Vietnam part 2: Hanoi

We arrived in Hanoi Friday afternoon. After some brief trouble with the taxi driver not understanding my father's less than impressive attempts to pronounce his own suburb name we were on our way.

For reasons I still don't quite understand, Vietnam have scheduled blackouts in each area due to not having enough electricity to supply everyone all the time. Apparently they buy it as opposed to making it and there's a bit of a discrepancy between supply and demand. On the day we arrived in Hanoi, our suburb was electricity free.

After a tour of the 4 story, deep and narrow house there wasn't a huge amount to do within its walls (what with there being no electricity. GEEZUS) so me and Steph went fruit shopping in the surrounding streets with Twee. Everywhere we went people stared. I think the fact that there were Caucasians in such a locals-dominated area, especially since one of those Caucasians had red hair and happened to be taller than anyone else as far as the eye could see, generated a lot of attention.

That night we headed into town for dinner at a restaurant where you can actually go into the kitchen and simply point at the various things you want. I left Twee to do the pointing and just stood in awe. After dinner we went to my dad's favourite bar in Hanoi- Bucket Bar. Now I was thinking it would be a fairly quiet sort of place full of locals.

I was wrong.

My dad's favourite bar was packed full of young backpackers staying in the hostel across the road. There were coloured lights and loud music. It was a club, that must have doubled as a creche, judging by the average age of the patrons. After one and a half Long Island ice tea buckets, we decided Dad had had enough and that it was a good idea to cut him off. So we swapped his half full bucket for an empty one when his back was turned. Unfortunately, it didn't fool him and he noticed that his drink was considerably dryer than before.

At around the time that people started drunkenly dancing on the bar we made our exit and found a taxi home. Dad was rambling away in the front seat about he'd like to open his own bar and have proper bar dancers- scantily clad Vietnamese women to be exact. Yes, cutting him off was a good idea. Shame it didn't work.

Getting to sleep wasn't easy that night. there was a strange cacophony of sounds, mostly from an indeterminable source. Firstly, there was a dog barking. This mingled in with what sounded like someone dropping planks of wood on a tile floor in the middle of a very aggressive ping pong match. On top of this, there was a sound that can only be described as being exactly like an army of people walking up and down the stair withs woks strapped to their feet. It's still a mystery as to what exactly was going on in that street. 

On Saturday we went into town again for some shopping. We started with an early lunch (second breakfast if you will) of Pho Ga at one of the many restaurants lining the streets. I manage to embarrass myself with the simplest of things, including eating soup and that day was no exception. I was perched on a stainless steel stool, in a chiffon maxi skirt. Steph asked me to move over because she didn't have enough table space. My body moved but my stool sort of stayed where it was and I went tumbling downwards- thankfully able to catch myself before I ended up arse on floor and covered in soup.

Vietnam is a great place to shop for a few select things: DVDs and paintings.

You will only pay 25,000 dong a disc. That's just over $1 AUD. It's madness.

Now yes, they are illegal and yes you could say it's also morally wrong but who cares? Most of them are surprisingly good quality. Just avoid the movies that are still in cinemas because they're not even worth trying to watch most of the time. Unless you like hearing the audience cough, or seeing the screen move out of view when the camera falls down.

As for paintings, in Hanoi at least there are a tonne of art shops. It's all hand painted and it's all cheap. there are plenty of copies of well known works- Lichtenstein is quite popular- as well as a few original designs or ideas that seem to keep popping up from store to store- they're really big on the four seasons thing. I got two small square canvas paintings for $18, which is ridiculously cheap compared to what I'd pay at home. There's something so nice about buying art. it really makes me feel good and ti was nice to actually be able to afford some.

That night we cooked our own dinner. We went into town and sat on tiny plastic chair at a street food place and cooked the most delicious beef. While we were eating, a woman carrying a basket of some unidentifiable fried dessert things came past about 4 times, trying to convince us to buy some. Clearly, as we were eating dinner, we weren't really interested in dessert.

After our meal we went across the road, back to Bucket bar for more buckets and inappropriateness. We sat out the front and hadn't been there more than ten minutes when a different dessert lady came around to offer her desserts. At this point, after seeing them so much, i was getting pretty damn curious so I asked her how much they were. Without responding, she started filling up a bag. I turned away to find my wallet and when i looked back, she was attempting to empty her entire basket of fried goods into a single freezer bag- for me. I tried to explain that I only wanted one, my sister and father doubled up with laughter beside me, but that didn't work so well. We managed to cut her down to half the amount and send her on her way.

Not long after, the original dessert lady came past and tried once again to offer me fried things. Finally, i had a reason to say no! I pointed at the freezer bag and said "I already bought some" and she fixed me with this look as if she though I was solely responsible for everything bad in the world. She stood there for quite some time, trying to stare me down and guilt me into buying more fried things, but I stood my ground. Eventually, she left. It may have been the funniest 15 minutes of my life.

Vietnam, being a communist country, has a 10pm curfew on all bars and restaurants. The locals, who depend so much on the tourists to make money, ignore that curfew. at around midnight the police came round and kicked everyone out of Bucket Bar. Me and Steph were standing on the street, waiting for a taxi when a very helpful yet slightly creepy local man who had more hair on this mole on his face than on top of his head offered to drive us home on the back of his bike. Being drunk and impatient, we accepted. Thankfully we got home without any trouble.

On the Sunday, our last full day in Vietnam, I didn't use my camera at all. Dad had a housewarming party and i spent the entire day wishing i was any where else. I wasn't in the mood to be socialising with strangers, particularly strangers who seem to think it's acceptable to get drunk to the point of puking in the middle of the day, and strangers with whom I had a considerable language barrier. Seriously though, don't give Vietnamese people alcohol- they drink like crazy! Middle aged people, throwing up at 4pm! What is the world coming to? Eventually, most of the guests had left and all that remained were a few stragglers. Instead of lying in a dark room by myself or plonking on the couch with some DVDs and a bowl of pasta like I really wanted to do, I had to go for a walk around a huge lake.

Eventually everyone cleared off and I happily made spaghetti arrabiata (the sauce was from a jar, fyi) and plonked on the couch with some DVDs. We watched two movies, with my dad snoring on the couch next to us the entire time. I woke him up no less than four times and told him to go to bed but he'd just say "in a minute" then promptly fall back to sleep.

The next day we'd hoped to head into town fairly early to make the most of our last day. Unfortunately, because the irresponsible party host (my father) had gotten drunk in the middle of the day, there was a lot of cleaning up to do from the day before. I, smug because I hadn't drank at all, felt no guilt at all in sleeping in and then sitting on the couch staring off into space and eating mango while the cleaning was taking place. I was the only one who didn't spill any drinks, there for I should be absolved from mopping up the sticky balcony, yes? I think so.

At around noon we finally left and went into town for the last time. We didn't have much spare time but we had lunch (Pho Bo this time) and did some quick browsing. I had 1,000,000 left still (considering I withdrew 2,500,000 at the start of the trip, I'm quite impressed with myself) which I was hoping to spend but nothing doing. We went back to the house for one last time to pack and then jumped in a taxi to the airport.

The trip home was even more torturous than the trip there. From Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh a fat little girl was sat behind me and kicked my chair the whole way. I told Steph that I would be immeasurably delighted if I was behind her on the next leg so i could exact my revenge. I shocked Steph a little by following up with "she was fat so I wanted to kick her anyway."

Let me just point out fat children make me really angry. It's wrong, unfair and bad parenting. Fat kids are set up for a life of obesity before they can even make conscious decisions about their health and it's a very difficult cycle to break if you've been brought up to eat wrong.

It was an overnight flight which meant I should have been sleeping but of course was completely unable to. I did, however, watch a lot of movies. I was truly happy to get home to a land where showers have walls and there a reasonable noise pollution laws. I've realised that travelling with other people isn't really something I enjoy. I got home, unpacked, showered without fearing tinea/serious injury from the wet floor and went straight to Top Ryde for sushi train with James.

There's no place like home.

-m xx

Vietnam part 1: Hoi An

On the morning of Thursday 21st April I woke up at 6:30am, to the sound of my dad leaving the hotel room to go for a jog or something equally insane given the 38 degree, 80% humidity conditions in Hoi An, Vietnam. If I hadn't wanted to kill him the morning before when he was singing on the shuttle ride to the airport I sure did then. Thankfully, and uncharacteristically I fell back to sleep and managed to stay that way until about 8am.

The breakfast at The Glory Hotel was pretty much the best you can expect in Vietnam. A quirky blend of continental, Asian and British, with french pastries, fresh fruit, pho, and omelettes on demand. Our first stop was one of the countless tailoring shops in Hoi An. We were there for about 20 minutes at best, which was long enough for Steph to order two dresses. It was about 9:30am and they told us that the dresses would be ready at 6pm. We did a loop of the street and paused briefly outside a different tailoring shop. All of a sudden, the woman who'd fitted Steph at the previous store poke her head out. "You want to come inside, have look?" (if I'm one hundred percent honest her English was probably better than that.) "No thank you" we replied. She let us go easily, which should have tweaked suspicion. A few doors along, Steph noticed another dress that caught her fancy and she made the mistake of pointing it out to me. The same woman appeared again, trotting after us. "This my shop too!" (admit it, the broken English makes the story far more amusing). Within 10 minutes, she'd scored herself another dress order. And that was how my sister spent $100 on one street.

 

It was about this time that I put a blanket ban on Steph buying dresses.

From there we went to one of the many small bike rental places. It was then that I made a rookie error. We knew it was 3km to the beach, and that Dad's block of land that he hoped to show us was further along. We knew we had to ride back as well. It didn't take a genius to work out that we were looking at 7km on a bike, in the South-East Asian sun and none of us had bothered putting sunscreen on that morning.

I got burnt for the first time in I-don't-know-how-long. Like properly burnt, as opposed to slight redness that's brown by the next day. I even peeled a little bit- on my forehead and nose. The shame. I cannot tell you. I'm Australian, and I'm sun conscious- I do not burn. I certainly do not peel. And on my FACE of all places? On the plus side, my arms are pretty damn brown now- except of course for the thin white line from wear my bangle sat.

We returned to the hotel, saddle sore and sun burnt, in search of cocktails. It was while I was reading by the pool, sipping my near-undrinkable-due-to-the-shear-amount-of-booze caipirinha that I discovered that the backs of my hands had too fallen victim to some rare sun exposure and reacted by coming up a rather brilliant shade of pink. Thankfully this was one part of me that didn't peel.

 

That night we had dinner at Nha Xanh- a German owned, water front restaurant boasting the best ice cream in Hoi An. I enjoyed a delicious feta filled ravioli with an arrabiata style sauce, two Mango Jack cocktails (mango, passionfruit and vodka. i think they made it using gelato as opposed to real fruit. Genius) and a scoop of passionfruit gelato. The owner, who also acts as the head chef, actually came out to ask the customers if everything was ok with their meals. It's my dad's favourite restaurant in Hoi An, which is saying something because it takes a lot for him to set foot in a non-traditional restaurant when overseas.

  

On Friday morning me and Steph relaxed at the Na Spa with a massage each. She tried the ninety minute hot stone therapy and I went for a sixty minute Swedish massage. We were in the massage room for about 30seconds when the masseuse turned to Steph and exclaimed "take off your blouse but keep your underwear." She was torn between being taken aback by the abruptness and being relieved that she was allowed to keep her underwear on.

With my extra time after my massage, I had a mani/pedi. When Steph came back down to wait while I got my nails did, they brought some delicious tea over to us. We both wanted to know what liquid concoction could taste so good so we asked what kind of tea it is. My nail attendant wasn't sure of the English word so she asked another member of staff, pointing at a chunk of ginger sitting on the front desk. The second girl picked up the ginger and held it out to Steph, with a look of deep confusion that clearly meant "why the fuck am I giving this crazy white woman a piece of ginger?" as the entire spa erupted into those cute giggles that only Asians seem to be capable of. When we'd calmed down a bit, the receptionist came over to us and quietly muttered "it's lemon tea."

 That afternoon I went on a quest for one of my favourite foods- Chicken Bahn Mi. Now I may have given a summary of these delicious rolls (commonly referred to as Mascot Rolls because there's place is Mascot that is so good at making them, they have a line out the front all day every day) in a previous post but just in case I missed some vital information, Bahn Mi are Vietnamese style bread rolls. You can get chicken, pork, pate, egg or even schnitzel with salad and various yummy goods like coriander, mayonnaise and soy sauce. It probably sounds completely bizarre but they're amazing. The bread it the perfect blend of crunchy and fluffy (Thanks to the French influence) the chicken is perfectly marinated and they're far more generous with their portions than, say, subway. And far cheaper- at Mascot it's $4.50 for a roll. Now unfortunately I discovered that there is nowhere to get chicken bahn mi in Vietnam. Only pork, pate or egg- none being things I enjoy eating. 

At 12:30pm we were picked up and transported in sweet air conditioning, on cushioned seats to Hoi An domestic terminal, where I was overjoyed to discover they sold my favourite (German) chocolate- Rittersport Knusperflakes, for about $4.50 for a 100g block.

Who says everything in Vietnam is cheap?

Coming up next- Hanoi

-m xx

Home; Vietnam Part 1

So.
I'm back from the land of no facebook, no walled showers, no chicken bahn mi (Mascot 1, Vietnam 0) and no tolerance to alcohol, from what I've seen.
Seriously. Don't give a group of Vietnamese people endless amounts of wine. It will end badly. But more on that later (spoiler alert!)

I went back to work today. It was incredibly disappointing. And I've have a dull headache on and off for like a week, which is never fun when you spend 6 hours in front of a computer. And talking on the phone to people who often seem to enjoy sharing random things about their personal life- despite the fact that I don't care about your dermalogical issues, or your pet cat's affinity with perching on your tin roof, I just care about you booking in and paying your deposit so I can get my $10 commission.

Sales person honesty. There's nothing like it.

So on Wednesday the airport shuttle arrived 20 minutes early. It had been booked for 7:15am, then the night before they rang and told us they'd have to pick us up at 7am and of course, what time did they show up? 6:40am. Seriously. 20 minutes early. How stupid is that? I mean what if we hadn't even showered? They robbed me of 20 minutes of watching Sunrise on the couch with James. I couldn't finish my totally amazeballs juice. And then of course I had to deal with 20min extra of my Dad talking to us but really to himself (you know, when people ask questions or make comments about something you're not involved in, like a TV show they're watching for example, and then expect you to respond with something other than "hmm.")

Of course, as things generally work in the world, despite running 20minutes early, our plane was 40 minutes delayed. Delays are like some big secret at the airport. Seriously, if it's less that 90 minutes they don't bother making an announcement. Which means you're sitting there, scared to go to the bathroom in case the boarding call comes while you're in there and somehow everyone before you gets on the plane in the 3 minute round trip. I read a Marian Keyes article on the very subject of how horrid it is to fly and she brings up the very issue of delays, and the way the staff seem to pretend there is no delay, almost like you won't notice that you're taking off an hour after it was scheduled. I mean, after all the delay, you end up taxi-ing for about 3 years while they wait for a bit of space in that tiny thing they call the sky to take off in. And once they land at the other end, it's almost as if the airport suddenly realises they need to get the walkway ready, so that people can actually disembark.

The worst bit is, it's like I'm the only person on the damn flight who knows these things. When they call for rows "25 to 46" to board and 90% of the people run to line up, so they can get on the plane first- just to have that 5 minutes extra of holding up traffic by messing with your over head locker, accidentally sitting on you seat belt and having to scramble around for it, and checking the entertainment system even though you know the chances of it being usable before takeoff are slim to none. You know that no one in the rows called have bothered lining up because the line is overflowing with people who get ready 5 minutes before the predicted boarding time. Honestly though, if I worked at the gates, and I called certain rows, and someone from another row tried to board, I'd tell them where to stick it. I'd make them wait till the very end to board. Which, in reality, would be a blessing for them.

Then when you're finally on the plane, there's those irritating people who seem to think they have to put their hand luggage in the overhead lockers as soon as is humanly possible. You know the ones, it's about 85% of passengers. They stop in front of you, usually excruciatingly close to your row, and spend about 10 minutes trying to shove their above-the-carry-on-size-limit suitcase into the overhead, before finally acknowledging that another bag couldn't possibly fit in the inch wide space left and finding another section of the locker to shove it into. Then they give you that casual apologetic there's-nothing-I-can-do-smile and every time I feel like kicking them.

A word for the wise: Find your row. Get in your row. Wait for a space in the progression down the plane aisle. Put your bag in an overhead locker, with the minimum amount of your body protruding into the walking aisle, so someone could squeeze past if necessary.

WHY IS THAT SO HARD FOR PEOPLE?

If i ran the world of travel, there would be one issue that would be more important to me to fix than any other. Children. I would ban them from flights. Unless they have no arms or legs and are physically incapable of making noise. I seem to be a magnet for children who enjoy kicking the seat in front of them and there's not much you can do about it. Unless you're Inspector Gadget, you can't kick their chair back. And you can't hit them because there's no such thing as "grounds for provocation" when it comes to child abuse. And then there's the screaming. Oh the screaming... Honestly, what are people with small children doing travelling anyway? I can't think of anything worse than travelling with kids. My parents took me and my sister to America when we were 7 and 11 respectively, and I'm grateful but seriously. They couldn't go to a Yankees game because I didn't want to. Do you know how much I hate my former self for that? Men in baseball uniforms!

If you haven't fled the plane by this point, it's finally time for takeoff. Which is when things get bearable for a short time. You get food and drink every 3-4 hours. There are a tonne of movies to watch, games to play, music to listen to and if you're well prepared, books to read. You may be lucky enough to get a window seat which not only gives you the view but it grants you the power to control the light in the plane. Oh yeah. You can blind that little screaming brat with the glares of the setting sun. On paper, flying is kind of like a lazy Sunday on the couch. You watch movies, you don't shower, you wear stretchy pants and take of your shoes. Anyone who has not flown internationally, you may think flying is great fun. Maybe it's a novelty- something you've only done a handful of times. You. Are Wrong. In reality, flying is worse than enduring "Friday" by Rebecca Black on loop for 24 hours. You're sitting up. For as long as 13 hours at a time. And often, you get to wander around an airport for 2 or 3 hours only to sit up for another 8. As soon as you find a position that makes sleeping possible (usually some sideways, upright foetal position with your head against the window- no mean feat when you're 5'8") someone near you invariably coughs. Or a baby starts crying. Or the annoying beep signifying the seat belt button turning on sounds. Or a child kicks your chair in one last attempt to drive you insane- they of course are slumbering peacefully.

If I could somehow skip the flying bit, it would make my life a whole lot more awesome. Unfortunately I don't hate flying as much as I love travelling, which means it's an evil necessity of life. It's amazing to arrive at your hotel though- you may be in an entirely different country, surrounded by different smells, sounds, sights. Sometimes, you get a cold drink on arrival, or a refresher towel. Then you get to your room. There isn't much I love more than the first steps into a hotel room. Even hostels are exciting. you get to test the beds, check out what free things they have in the bathrooms (if you get a sewing kit or a razor, you know you've hit the jackpot) see if there are any cushy extras like robes and slippers. If you're in a share room such as in a hostel, you get to meet your new roommates and find out if you managed to score a bottom bunk. (Side note: When you're a kid, you fight over the top bunk. Then you hit teen years and realise that top bunks are inconvenient and at times, unsafe. Suddenly it becomes a battle to secure a bottom bunk- even though you're in trouble if you're sleeping below a fat person, a toss-and-turner or a bed wetter).

Yes, arriving is lovely. Travelling is death.

So, somehow it's 11:32pm and I have to wake up for work in 8 hours which means it's my bed time about an hour ago so that's all for part one. Which is probably a blessing because I haven't my photos uploaded yet and the trip is probably the only bit you can talk about without needing photos! I'll try and get a couple of days worth into the next post, as opposed to 20 hours. I just had a lot of things to complain about in regards to flying- and there's still the flight home. Oh jeez... I'll just say it involved a combination of two things I hate, all in one evil demon child.

Oh and You may have noticed an absence of HAWPs so I'll try and post two this weekend so those of you who have nothing better to do on a weekend other than watch youtube videos on my blog don't miss out.

-m xx