When I Will Find Out About Extending...

So, I've been as patient as possible with finding out about extending and this PCVL position. However, there are vague dates that have been thrown out there. With that, I should know by the end of next week, so keep your eyes peeled for a blog post sometime close to then. Keep your fingers crossed that all goes well! All that patience is beginning to unwind...

Talk to you soon,

Garrett

Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)

Day 13 + 14 in Ho Chi Minh City -

Day 1:

Our bus from Dalat to HCMC was supposed to be 6 hours long. It ended up being 8 1/2: how long it takes to get from my site to Phnom Penh; it felt like a nice taste of home. So, we arrived into the largest city in Vietnam, our last stop, simply expecting everything to go so wrong (every other group's experiences were terrible). We got dropped off and had no idea where we were. We look at the address for our hotel: Pham Ngu Lau. Great! Our location: Pham Ngu Lao District...so did we get led astray to a general area and not a specific street? We ask a moto driver, and he simply points us in the right direction without giving us much strife for not taking his moto. "That way, to the left," he seemed to say (he was gesturing and speaking in Vietnamese). We turn left, and lo and behold we are on the correct street two blocks from our destination. We walk to our hotel down an alley way and as we walked in he said, "Oh. I'm sorry. I sold your room. You said you would arrive 2:00pm, but it is now 4:30p. I didn't know if you were just going to be late, so I booked a room at family hotel just next door. It is a bigger, nicer room (a family room). It is usually more expensive, but I want to give it to you for the same price as this one. Is that okay?" Is that okay?! What's going on? Excuse me. Excuse me! Can somebody please help explain why everything was working out so well? Hmmm, so our friends that we met in Hoi An had arrived only a couple of hours earlier and text us at that very moment that we got into the hotel that they were at the nearby Subway (Subway!) on the same street as our hotel. What?! We walk to the Subway. It's only 3 blocks away. Hello!!! Why is this working out so well. At this point, by the way, Jill and I were still not feeling well. So, we were in shock. Subway was delicious, if you were wondering. Right before we got there, Jill added, "I bet they'll be out of tuna. Watch." We turn right to walk into Subway: "Tuna special: 40% off. 50,000 VND ($2.50) for one 6" sandwich" Stop it. Stop it. Seriously. We met Rachel and Angela and hung out for the next several hours until Jill and I both retired to our room. We still weren't feeling that great when we saw the commercial for Pizza Hut. We had to. We just had to. We did. We called and ordered delivery to our room one large cheese pizza. It was glorious, enough so that we toasted slices. We called it a night.

Day 2:

I woke up at 7:40a with a sty under my eyelid. The pain was sharp and intermittent. Here it was. Of course. The last day. I wasn't feeling so hot, and here I was, standing in front of a mirror, staring at my blood shot eye hoping it might go away. At breakfast, I used warm water with napkins as a "hot compress" for my eye and after a couple of hours, it started to feel better. And then, my cold started to go away. And then, my abdomen started to relax. Fantastic. By the way, breakfast was scrambled eggs, half a grilled tomato, baguette, iced coffee with milk, and a sausage (or...a hot dog, I found some mustard and ketchup for it). Afterwards, we went to this park 30 min away which was laced with flowers and statues of dragons. It was pretty beautiful (minus the not-so-pretty water). We all walked around for awhile and eventually ended up on a Ferris wheel (one that moved at a normal rate and wasn't 1/4 the size it should be). After that we headed back to the hotel by taxi. Fruit juice stand? Yes. My selection: guava, passion fruit, orange. After that, Rachel and Angela left for Phnom Penh on their bus and Jill and I parted ways for the next part of the day. She went to get some trinkets for people back in her community while I walked to the War Remnants Museum. For your information, the Vietnam War is referred to as "The American War" in Vietnam, for obvious reasons.

The War Remnants Museum:

The museum had a 15,000 VND ($0.75) entry fee. The museum was inundated with tourists of all nationalities (including Vietnamese). I felt almost nervous walking around, ever so aware of my being American. It's hard not to be even more aware of this when you walk into the "Agent Orange and its Effects" room and a young Vietnamese girl, who is walking in front of me, holds the door open for me. The building was four stories tall with a "show room" outside of the main edifice featuring a mock-up of what were prisons for women (where blown-up-picture of several women clinging to the bars of the cell door were gasping for fresh air) and "tiger cages" which were 3m x 2m x 1.5m, the last one being the height, where, during the hot season, 5-7 men would be kept and during the cold season, 2-3 men. Inside the building they had several sections: children's drawings of peace, countries of the world who supported Vietnam at the time, memorials and commemorations to the Americans who opposed the war, the history of American involvement starting with the French in the early 50's, the use of and after-effect of Agent Orange (which has counterparts: white, blue, purple, etc), torture methods used, and a gallery donated by the State of Kentucky of photographs from journalists (half of them Vietnamese). The photographs were stunning and had you staring at them for a little bit longer than the initial glance after reading each one's caption (e.g. "Mr. Ho's three children, dead."). Some of the photos were those you've likely seen (i.e. soldiers crouching through rice paddies) and those you might have not (e.g. a man holding the 1/3 of the remains of a assumed V.C. soldier). I spent a good 2 hour in the War Remnants Museum.

After this, I went back to the room where Jill met me an hour later. We're currently watching 127 hours. My day started with friendship and serenity, transitioned to war and violence and seems to be ending with solitude and reflection (and amputations). Bravo to James Franco, by the way.

We head back to Phnom Penh, tomorrow. Our travel time on the bus should be six hours, however, it's Khmer New Year, where everyone GETS OUT of the city to go back to their "homeland" (provinces where their families live), so it should be either calm or CRAZY getting in. It should be six hours, but it might take nine. We'll see. Anyhow, I'll probably not post for a week or so. I've done a good amount for now. This is the end of my Khmer New Year vacation, and it was absolutely splendid. Vietnam is a beautiful, beautiful country with delicious foods and some really nice people. I hope at some point in my life I can come back and spend a little more time, now that I have a better idea of what to do, what to eat and where to go.

Talk to you soon,

Garrett

Dalat

Days 11 + 12 in Vietnam: Dalat

Let's start with the 5 hour bus ride that made one 20 min stop and another 45 min one where the reason we stopped was because of the bus driver's lack of legitimate plates and of any registration papers. He said nothing and didn't speak to the Vietnamese guy on the bus who spoke a little English so that he could inform the rest of us. The bus driver got off the bus, walked away, then disappeared. Where'd he go? No one knew. Then, some people got off the bus 20 min later and walked back. What was going on? We were so confused. Finally, the Vietnamese man was able to help us out after speaking to the police. The bus driver finally came back and off we were to go up large hills where the engine almost failed several times. The bus rocked back and forth pretty violently here and there. Oh, yeah. I felt safe. I was laughing a lot.

We reached Dalat. I got off the bus. I wanted my fleece. My fleece! The novelty of wearing one! A couple of volunteers who were already here met us at our hotel, which was swank, by the way: the were two shower heads and 6 sprayers (3 on the left, 3 on the right). There was urinal with a sensor, and an energy-efficient toilet. Even the sink had the option of hot water. Crazy! Best $20 spent! We met up with the rest of the crew, then went off to the market where we bought strawberries (STRAWBERRIES!), mulberries (MULBERRIES!), avocados (AVOCADOS!), and almonds and cashews (NUTS!). I got a kilo of the strawberries for $1, 1/2 of one of the mulberries for $0.50, and three avocados for $1.75. I was absolutely elated. We ended up buying some Delat wine (red and white) and mixed in strawberry and passion fruit juice (respectively). We ended the night eating Pho then going back to big group's hotel to watch Zombieland together.

The following morning (this morning), we woke up to a homemade breakfast of local fruits, cornflakes, milk, yogurt, eggs, bacon, ham, passion fruit juice, and coffee. All of this was included in the price of the room. Sierra hung out with us for the beginning of the morning (she couldn't get a ride back to HCMC the day before) and had to wait for the 11p bus tonight (she just left). Around noon, Jill and I took a taxi ride to the cable cars which overlooks the city. We get there and it says "Under maintenance for April 11th"...out of all the days! Anyhow, we saved $3 by not doing that, right? Well, it cost us $3/person for the taxi ride to the cable cars then to the Crazy House, which is a house designed by a Vietnamese architect that would have members of Home Owner's Association in absolute hysteria. It basically looks like a giant tree trunk and has stairs that go every which way. You can actually stay in one of the ten rooms, each with its own strange difference. After visiting the Crazy House, we walked back towards the hotel. Or well, we thought we were heading back towards the hotel. We found a couple of drivers and write down the name of the hotel. They have no clue. Where were we? They didn't know our hotel, and everyone near our hotel knew of it. We get back in the right direction, and its the other way. It was actually quite a ways away from our hotel, but we were so happy to make it back. We spent the rest of the night chatting until going to dinner at a semi-fancy restaurant where I had sweet and sour pork with snap peas, bell peppers, cauliflower, and tomatoes. I had to leave early as I came down with something. I don't know what it was, but it hit me hard. I went white as a ghost, so I walked back to the hotel. It was amazing how much the fresh air helped. I'm fine, now.

Now, I'm in bed watching Homeland. We thought it was a movie before looking it up. It's really good so far. Okay, off to HCMC/Saigon, tomorrow.

Talk to you soon,

Garrett

Nha Trang

Days 9 and 10 in Vietnam: Nha Trang (pronounced Nah Chahng [in Vietnamese])

We arrived in Nha Trang around 7:30a. got off the bus and got cursed at by a moto driver when we wouldn't go to "his" hotel. Good start, I think. So, we walked around and found a $5/person/night hotel...it wasn't that nice. So, we had someone take us to a hotel in my Rough Guide, Seaside Hotel. We walk in, and they ask us if we want to see a "Seaside" room. "Sure," we say. It's a giant room with a big bed, albeit dirty, a/c, and hot water. How much? $20. We really didn't want to carry our stuff around any further (we'd been doing that enough), so, again, we say, "Sure." The room, btw, has view of the coast, and it was worth it. Immediately after settling in, I get my laptop out and check my e-mail/Facebook. I had previously asked some other PCVs who were traveling in Nha Trang if they could book us a room, but didn't hear back from them. Facebook message from Katie @ 1min after I logged off of the internet before our 12 hour bus ride here: "Hey! We booked you a room for $10/night right in the center of town, and the owner's are really friendly!" Whoops. Still worth the room.

We got our swimsuits on and immediately headed for the beach, which was beautiful. After jumping into the semi-warm water and laying out for a little, we headed back and met the three volunteers who were in town (they were heading to where we had just come from in 6 hours). First place we went to: Louisiane...what's good there? Local brewed beer on tap, and it. was. heavenly. Holy crap. Both Tim and I stared into the bottom of our glasses and almost simultaneously went after the last drop of our drinks. It was fantastic getting to meet up with them and hang out (and get to have them show us around and tell us what was good to do). Once our friends left on their 6:15 bus, we went out and tasted some more good foods and ended up crashing pretty early (9:30p).

Day 2 was one of our best days on the trip. We woke up, researched spas, then got an hour-long Swedish massage for $9.50; it was heavenly. We took a short trip to a fruit shake stand and got two drinks made for $1/each:

1) Avocado, Asian pear, strawberry, aloe, milk, sugar, and ice (blended);

2) Aloe (mostly), orange, milk, and sugar over ice.

From there, we took a decent walk to the beach where we found many people selling various types of seafood on the beach: lobster, scallops, giant prawns. Some were cooked, some were fresh. Luckily, we ran into a Vietnamese-American woman who was traveling with her husband. She helped us bargain. Our deal:

Giant lobster, giant prawn, 8 scallops = $10 ($5/person). Succulent is really the only word I can use to describe the tenderness of the meat. And what a better way to enjoy what probably would have been a $50 meal on the beach looking out over the sea. After lunch, we spent our sweet time in the water and catching rays on the beach before doing what, we thought, should have been incredibly simple: getting our tickets checked for Dalat (our next stop).

The Open Tour Bus Ticket Debacle:

We arrived at our bus company's station (a long walk) and told them we planned on leaving for Dalat the next day. "No, I'm sorry," the kind man who worked there told us, "your ticket is for Mui Ne, not Dalat."

Uhh, no. That's weird. "No, sorry, we paid for Dalat."

"Sorry, sir, but this pen strike through Nha Trang to Dalat and Dalat to Saigon means that you paid for another ticket. This: cancelled."
"HOGWASH, I SAY!!! HOGWASH!!!"...okay, I didn't really say that, but I did ask him to call the company in Hanoi, and they said that our ticket numbers were registered for Mui Ne, not Dalat.

"It will be 130,000 VND ($6.50) per ticket to change this, or you can call the travel agency that arranged your ticket, and if they are willing to pay the money, then you can change your ticket."

Well, that seemed real likely, but we tried it anyway. We got a ride back to our hotel and called up the place we stayed at. After a long chat, it seemed there was a misinterpretation about what we wanted to do. We originally planned on going to Dalat first to meet up with our friends and then head back to Nha Trang with them continuing out the rest of our trip together (most of it, anyway). Our friends changed their plans slightly, and we adapted to it, but we were positive we never said we wanted to go to Mui Ne. The bright side to this (even though its never a bright side to anything to pay more money) was that if we had the correct tickets, it would have been $10 more (remember the $6.50 ticket change?), so we went back to the bus company and said we would like to change our tickets. It was a woman this time, somebody different. Oh no! She isn't aware of our plight! We tell her what happened and that we would like to change our tickets.

"100,000 VND ($5), please."

Silent victory dance. Sometimes, sometimes, not doing things exactly the way you plan them to happen can have a positive outcome.

So, it's 6:00p. What should we do? Eat, of course. Eat everything. Rather than going to a restaurant or some small shop for a meal, we ate a bit of everything. Our dinner:

-Bahn xeo (with shrimp and squid) (this is the fourth time we've eaten it, and each time has been incredibly different. Perhaps I'll write simply about that.

-Bahn Mi (the sandwiches)

-Spring rolls (don't know the name)

-Sweet rice with sugar and peanuts (just tasted)

-"Potato wedges" (french fries, but good ones)

Total cost: $1.50

We also found our way to a few bars to relax. One of them was a really relaxing place called "Guava" with an American (?)...North American owner. The next one was called "Why Not?" (where we had the french fries, or chips as they call them everywhere else...or "french fried" on menus in Cambodia). The last place was called Red Apple (?). It had a heavy backpacker atmosphere. It was okay. We ended up back at our hotel, prepared our bags to be packed, then passed out (11:00p). Time just moves so much slower here in Asia. It's so easy to lose track of time but to have had none of it really spent at all.

Day 3 (leaving Nha Trang), we showered, packed our bags, then went down stairs to gather our passports. First, though, they had to check the room to make sure we didn't mess it up. They came back:

"Problem. Yes. Room. Problem."
"Huh?"

"Problem."
That's nice. "What problem?"

"The gra..."
wt.."Huh? The what?"

"The gra..."

Hmmm yeah "Can you write word down, please?"

"Gra"

Jill and I look at each other. Yeah, that's not a word.

"Yes. Gra. Problem."

"We do not understand."

So, she opens up Google translate, and the intended words "Bed stations".

Yeah, that didn't help at all. Still lost in translation. We thought that maybe she meant bed stain? Nope. Definitely didn't spill anything. Mind you, we were barely in the room and it was dirty when we got there. She began to put our passports back in the drawer. We almost grabbed them and left. We kept insisting that our bus was leaving in 10 minutes, so finally just as we were about to forcibly retrieve our passports, she gave them back. We got to the bus station and we were off in about 30 min (our bus didn't leave until 7:30a).

I'm in Dalat, now and have plenty to say about our bus ride of confusion and seemingly certain death.

Talk to you soon,

Garrett

Hoi An

We arrived in Hoi An about noon. A woman told us she could find us a hotel for $5/person, great. Our new friend from New York hopped in with us and off we went...to the one place I looked up on TripAdvisor that had about 80% of the comments in the "Terrible" category. We walked in, and it smelled extremely mildewy; bad start. We see the rooms, and the shower head is broken and the scent of chlorine from the pool reached the room. We left. Our friend was meeting someone at another hotel, so we checked it out, and it was perfect, so all three of us crashed for $5/night (a/c, (extremely) hot water, great service). We stayed for two nights.

Hoi An is a beautiful, quaint, fairly touristy little town that's 30km southeast of Dalat, Vietnam's third largest city. It's on the coast, so it was a mere 5km ride one way and 3km the other ($1/day bike rental) past rivers and rice paddies, a fairly nice way to spend your day. The water was excellent, and weather was warm. It got hot on the third day, but it was still nothing compared to Cambodia, as there were plenty of sea breezes coming in from the east.

So, what was the first thing we wanted to do within 30 min of being in Hoi An? Go to the beach, of course. We rented bikes for $1 (for the day) and rode to the far beach (5km) all the while checking out the custom tailor shops along the way. We crossed the river...

...to get to the beach, and it was a fantastic view with an ocean breeze that I had been missing for sometime. There were plenty of uphill treks, but that just meant that the way back down would be that much more fun (and easy). We ordered amazing food and some shakes that were disappointing, because they weren't cold. The water was cool but felt so refreshing. I've felt so removed from Cambodia since coming here, however, my travel mates and I can't help but compare certain things (like the fact that a lot of the men we have encountered have been very aggressive, even so much to be considered rude [by our standards, at least, even comparing that to Cambodia]). A lot of the food is similar, so it's easy to make comparisons there, however, the food is much more complex here in terms of flavor/ingredients. For example, the pho (noodle soup) is very similar to goydeeyoo (Cambodian version), except that any added spice (hot) in the Cambodian dish is a simple red pepper or a sweet chili sauce whereas they have a spicy-buffalo-wing-like sauce that doesn't just add heat but adds flavor. It's a very welcomed change.

So, that brings me to some of the food we ate:

-Ban vac (or White Rose): small rice flour dumplings with pork inside

-Ban xeo (Ban Chaio in Cambodia): rice flour pancakes filled with beansprouts. You add various herbs (like cilantro and mint) in the "pancake" then wrap it in thin rice flour paper, dip it in a thin sauce, then enjoy.

-Ban Mi: again, a meat/pate/herb/chili sandwich (baguette)

-Ban something??: essentially, Vietnamese nachos (but on wantons)...so good

Clothing:

Hoi an is known for being one of the tailoring capitols of the world. It's its main attraction when it comes to tourism. You can come here and get custom-tailored clothing for cheap (a fitted suit for around $100). I ended up getting a nice black dress shirt and a silk white tie made (I'm in love with the tie). I'll post pictures of them later. Jill got a couple of dresses and a pair of shorts made, and to be honest, while she was getting them refitted, I had wished I had gotten another shirt and a couple of more ties made...another reason to come back to Vietnam. There are clothing shops everywhere. You physically can not go farther than 20 meters without running into a whole bunch of them, hundreds. Some are better than others, I can only assume; I think made a good choice.

Market:

The last day we spent in Hoi An, our goal was to just ride around and get a last go at some local food (after picking up our clothes). We found the market while riding around on bicycles. We found the market pretty easily (right on the river). The food was bountiful and ripe; the tomatoes were enormous. After scouring the fruits and vegetable, we found our home for the next 45 mins: the food stalls. We ate mi quang at the first place, and it was to die for. It was essentially pho but with crunchy wantons, a different type of noodle and a generous portion of boneless (yeah, boneless) chicken. The next stop was more ban xeo, except this time around, these "pancakes" were not sponges of grease (back story: we went to this sit-down food-court of local food [wooden picnic-table-like benches], and ordered ban xeo for a second time. The first time, they were fluffy, but firm and dense [all in a good way]. The second time around, they

were essentially sponges of greases, dripping with what could have been several clogged arteries. Did I eat all of mine? Yes. Did I also eat one of Jill's? Yes. I did that, too. Also, at this place [and in a lot of Vietnam], you can order what's called "fresh beer". It's home brewed and served straight out of a reused bottle [of what, I can't recall]. How much, you ask? 4,000 VND or $0.20. It was pretty good.), they were (did you have to go back and read the first part of the sentence? Yeah, I thought so) thinner and served with dried bananas and a spicy peanut sauce (drool). After this, we both got mixed fruit shakes, both served with dried banana chips, some jelly, and cherries. There were no scoops of durian in these fruit shakes (I kinda like durian, though). All of this cost us a mere $2 each. Vietnam is wonderful for this.

After the market, we got sandwiches made for the bus ride and chilled out until getting to the bus company office before, yet again, being treated poorly before reaching our next ride.

Ban Mi sandwich

Jill sporting one of her new dresses with the designer, Lina

Fruit shake

Market

Eating pho at a nice restaurant

River on the way to the beach

Our guesthouse

Talk to you soon,

Garrett

Also, I got my camera fixed in Hoi An for $40. A bit pricey but better than buying a new camera. Yay! It was fixed. I took plenty of pictures for a day and a half, and then, it broke again. If only I had the determination to go back to Hoi An (I'm in Nha Trang, now) and demand my money back.

Like Sardines,

we were packed in as tight as possible is several vans. It already sounds like we (whoever we are) were being kidnapped, but in fact, we were not; we were being transferred to the bus station. A young guy came from around the corner to the guest house where Jill and I were waiting. He told us to "hurry, hurry, hurry" and get to the bus. We followed him, and we ended up on some side street, where a minivan that was packed-full of people was waiting. They tried to put my stuff in there. Nope, sorry, I'd like to be in the same vehicle as my belongings. Another van showed up, with one spot, they tried to get me in it and Jill to take another one. Sorry. No, again. We'd rather not be split up by some strangers in vans that were, hopefully, headed to a bus. So, they wait for the third van to show up. Jill got the seat, I got the gutter between the seat and where the door track was. Makes perfect sense, right? All while this was happening, these men were so incredibly rude. It was a pretty bad experience, but of course, my travel buddy and I made the most of it. After about 15 min (maybe longer), we ended up at the Camel Bus Company office, where we exchanged our receipt for the real set of bus tickets we paid for and proceeded to the sleeper bus, where we were yelled at to hurry up. Once we got on, there weren't any bed/seats next to each other, so we split up. I was towards the front, and Jill was unfortunately towards the back where, well, I'm sure she'll write a post about it. Back to these "bed/seats". They were clearly made for people with a maximum height of 5' 1". I'm 6'. This obviously doesn't work for me. I had to practically put my knees up by my ears to "stretch out". I constantly felt like I was in some sort of strange erotic position...for 12 hours. I read for the first 2 hours, then proceeded to stare out the window, bewildered by the neon lights that draped this city just south of Hanoi. Then, I turned my head towards the TV, where they were playing some cheesy Vietnamese romantic pop songs (which sounded like they came from the early 90s). Ahh, I thought, this kinda has a comfortable familiarity to it. And then, it had all the familiarity I needed, and so much more when I drifted my head once more a little farther below the TV to stare at the road where it was apparent how insanely fast (and insanely bad) this guy was driving our bus. I decided there was a fourth option to stare at, a better option: my eyelids. So, I slept in and out every hour until we reached Hué, the ancient capital of Vietnam. We got off the bus, got our ticket ripped out (we were going straight past Hué) and got shoved on another bus that was headed to Hoi An (our destination). Oh, there was also a fight that broke out there, too.

We chatted with a Croatian man who was traveling with his mother for awhile and also with our new travel partner, a girl from Manhattan. This is definitely one of the perks of traveling by the perils of this form of transportation: meeting people...and an American, nonetheless. You don't run into them that often. Well, I'm in Hoi An, and it's absolutely fantastic. We'll probably stay here for a few days given how relaxed the atmosphere is. There's a beach, which is 5k away (we get there by a beautiful bike ride through rice paddies and a river...more on that later), an "Old Quarter" which is very quaint with amazing food. Yeah, you know, I'm just gonna save this all for the next post on Hoi An. Well, I'll just say one more thing about it. It's the tailoring capitol of the world. I think I might get a shirt made.

Talk to you later,

Garrett

Halong Bay/Hanoi

Day 4 and 5 in Vietnam -

Halong Bay -

Today we woke up on Cat Ba Island, packed up our stuff, then headed back on the boat to Halong City. The views were gorgeous, once again, as we headed back to the docks, getting relax on a nice two hour boat ride. Once we were there, we boarded back on the same bus that took us there and started the 4 hour trek back to Hanoi. We ended up finding out that the Irish girls, Sue and Kelly, decided to ditch Laos and head down south instead. At this point, Jill and I decided to break off from Bryan and Maria, who both decided they wanted to continue seeing the north. I feel like this is a good incentive for me to come back to Vietnam, as I've had a pretty good experience here so far. We exchanged contact information with Sue and Kelly and we'll be meeting up with them in Hoi An in a couple of days. Tonight, we slept early (10:30p).

Hanoi (Pt. 2) -

Today, we woke up late (9:00a), and only because my alarm went off to remind me to get my camera fixed. It turned out that the place we tried out was $35-40, probably because it was short notice (they initially said it would take two days, though I didn't ask how much it would have been then. Today was easy. The night before, we purchased an Open Bus (sleeper) ticket (which lasts for 2 months) which has stops at Hué, Hoi An, Nha Trang, somewhere else, and Ho Chi Minh City. This means all of our transportation (maybe minus Dalat) is completely taken care of for Vietnam: so nice. So, today, things we did:

- Visited the Vietnam Fine Arts Museum:

- What made this place so cool is that it's, as expected, all Vietnamese artists. We got to see paintings, carvings, sculptures, and ancient doors from the 13th Century up to the late 90's. It was really fascinating to see the progression of styles, mediums, and subjects through the years. Most interesting, I thought, were the paintings from the 70s and early 80s, depicting scenes from the war. The contrast of paintings from the mid-80's onward was so stark; the colors got brighter and the paintings had a lighter quality about them.

- Visited the Water Puppet Theatre:

- Water puppetry is an ancient art of Vietnam using marionettes over a 3 ft. deep tank of water. They told a story in Vietnamese (so I have no clue what happened, save a fish turning into a dragon, a man and a woman falling in love, and (of course) some slapstick humor of men catching men with nets (on accident) rather than the fish. The show started with a few songs played with traditional Vietnamese instruments and continued through the water puppet performance. Aside from having negative leg room, the show was a welcomed change and a lot of fun. I suggest you check it out on YouTube. I'll post a video when I get the chance (the internet isn't fast enough here.

Okay, so my travel mate and I are waiting at the hotel where we will be picked up by our sleeper bus at 6:30p for our 16 (?) hour bus ride to Hoi An. We've got plenty of snacks, our iPods and Kindles are charged, and we're read to head to Central Vietnam. I'll update you as we go along the way.

Talk to you soon,

Garrett

Halong Bay

Day 2, 3, and 4 in Vietnam - Halong Bay

Day 1 of Halong Bay:

We woke up at 6:30a to make sure we had time to pack, get some breakfast, look for an open mart to buy toothpaste (I couldn't bring it on the plane to Hanoi; on that note, I had completely forgotten that I had my cologne packed in my bag, so the BKK security had to confiscate it. I won't lie, I was pretty disappointed by that) then finally get breakfast (Pho) at a nearby stand before boarding our 8:00a bus to Halong Bay. The bus ride was about 3 1/2 hours long and half of it was listening to one of the tour guides (thankfully, not ours) talk about how it is a good thing that most of the groups had "big, strong men" to protect the "lovely lady" from the "big Chinaman" who would hurt them. When Bryan shut the window, he commented: "You see?! It is very good you have a stong man to do this. Very easy for the man, so the woman does not need to worry." Obviously, this is a cultural thing, but everyone on the bus laughed awkwardly about it.

Once we made it to the harbor, we bought some more snacks (as snacks would've been a little more expensive from this point on. We all boarded a small boat, and my first thought was, "Yeah. This is where we'll be sleeping. We spent all of that money to sleep here? Yeah, okay. I can believe that." Have my standards lowered this much? I mean...I have readjusted my exectations to meet the reality of my situation. Yes. That's a much better way to say it. Anyhow, this boat was just transport to the actual vessel we were staying the night on. The boat was three stories and our room was very fancy, much fancier than most of the hotel rooms I've ever stayed at in Cambodia. We had a view out into the bay that was breathtaking. Shortly after putting our stuff down, we were served lunch which vastly exceeded our humble expectations of rice and fish soup (though all three of these things were involved).

Here are some things we did during Day 1:

-View some of the 1969 islands in Halong Bay
-Explore the "Surprise Cave" (so many tourists there!)
-Kayak around the bay (so much fun)...there were Vietnamese vendors that worked out of paddle boats and would come up beside you trying to sell you beer.
-Climb to the top of one of the islands
-Watch people jump into really cold waters
-Fish off the back of the boat (unsuccessfully)

Here are some people we met during Day 1:

-Family from Melbourne, Australia with two incredibly adorable and smart kids (6 and 7)
-Two girls from Ireland (one was from Dublin and the other was from somewhere in the western parts)

We ended up hanging out and chatting with these folk a lot. They definitely helped make the trip a bit more enjoyable than it already was.

Day 2 of Halong Bay:

We woke up to a chilly day in the middle of Halong Bay and didn't feel rushed at all. It was absolutely blissfull; it's hard to put into words. We took hot showers, got dressed, packed, ate breakfast, then simply relaxed on the deck for about an hour before we arrived to Cat Ba Island. There, we did these things:

- Climb to the top of the island (Jill and I chilled out halfway up after my camera broke; hopefully, I can get that fixed back in Hanoi)
- Check into our fancy hotels (seriously, the money we spent was well worth it)
- Get lunch
- Go to Monkey Island, chill out, do some trekking, watch monkey be drunk (these were the monkeys you read about in magazine stories that steal your beer)
- Relax for awhile
- Had dinner with the family and I, for some reason, thought the 6 year-old girl, whose question I answered, would understand the words "monitoring" and "evaluation". Whoops!
- Hang out with my travel buddies...which is what I'm doing right now. So, I'll post about Day 3 when it happens.

Here are some pics:

Talk to you soon,
Garrett

Hanoi

Day 1 in Vietnam: Hanoi

We arrived at the airport at 10:35a and got on a bus to Hanoi (the airport is 30k north). Before we boarded the bus, we got attacked by some taxi driver trying to tell us that it was only $20 for a taxi to Hanoi. This was not true, according to my guide, which said $15. So, we said no. After several attempts, he showed us $16 on his phone. No thanks (still), we'll take the $2 bus that ended up taking us to our hotel for $12 night, was in the heart of the Old Quarter and happened to house the Sinh Café travel agency which booked our Halong Bay tour (read the next post).

Hanoi is so congested, it's ridiculous. My travel group almost got run over on multiple occasions. The streets are pretty narrow, but they're overrun with motos, and there is no right of way for pedestrians (so, good luck). We walked around the lake, which was right near our hotel and is what really makes Hanoi's Old Quarter so beautiful. We walked for the majority of the day trying to find information about more options aside from Sapa to do in the north. We were looking to get off the beaten track, but we had a lot of difficulties, because the travel agencies we asked (because we knew they spoke English) would not give us any information on how to get to Ba Be via public transportation. They were hoping we would choose another destination that included in a group tour package.

So, rather than spending all of our time doing this, we spent a majorit- of it trying new foods:

-Pho - Noodle soup with beef (so good and what seems to be the main food to try in Vietnam)

-Another Pho-like soup - More greens and different noodles and cuts of meat.

-Small doughnuts with sweet rice inside. So good.
-Sticky rice-flour pockets with beef inside. You dip it in a broth-like soup where you add your level of garlic, peppers, cilantro and mint. (I'm sorry, I wish I could remember the names! I'll update this when we get back to Hanoi [I'm on Cat Ba Island in Halong Bay right now], when I can write down the proper names.

-Meat pate and pickled vegetable sandwiches (similar, but better, to some sandwiches in Cambodia)

-Soy Che (pronounced: soy jay) - Sweet rice with a ginger sauce. This is a sweet dessert-like treat.

I'll add more foods that we try as this goes along.

Anyhow, we didn't get to really do much in Hanoi this first night, so I look forward to seeing museums, mausoleums, water puppet shows and more when I get back.

Talk to you soon,

Garrett