As mentioned before, the last 10 days have been spent with my cousin Amanda. It's been wonderful to reconnect with her as an adult. After being close as children, the typical busyness of school and work has kept us from being able to see each other as much as we may have liked as adults. I've also really enjoyed sharing what I've been up to. There are so many new and interesting things about the cultures here and its been neat to see it with new eyes, and to share it with a familiar face.
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| Hanoi at night |
I feel like we've been up to so much in the short time she's been here so instead of writing our entire intinerary, which can get tedious, I thought I'd just sumarize some of the highlights of our trip together.....
- Experiencing the craziness that are the streets of Hanoi. Traffic rules are merely suggestions, and learning to cross the street was a challenge in and of itself. Crossing the street must be done slowly but methodically -as long as you don't stop, the sea of motorbikes and occasional car swerve to avoid you. What a crazy rush though!
- Enjoying Vietnamese street food and walking the streets of the Old Quarter. Restaurants that only serve one item seem to have the best food, and we've joked that the child sized blue plastic chairs outside their doors to eat at seem to be some sort of seal of authenticity and quality. Vietnam truly is it's own country! The locals don't really seem to care if the tourists are pleased or not -they have their way of life that does not revolve around you, which is in a way quite refreshing after the very touristy Thailand.
- Viewing Ho Chi Minh's embalmbed body at the mausaleam. The Vietnamese adore Ho Chi Minh (Uncle Ho, to those of you uninitiated), and his embalmed body is a must see vacation spot for many visitors from around the country. The white coated, bayonet holding soldiers every few feet provided security, most bags had to be checked, and everyone was rushed through and not allowed to stop in order to allow the several thousand visitors per day to see him. It was a bizarre experience -both the popularity of this place, and getting your head around the fact that this was a real body. Definitely glad we went though!
- Visiting the Hoa Lo Prison museum. We were warned by our Lonely Planet guidebook to take some of the exhibits here with a grain of salt. It described deplorable conditions that the Vietnamese POWs were kept in by the French when Vietnam was still fighting colonialism (which were probably accurate enough), but describes an idyllic, peaceful existence when it came to keeping American POWs during the American/Vietnam war. However, this reportedly was the prison that John McCain describes being tortured in. Who really knows the exact truth? Very interesting to tour regardless.
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| Strange food on the train |
Trying interesting food everywhere we went. This included interesting vietnamese gelatin and coconut milk desserts, some sort of strange gelatinous chicken flavoured roll with meat inside with a slice of pate on top (with hot sauce!), ordering a bamboo rod cooked over an open fire with a mystery inside (it turned out to be sticky rice served with herbs, peanuts, and salt), goat, "cement fried frog", and even porcupine, although Amanda missed out on this one. I have to say, I am very impressed with the adventurousness of this girl!
- Sneaking into more than one cave. Normally there is a small fee, typically around 10,000 dong ($0.50CND) which we would be happy to pay, except that the cave keeper had taken the day off. We skirted gates or climbed them, and saw some of Vietnam's very impressive cave systems. We also toured the "Hospital Cave", a massive three story facility built into a large natural cave during the American/Vietnam war. We paid the tour guide for this one, and were very impressed with our guide's knowledge about the cave and command of the English language. It was also very interesting to see such an interesting war time bunker. During it's use, it had a pool, something like 17 rooms for hiding troops or treating soldiers (incl. a surgery room -yikes!), an area for working out in, and even a cinema. Very interesting to see!
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| Amanda sneaks into a cave |
Experiencing what it is like to feel like a minority in Haiphong and Cat Ba island. I've written about this a bit more in depth in my other post, so I'll leave it be for now but I was definitely glad to be travelling with someone in these cities, just for the company alone.
To be continued....
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