Days 74-75 Friday-Saturday January 22-23 Hanoi, Vietnam

We didn’t spend much time in Hanoi since we’ll be back up here with my (our) parents in a few weeks.  Yet while we were in the city, we quickly got to know its layout, and were able to confirm many of the stereotypes that preceded it, the first of which was that this place is busy!

We finally made it to Vietnam!  Tania on the cusp of Lake Ho Tai.

And damn these people love to honk their horns!  Whether its to inform unfortunate people that happen to be approaching the same intersection, or to tell one of the infinite number of scooters to get out of the way, horns are honked and honked and honked.  And with such narrow streets as those in the old quarter, that makes for a loud and clustered environment.  Crossing the street is a talent, too, one that every person better learn if they’re going to survive in the big city.

I called the whole thing annoying.  Tania then coined the epic term “Hanoi-ing”.  Similar to when the entire city of Shanghai was under construction for the 2010 world expo and we coined that getting “Shanghai’d”, being Hanoi-ing is a term we’ll carry with us well back into the US.  Either way, at first glance, the street scene in Hanoi seems chaotic, but after giving it a few minutes, you’ll notice that (as Vanessa so wisely put it) the whole thing is organized chaos.  To the untrained eye, it’s chaos.  But to those that are familiar with it, it flows as simply and efficiently as possible.  Therefore, organized chaos. 

Friday night we got to our hotel late and walked down the street for some authentic Pho.  We had read that in Vietnam, a restaurant’s appearance oppositely reflects the quality of the food, so we picked the dungiest looking joint that was still open at 9pm.  And boy was the pho delicious.  Such a simple dish that warms the soul like a good chicken soup.  So comforting that  we headed back to call it an early night.

On Saturday, we walked through the sporadic rain over to Lake Ho Tay (HOO WAT?  HO TAY!) and browsed through several wats, stopping for a delicious lunch at a spot named Vine.  We had delicious comfort food while taking the elegant setting, and while getting to know the manager who also recommended some good restaurants in Hue and Hoi An.  That gave us enough fuel to stomp across the rest of the city through the rain, finally getting us to the train station so we could buy all of our tickets for the upcoming trek through Vietnam before they were sold out due to the madness known as Tet.  Luckily we were well trained in dealing with pushy sales people like those who assaulted us at the train station because without that training, we would have 1) never been able to properly purchase the tickets we needed, and 2) fend off people trying to get a piece of the pie we were buying.  But we did it, and treated ourselves to a nice dinner at the Lonely Planet staple 69 Bar-Restaurant.  Hehe.

Being the old fogies that we now are, we followed dinner with a quick bia hoi (preservative-free beer sold for $.10 on every street corner) amongst all of the other locals and expats sitting on children’s plastic chairs.  Then off to bed.  We had a bus to catch the next day to the Cuc Phuong National Park,

So it was a very quick trip to Hanoi, but it gave us enough of a glimpse of the city to get us very excited to really explore it with the parents in a few weeks.

Day 15 - Saturday November 21 Beijing China

Highlights

-      -  Tian’ Anmen Square is big.  Bigger than we ever fathomed.

-      -  Chinese like to hock loogies and spit them on the sidewalks.  Cool for me because I’m okay with it, but a nightmare for Tania’s eyes and ears.

-       -  First food experiment complete!  Pork intestines aren’t too shabby, as long as they’re fried and drenched in yummy Chinese brown sauce.

-      -    Street hagglers are ubiquitous, and like to touch Tania, which Tania doesn’t like.  At all.

-       -  Our hotel is apparently under renovation because they haven’t vacuumed our carpet in our months and there’s a fine scent of paint wafting through our room.  At least the beds are as soft as a brick wall.

The Craig-has-too-much-time-on-his-hands version:

Okay, if we last thought that we definitely ain’t in Kansas anymore, now we’re sure we’re not even on Earth anymore.  Within walking 5 minutes from our hotel around a few loogie-ridden sidewalks and corners, we were minimized to ants amongst the extreme grandeur of Tian’ Anmen Sqaure.  For as far as the eye can see (which isn’t too far since the smog limits how far the eye can take you), there were monstrous government buildings surrounding a square that make a football field look like a foosball table standing inside of a convention center.  I knew the commies went big to show how powerful they are, but this redefines what big means in my head.  Dear Lord this square was massive.  So massive that we were winded by the time we walked from one end to the other.

Here are some pictures that hopefully show some sense of the scale of the area:

Knowing we were going to explore the square again, along with the Imperial Palace (aka Forbidden City) with our tour group on Monday, we picked our jaws off of the cold cement floor, took our pictures with the gigantic painting of Mao on the Imperial Palace’s front gate (below), and continued to ignore the people trying to sell us God knows what as we darted out of the square.  By this point we were starving, so we looked for the closest non-touristy yet hopefully-doesn’t-serve-dog restaurant, which we found close by (hopefully we were right about the dog thing).

While Tania ordered some sort of eggplant dish (which looked nothing like the picture in the menu when they brought it out), while I decided to not waste any time in ordering a dish I’d never have in the US, and opted for the lightly fried pork intestines in brown sauce.  I want to so badly explore the unique aspects of this culture while we’re here and to escape all of the standard pitfalls, but after eating this dish, I know it’s not going to be a quick or easy transition.  The first bite seemed to have a nice crunch as I broke through the outer fried shell, and the (what I’m guessing was the) intestine had a very soft calamari-like chewiness to it, but as soon as I got past that point, something squirted from the middle, and this immediately struck my nervous tourist gag reflex button.  I wasn’t close to puking or spitting it up, but it tightened my nerves for the rest of the meal so that I wasn’t relaxed to enjoy this new dish.  Hopefully this is temporary and will ease over time as we explore more unique dishes, but like I said, this transition isn’t going to be smooth.  (Sorry to let you down Steph, but please know I’m trying.)  And Tania will be close behind.  She tried a bite of my dish and handled it well, but we’ll see how she does when she gets her own full dish of pigeon liver or whatever it is she has the gall to order.

Now that we were initiated into the local cuisine, it was time to explore the streets.  We stumbled upon a market full of small stands selling the obvious trinkets and chotchkies (is that right Sabby?) as well as snacks like grilled cherry or steak kabobs.  Very cool little area of town, but it wasn’t what we were looking for.  We needed to replenish our reading supplies.   I had finished the book “Lost On Planet China” that Bridgett gave me (THANKS B!!!  Hope you and your little family are doing great!), and Tania finished a little book named Twilight that Roxy gave her.  You may have heard of it.  It’s now turned from a book into an addiction for Tania, so she needed the follow-up New Moon like a fat kid needs cake (that’s quoting a song, not an insensitive jab, parents x2).  Well, after looking in every bookstore between Kyoto and Beijing, we finally found an international bookstore that had New Moon.  And Tania beamed with joy knowing she could continue her affair with Edward again. 

I was equally as giddy because this bookstore also had the new Dan Brown book, The Lost Symbol.  Even though it’s a massive hard back and will be tough to lug around, I felt it was worth it knowing how well it would keep me entertained during our several overnight train rides that we have ahead of us over the next few weeks.  And since I read slower than Tania walks, it will last me a good while.

Happy as clams, we skipped over to the mall (video view below) for a quick Starbucks free wifi session then grabbed a bunch of groceries from a big ol’ grocery store (not a street market that will over-charge this laowai) for our room.  Knowing I didn’t have to haggle with local vendors filled me with joy.

Click for video of Beijing mall

Now back in our room, we’re going to relax, start our books, and stay warm.  And tomorrow, we’ll meet our tour group, which we can’t wait to happen since we’ll be spending the next three weeks with them.  So cool!