VIETNAM VENTURES

FIRST IMPRESSIONS WITH AN ELF MAN

One of our first discoveries in Vietnam was that traffic is louder and crazier than that of Bangkok. Yes, it is possible. By our last day we yearned for the miles of cars, which sit silently on the streets, waiting to for their turn to go at the hour-long red lights.

In Hanoi, no one waits, and everyone honks. Honks. Honks. And honks. I felt like the city was made up of a million broken horns that would randomly go off for no reason. Then there were swarms of motorbikes everywhere. It felt like they were killer bees, waiting to attack innocent tourists on the streets if they step the wrong way.

After a honk-full, almost crashing into a million motorbikes drive in the taxi to the center of Hanoi, we soon discovered our driver didn’t really know where our hotel was. Hmm..neither did we.

Our problem was solved when a man who reminded me of a Vietnamese looking Christmas elf came up to our window. He told us to get out. I was freaked out at first. I thought this little man who was a few inches shorter than 5'3 me would take us to a sketchy place in Hanoi and do something evil to us. I wasn’t going to budge.

It turns out he was just the owner of Ocean Star II (the hostel where we had booked our stay) who had used his magical powers to find the taxi. And I really do think he has special powers.

Right away, our elf friend, who turned out to be a boisterous, lovable ball of energy, was eager to help us book a tour for Halong Bay the next day. The problem was he didn’t speak English well. For some reason the way he said sacts, instead of taxes was pretty much the funniest thing in the world to me at the time and I couldn’t stop laughing. This was probably due to lack of food and sleep. Thankfully, he seemed oblivious to my snickers or just thought I was a freak American with laughing issues.



To make matters worse, Vietnamese dong boggled our famished minds to no end. After what seemed like 30 minutes of explanation in broken English we understood that 16,000 dong equaled one American dollar. But trying to add up these huge sums of money that really equal hardly anything is rather exhausting for the brain. It led to even more laughter from me when he was trying to type everything in the calculator, and we kept looking at him with puzzled stares after his lengthy explanations.

Yet the next few days after rest and food, I became saner and the elf man took a liking to me for some reason. He started to call me his girlfriend. I wanted to say you are too short to be my boyfriend, but didn’t want to hurt him too bad. So he had fun telling people I was his girlfriend, giving me hugs, dancing with me, and kissing me on the cheek.

Now I can say I had a Vietnamese Christmas elf guy for a boyfriend. How delightful! He really made our stay a silly, fun time. So much so that the annoyance soon vanished away that our water didn’t work much, a cockroach ran over Ja one morning and our room was made for a one and a half person and not three.

BAY BABES



The next day we rode in a van for about 3-hours outside of Hanoi to Halong Bay. We passed by farming towns, and stared at men and women working in the rice paddies with the famous straw cone hats. At first I thought these hats were worn for the tourists’ sake, but they actually do wear them for a purpose.. to keep the sun off and to stay cool.

Our van was full of characters. Our tour guide, yet again was lacking in English skills, even though his occupation is an English tour guide for Halong Bay. We had four guys from Switzerland who right away I knew were going to make things fun.

I guessed they were in a hardcore band when I first saw them because of their skating shoes, tattoos, and punk hats. I had never heard punk people speak elegant French before, so that was a cool combo. They are on a tour of the world for 20 months, if their money lasts that is..I was so inspired by them and wish that one day I can take a few months off of life and do the same. Wow, we shall see…Anyone want to join?

When we got on our boat at the bay, it felt like we were on an ancient Asian vessel, prowling the waters. First we went to a fishing village. I was so in awe because people actually live on houseboats, in the village. They don’t live on the land at all. They go to school in a building in the middle of the water. So crazy! We were discussing how boring it would be to live there if you weren’t used to it. The most exciting thing would be to swim over to your neighbor and talk about the catch of the day. Whoa, thankfully I wasn’t born into the life of Halong Bay fishing village…more power to the people who were..

Then we went into some caves, which were part of the UNESCO world heritage site. They were full of stalagmites lit up by different colored lights, like fluorescent green, purple and blue. It felt like we were in a club turned into a cave.

Our tour guide kept pointing at different stalagmites saying, “This is a dragon, do you see the dragon?” And all ten of us would look at each other, trying to decipher what he said and would be like. “No….” And then the Swiss guys would start yelling “Dragon, dragon!” And we would all laugh and stare and still not see it.

Once he told us one of the funky rocky things was Romeo and Juliet in the duck. What? We all looked at each other. What is he saying? Duck? Duck? Hmmm dark? But still it didn’t make sense. At one point he said, “Am I confusing?” I thought of saying yes, but didn’t think it would help much, so I just smiled and said “No! You are fine.” Yet another delightful character to add to our mix.

BIG TV



We were going to spend the next day going around Hanoi and looking at the sites of the city. First of all we shopped and bought cutesy Vietnamese hat decorations. Then we went to some cool gardens and the first Vietnamese library, where the books are huge stone tablets that have Chinese characters engraved in them. Eventually we went to the Ho Chi Min museum. That was interesting because none of us were quite sure who he was, and the whole modernistic, funky museum was very supportive of him.

But eventually we were so exhausted after walking around the whole city for hours that we needed to relax. We decided to try to see a Vietnamese movie at the theater. We found the nice little man who had been taking us around the city in his little bicycle chariot where he drives in the back and we ride in the front.

It is perfect because you have an unblemished view of the city streets---the huge tall trees lining the roads amidst the tall, slender, elegant French-style architecture, the women carrying poles on their backs laden with fruit baskets at each end, and the Vietnamese on lunch breaks chowing down at street stalls.

So we told him, “We want to see a movie.”
“Oh! You want to go shopping?”
“No, we want to see a film.” (We begin pantomiming watching a film.)
“Oh! You want to get food?”
“No, we want to go to the theater.” (Pantomiming even more exuberantly now.)
“Oh! You want to go to hotel?”
“No, we want to go to the cinema.” (Giving up pantomiming)

This banter continued for a while, much to everyone’s frustration. Finally I said, “We want to see big TV!”
“Big TV! Oh yes! Big TV! I know! I take you!” He pantomimes a big TV.

We all giggled at the fact that it took him so long and were ecstatic to finally have broken the language barrier.

We got in two different bicycle chariots and after about 20 minutes we realized after passing the same spot we had been picked up, that our faithful driver didn’t know where he was going. Yet, after awhile, he finally stopped and said, “Big TV!”

Ahh, we looked over and saw a TV store selling Panasonic TVs, not just any TVs though, big ones.

NO, no! We tried to tell him that it wasn’t what we wanted. “But big TV!” he pointed. A man on the street tried to help us too, but he had never heard of the word movie theater either. Eventually we gave up on the movie option and decided to try to have him take us to somewhere close by on the map, we pointed at a theater where they put on plays and asked him to take us there.

He seemed to know where that was so we drove along for another 20 minutes until he pulled up to a bookstore. NO! A bookstore?! We started to tell him it was wrong, but finally decided to just get out.

We gave him 30,000 dong, the first agreed on price, but he was annoyed as well. “No! More money! I drove around and around!”
“But you didn’t take us where we wanted to go!” So we made a dash inside the bookstore, to hide-out from the disgruntled driver.

We never found our movie theater, but a sweet lady in the book store immediately knew what we were talking about when we asked. It was too faraway to go to, but oh well. We learned overall in Vietnam that even if people appear to speak English, looks can be quite deceiving.




SAIGON YUM

I know you must be astonished that I haven’t spoken about food yet. But I saved it for now because I wanted this blog entry to have a nice ending.

The night we arrived, my first sight of food stalls added to my laughing problem. Many people in Hanoi sit on little tiny chairs at the street vendor stalls. It looks like the adults have pulled up to the kid’s table at Thanksgiving. It was so cute to see the stools, and we couldn’t get over them. Look for pics online…

The first night we walked to the first food stall we saw and sat down on the wee chairs. For about a dollar each, we feasted on Vietnamese style BBQ. Each table had its’ own grill with a Bunsen burner like thing under it, where we put beef and cooked it ourselves. They also gave us green onions and tomatoes to add to the beef. With our chopsticks we pushed it around on the grill until it was just the right shade of well-done but not too burnt. Then we dipped it with a tomato in a rather Thai tasting spicy, flavorful sauce, and it was perfect! Or maybe it was also that we were starved, either way it was fun.

We also saw the French influence because they served us baguettes with the meal, so different from Thailand where bread is scarce at most food stalls. Then for breakfast at Ocean Star II we also had baguettes with eggs, as well as Vietnamese pho.

Alice was super excited about foo, a noodle soup with chicken and herbs, because she had it all the time at home in Calli. But she was disappointed because she said it tastes better in Callifornia. Heehee..I didn’t think it was too bad, but I enjoy Thai soups better cuz I think they have more flavor. Maybe I will just have to eat pho in California though before I decide Thai noodle soup is better..

Oh man! And the coffee! So good! I was eager to try Vietnamese-style coffee that I had heard about in the States. One morning after eating some dough bread for breakfast we went to a café, which even had the mini-chairs. The coffee was brought in a small clear glass with a spoon in it. I mixed the coffee with the sweetened condensed milk that was at the bottom of the glass. It had such a rich, strong taste. It was like eating a brownie minus the chocolate.



Later on we indulged at a fancy café where I got my own mini-press pot of coffee on top of my cup. Then I after letting the coffee seep for about 5 minutes I mixed it with the milk. Yet again it was amazing. Of course since caffeine and me are mortal enemies, I was up all night after my two coffees in one day. But hey, I’m only in Vietnam once, so I don’t regret it too much..

Our last food delight was when we treated ourselves to a nicer restaurant. We got a dish where they give you circular sheets of rice paper, which looks just like wax paper, and we put sticky green, and white noodles, basil, cucumbers, pork ribs, and a spicy sauce and rolled it up like a wrap. Wow, so cool! Ahh, as one of my co-workers says, the joys of being mortal, being able to indulge in delicious food.

NEXT STEP

I hope I survive another week of intense work. If I keep thinking about elfs and big TVs and laughing..I think I can make it through.

Woohoo!