably committing many crowded-bus etiquette crimes as we tried to avoid standing on people toes in a country where the idea of personal space simply doesn't exist.

Finally we arrived at our stop and bundled off and into a taxi for the short ride to Thuan's house down a dusty road. A few minutes later we were shown into the house and met Thuan's father who didn't speak any English but looked very pleased to meet us. We attempted our best Vietnamese greetings and he seemed impressed before disappearing again to get on with some work. Thuan made us a cup of tea and we sat on the floor of the living room, Asian style with crossed legs, and chatted about life, family, philosophy and a multitude of other things. Thuan is a great person to talk to, very interesting and intelligent and it was interesting to hear his views on things in Vietnam. After a while his mother and sister arrived and we said hello to them before they disappeared into the kitchen to perpare lunch. That seemed to be our cue to take a walk and so we grabbed some sun hats to protect ourselves from the intense heat of the midday sun and left the house. Thuan's house is on what seems to be the outer edge of the suburbs and only a road after leaving we were on a gorgeous tree lined path with small farms on either side. Thuan explained that many families in the area rent patches of land and that his father had two such farms that we could visit if we liked. We said yes and were led to a roped off area of land nearly the size of a football pitch that had mango, lychee and logan trees inside. We clambered under the rope and walked through the farm, disturbing dozens of buzzing crickets and a couple of enormous frogs as we went. The scorching heat was almost unbearable and we were sweating buckets by the time Thuan found us a shady logan tree to sit under while he plucked off a few of the ripe fruits for us to try. Logans are hard shelled brown berries that are about the size of a large cherry and the flesh underneath the skin is very similar to a lychee. Only sweeter. And tastier. And far messier! We sat munching logans for a while under the tree before heading back for lunch.

On the way we commented that Thuan's parents were very kind in inviting us to their house and feeding us but he said that it was simply the Vietnamese way. Outside of the cities (where people become a little more cynical) the Vietnamese people are incredibly generous. Families in the same community will help each other out because they know that if they ever need help themselves the favour will be returned. We'd seen this earlier that day when we got off the bus. Thuan was going to cycle to his parents and put us on a cheap moto but when he saw a girl from the next town over getting off the bus he gave her his bike and we all got in a taxi instead. He didn't know the girl that well but knew that she needed the bike more than he did and that she would get it back to him eventually. Thuan explained that this way of helping each other out comes from Buddhism. Even though a lot of modern Vietnamese only follow the religion in the same way that Christianity is vaguely followed by a lot of British people the idea of karma is still very influential.

When we got back to the house we found the two ladies outside grilling some tasty looking pork over a small grill and went inside to wait for lunch. After a few minutes we were brought two huge plates of noodles, two large bowls of soup, some vegetables and the pork that we had seen beeing grilled. Not being particularly sure of the correct manners we asked Thuan what we should do so his mother showed us. She placed some of the vegetables in our small rice bowls, followed by some noodles, then some pork and then the light, sweet soup over the top. Still sitting cross legged we hunched over the bowls and dug our chopsticks in before slurping and shovelling the messy noodles and soup into our mouths Asian style. It was absolutely delicious. Thuan explained that his mother would be very upset if we didn't stuff ourselves until we couldn't eat anymore and that we should try and finish as much as we could. Mothers are clearly the same all over the world! As the food was incredible eating a lot wasn't a problem and me and Amy gladly wolfed down several bowls of the soup before being encouraged to try the other one, a beef and tomato broth that seemed almost Italian. It was also very tasty but we only managed a couple of bowls before sitting back absolutely full. We thanked Thuan's parents in Vietnamese and told his mother that the food was delicious. She seemed pleased and then everybody except Thuan and us disappeared off to get on with various jobs. We chatted to Thaun some more and he told us that because we liked the logans so much his parents had gone to fetch us some more to take back to Hanoi. When they arrived back at the house about half an hour later they were carrying a huge plastic shopping bag stuffed to bursting with the fruits! We gratefully accepted and gave them the gifts that we had brought for them, as is customary when visiting a Vietnamese household. They seemed very pleased with the two packets of sweets, a bottle of rice wine and the candles that we had bought. We weren't too sure what was appropriate when we had been shopping in Hanoi and so had asked a couple of locals and simply bought everything they recommended! I think we might have bought too much but we were glad to show our appreciation to Thuan and his very kind family. We exchanged contact details with Thuan and, using him as an interpreter, expressed our thanks to his family for having us. In return they said that their house is forever our house in Vietnam which really touched me and Amy. Our flight to Australia is from Hanoi so we will be back in town on the 8th of August and Thuan said we should come stay overnight with his family before we go. A lovely offer that we intend to take him up on.

A waiting taxi took us back to our bus stop and the onward journey to Hanoi where we ate as many logans as we possibly could and stayed an extra night before catching a flight down to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) and the start of our south Vietnamese adventure.

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Photos

Last night in Hanoi
Clockwise from far left: Arlene, Charlie, Lee, Jo, Amy, Sally, Renee, Jenny, Amy, Matt, David

Girls on tour!
Back row from L-R: Renee, Jenny, Charlie, Amy
Front row from L-R: Sally, Amy, Jo, Arlene

Comments

[Diane]

How lovely!
That is so fantastic that you got to visit Thuan's family! That's a truly authentic Vietnamese experience you'll never forget. ... oh and if you ever go back in the future take me with you... he looks cute! Hehe xx