A-Bay-Bay A-Bay-Bay, Halong Bay


ROKAY! This is the fifth and final post about Vietnam, which I've started out with a bit of Hurricane Chris.  I’m so tired of blogging at this moment, but I do it for all of you people who have found some odd interest in reading my blog. 

SO HERE WE GOOOOOO!!!!!!

Maia and I set up a three-day tour to Halong Bay through Central Backpackers Hostel for $105.  Seems like a lot right? Well it’s not when you consider what’s included in this package: transportation, delicious food, accommodations, tour guide, and several day activities.  The only extras you have to pay for are drinks if you don’t bring your own.

I’m in a listing mood, so I’ll list all that we did.

1)      4 hour bus trip to the docks.  If you’ve researched the tours, you may have seen that one can take out Chinese junks, but I didn’t see any.  So don’t be disappointed that all the boats are white.
Our boat!




2)      Boat tour around the islands, which was exquisitely beautiful.  I don’t feel like using pretty evocative language to try and capture the beauty of this place, which is one of the New Seven Natural Wonders of the World.  This honor and title should explain its beauty enough.

3)      Tour through Heaven Grotto.  There’s a legend behind this which you can read if you click on the link and scroll down a bit! It’s a rather good legend.  The grotto is super amazing, and I was so impressed by nature and its formations.  But, the colored lights and copious amounts of tourists inside almost ruined everything.  I did, however, have a fun time imagining that I was a dragon doing a real estate search.  I could see myself living there if I were a dragon.
Rainbow rocks

This is much better


4)      Back on the boat to other docks to go kayaking for 30 minutes.  It was super great.  Maia and I had to hurry out of the path of one of the big boats, and then cruised around through the rocks, getting in a good balance of exercise and relaxation. 

Isn't it grand?

Under the archway

5)      Back on the boat to tour the bay some more, then we docked and slept on the boat.

6)      Day 2! It was raining in the morning.  We went to Cat Ba Island and then went on a two-hour hike up to the top of a mountain.  It was a bit slippery, but it was a great hike despite the fact that our tour guide may have been on drugs.  He kept screeching and attacking people like a monkey, and fanning everyone with his umbrella even though it was not hot.  The view at the top was pretty amazing, especially after climbing a sketchy rusty ladder tower.  Some of the group decided to see the Hospital Cave that was used during the Vietnam War rather than hike.  So if hiking isn’t your thing, there are other things to do.
At the top with our crazy tour guide

The scary tower



7)      Cruised to Monkey Island where we enjoyed staying in bungalows by the beach for the night.  Many activities were provided, such as kayaking, volleyball, swimming, foozball, ping ping, billiards, and surfing the Internet. I went swimming for a little bit, laid in the sun, read my book, and enjoyed the scenery.  My favorite part of the day was the sunset- I took way many pictures of the sunset.

Beach bungalow haven

Ain't it just purty time eleventyseven?


8)      The next day was mostly dedicated to heading back to Hanoi.  Nothing exciting there, but I did enjoy a conversation that we had with some Brits.  One of them was trying to come up with a clever name for his boat, should he happen to inherit one in the future. I beamed when they said that the name for my imaginary boat, Anchor Wat, is annoying clever.  Anchor Wat is a play on Angkor Wat, a temple complex in Cambodia.  Leave a comment, and let me know what YOU would name YOUR boat, or just leave a list of witty boat names.

 

So Halong Bay was awesome! I hope the pictures capture some of the beauty of this amazing place, and that you may want to go one day!
SO MUCH GREEN

You could be eating this on the boat

 

So, after we got back to Hanoi, Maia and I enjoyed one last meal at Quan An Ngon Restaurant where I ordered a sparrow atop my papaya salad.  I do not like eating sparrow- there are too many bones, and the flavor is not great.  But I did get an excellent bagel at Joma’s Bakery right next to the hostel for the next morning’s breakfast: we had to leave at 6:30 am, before free breakfast, to get to the airport.

 

The flight to Bangkok was short, as was the time that it took for all the Thai people to get off the plane.  Remark to all flyers- don’t be idiots when getting off of the plane- do it in an orderly fashion and be a decent human being by helping people get their stuff down from the overhead cabins if you have access to the aisle.  Don’t push people to get to the front if you are in the back of the plane- you’re just being a doofus jerk.  Thai people have this de-boarding thing down to a quick and painless art.

 

From Bangkok, we had to decide on taking the train or bus back to Chiang Mai.  The sleeper train is super cheap, 14 hours long, and often it runs over time.  The bus takes about 10 hours, and is still pretty cheap, but you have to sit rather than lie down as you can do on a sleeper train.  We decided to take the bus, and buy first class tickets so that we could recline our seats and have air conditioning.  It wasn’t bad except for the fact that we had to stop on the side of the road for about 2 hours for a mechanic to fix something on the bus.  That was annoying.  The best part about the bus trip was that I got to watch a bunch of Thai music videos and movies.  Thais are obsessed with love triangles- I swear, all of the plots to all of their entertainment include love triangles.  Stop it, Thailand.  No don’t, I think it’s hilarious to see how you try to make the plots different.

One last look  :)
 

SO! Maia and I got back to Payap at 12:30 am, 10 hours before class started in the morning. And our Vietnam adventure was officially over.  It was an amazing one, and I’m so glad that I went.  I have another stamp in my passport, I experienced a different culture, I met a lot of really great people, and I had some really amazing adventures.  It was a vacation well-spent.

 

If you are in Thailand for any extended period of time and want to visit Vietnam, all ya gots to do is obtain a letter from the embassy stating that you have permission to go to Vietnam (which you can apply for online and have it emailed to you), fill out a form, take a passport photo, and pay a $25 fee for a single-entry pass into get a visa at the airport.  Piece of cake.

 

Speaking of cake, I just nommed on White Chocolate Cake and Carrot Cake from Duke’s Restaurant and now my tummy is bursting.  Be jealous.

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Slightly Hanoi'd

5:01 AM Posted by Jessica 0 comments

This title was my own creation, and has nothing to do with the Good Morning, Vietnam soundtrack that I am still listening to.

So! My adventures in Ho Chi Minh City ended with a slight mishap in determining which terminal I belonged in.  And the beginning of my adventures in Hanoi began with a silent taxi ride (my driver didn’t speak much English and seemed to enjoy the silence) through the night.  The hostile I booked in Hanoi, Central Backpackers Hostel, does airport pickup service, so for the first time I got to feel like one of those special people who have to look for their names on a piece of paper.
See how far away Hanoi is from Ho Chi Minh City!
 

My first impression of Hanoi…well, by this point, I was tired of the city because I usually dislike cities anyway.  To make matters worse, Hanoi is much busier and crowded than Ho Chi Minh.  I stayed in the Old District where there is a lack of tall architecture, the streets are narrower, and there is no end to the amount of clothing and shoe shops in sight.  Hanoi is incredibly busy, and has some of the craziest traffic I’ve ever seen.  During my stay in Hanoi, one of my friends, Elias, walked out in front of a car so that we could cross a sea of traffic that never stops.

So, Central Backpackers Hostel is amazing.  It’s cheap, has awesome people, free bia hoi (the fresh brew that costs 4000 dong, approximately 5 cents) from 7-8 pm, free breakfast (consists of banana, bread, jelly, butter, and tea or coffee), provides lots of different kinds of trips.  The best part was the people I met there. More on that throughout this post.
This dorm was super great and full of bed friends!

First order= dinner.  After free beer hour, I went to dinner with my newfound friend and dormmate, Elias from France.  We ate at Quan An Ngon Restaurant.  It was okay- too pricey for so little, but this is working in the mindset of a poor college student/traveler and a backpacker.  Make sure you ask about the sizes of the dishes because what you would think would be a served in a large proportion, could be the size of your fist.  The restaurant is cool though- it has the same community as street food on the sidewalk with a classy flavor and decor, distance from the traffic, and way more options.
Lotus seed "dessert". Way too sweet, but yummers
 

That night, I just took it easy talking to different backpackers at the hostel.  Beyond where people have travelled, it’s amazing to get a glimpse into what occupations they left behind, some of their hobbies, what their friends are like, etc.  Everyone is so different, yet everyone is tied in this cycle of wanting to experience the world and going on pretty much the same route to do it.  In terms of future travel, I also discovered through these people social networking websites geared towards helping backpackers such as Couch Surfing and Be Welcome.

Next day, I made Elias my exploration companion to explore the west end of the district.  We passed the large statue of Vladimir Lenin, the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, the Presidential Palace, and the One-Pillar Pagoda.  The sights were rather boring, and we didn’t spend long in any location.  The palace should have been more exciting, but it was basically a bunch of sparsely decorated rooms and old cars that you viewed through glass.
Ze mausoleum, where I got yelled at for stepping over the yellow line

Presidential Palace, the most obnoxiously yellow building in Hanoi
 

I went to the Temple of Literature, where Confucius taught a bunch of students, afterwards.  It was an interesting mixture of modern topiaries and old buildings.  I find Chinese architecture and idols really beautiful and interesting, but I was so tired of looking at religious art, statues, and buildings, that I felt pooped.  Despite this feeling, I definitely like the temple a lot.
Turtle stelae at the temple

That night, Maia arrived in Hanoi, but she was exhausted from her journey in Luang Prabang in Laos, so I went out with some people at the hostel. During free beer hour, I sat with some people that I knew, and met some more people.  After a few beers, a group of us went to get dinner two shops away, and thus the party group was formed.  We ended up at a dance club where I discovered that I am an amazing dancer according to the reactions of the surrounding folk.  Here’s some advice for you other young ladies who love to dance: in Hanoi, there are plenty of gross foreign older men who like to try to watch young ladies dance and try to dance with them or more.  So, if you can’t take it, don’t shake it.
My dance partners
 

Next day, I spent the day exploring the area around Hoan Kiem Lake with Maia. Most of it was just walking around and getting a feel for the city, which I won’t explain, but here’s a quick and dirty list of what we did.

1)      The Hoa Loa Prison where the French displaced a village to build their own institutions.  Many Vietnamese prisoners were tortured here, and later, American soldiers were held captive.  This was a very depressing place, and the creepy factor was heightened by the sounds of fearful music.  My only problem with the museum was the Communist propaganda.  While John McCain says that he was tortured in this prison, the museum posts descriptions of the Vietnamese treating the Americans as best they could.  They were provided with basic comforts, were allowed to play basketball, and colored pictures for Christmas.  I find this hard to believe, but whatever.  If anyone has anything to say in support of the museum’s statements, please tell me.

The scariest room in the building

2)      The shrine on Hoan Kiem Lake.  This was a cute little place with the largest imitation of a turtle I’ve ever seen, and the tiniest bathroom stalls.  I’m a rather small person, yet my face was an inch away from the door- I would not call that one a happy room. I urge everyone to click on the above link to read the legend about the Restored Sword; this is how the lake got its name, and it was the inspiration for one of the plots that I watched at the water puppet theatre show.

3)      TrangTien ice cream parlor.  Soft serve ice cream for 10,000 dong (50 cents)? Heck yes! It was “so damn hot I saw one them little men in those orange robes burst into flames” (Adrian Cronauer- I didn’t really see that), so the ice cream was a welcome treat.

4)      St.Joseph Cathedral.  It’s really pretty, but we didn’t get to go inside.
It is grey and magnificent
 

5)      Lotteria for a water and air conditioning break.  Lotteria is a fast food chain in Vietnam.

6)      We bought water puppet tickets to see a show later that night (it’s necessary to buy your tickets earlier in the day so that you can see the show at the time you want), but we ended up not going because we were so exhausted by the end of the day that the thought walking through the overwhelmingly crowded streets any more was about as appealing as juggling my brother’s smelly athletic shoes.

7)      We walked through the large Night Market along the streets of Hang Ngang and Hang Dao. It’s like Walking Market in Thailand, but with copious amounts of traffic and crowding within the stalls.  At the end of the street is the Dong Xuan Market.  I was so overwhelmed by the crowds that I didn’t have the energy or desire to look inside.  Besides, not all the shops were open by this point, and I hate shopping.
This picture doesn't even capture the busy-ness of this street.

8)      We ate street food and experienced the tiny chair culture.  It was awesome, and the food that we ate on the street was my favorite meal that I’d had in Hanoi.  I’m not sure what it was- I think it was green papaya salad with beef, peanuts, and herbs dumped in some sweet juice.  It seems to be similar to Bun bo Nam Bo, but it could be Nom Du Du.  (Other recipe- Pho Bo, another food to try- there are sandwich kebab vendors everywhere and oh my god they are so tasty)

Table for two!

I'm really hungry right now.  For real.  I can't wait until my Mexican food gets here.
 

So that pretty much concludes my adventures in Hanoi! Hanoi is a very crowded city, and I didn’t do a lot of the things that one could do there. The city offers a bunch of different museums for people depending on one’s interests (Fine Arts Museum, Museum of Ethnology, Vietnamese History, Women’s Museum, etc.), trips to Sapa, etc. The buildings are amazing because you can see a wide variety of buildings within one block- Chinese architecture, French architecture, modern buildings, run-down buildings, fancy and clean buildings, and more…all stuck together in a weird combination.  It’s quite fascinating.  Hanoi was okay, but I was ready for HALONG BAY!

Admire the diversity.
 

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MY NAME'S BOB CRAMER AND I'M IN ARTILLERY

The title just amuses me.


Lemme give you a lil sumfin sumfin about my next day trip, this time to the Mekong Delta.  I didn’t have enough time to go for more than one day, but there are longer trips available if you wish to book a tour.  I’d say a few days at the Mekong Delta would be worth the trip because I had an excellent day there. 

SO! I woke up and hopped on a bus.  Tom was my tour guide again!  We made a stop at some Buddhist Pagoda with very large Buddha statues done in different styles nearby.  The pagoda and the statues are very new, and magnificent.  I was marveling at how beautiful the mosaic work at the front gate was.  Oh, I feel it is necessary to mention that Mahayana Buddhism is more prevalent in Vietnam, in stark contrast to the prevalence of Theravada Buddhism in Thailand.  I’d explain the differences between them, but I am still no expert in Buddhism, and what I do know would take too long to explain. Do some research- it’ll be good for you.
Look at how amazing this mosaic/sculptural relief is! At the gate of the pagoda.
I'm intrigued by the florescent light halo around Buddha's head.

Two large Buddhas and a pagoda all in one picture!
 

The most intriguing thing inside of the temple was the fact that they worship the Lady Buddha, to whom barren women pray so that they may bear children.  Fertility gods are so interesting.  I also learned that when people pray in front of these statues, they always hold an odd number of incense sticks in front of them, or offer those sticks to the statues.  The numbers 3, 5, and 7 are the typical numbers.

So that was a fun break from the bus. But then, we rolled on! To the boat station!

We hopped into a motor boat to enjoy a slow cruise amongst the islands. There are four islands in the Mekong Delta- Tortoise Island, Phoenix Island, Unicorn Island, and Dragon Island.  I only got to see Tortoise Island, where we ate lunch (but those who do the longer day-trips get to see the others).  Free rice and pork and vegetable was provided, but you had the option to buy additional food.  My friends who are teaching English in Japan bought the elephant ear fish to put inside of spring rolls- it was wild!
At the boat station!

Elephant ear fish for lunch

We left the island, hopped in the boat again, and went to the coconut candy factory! It’s a family-owned business, I think, and calling it a factory seems way too grandiose a description since it’s basically a bunch of machinery underneath a hut.  BUT IT’S AWESOME! These people use every part of the coconut in their candy-making process.  First, they shred the coconut and press the powdered coconut to release the oil and cream. Then, the powder is used to feed the geese and fertilize the ground, the oils are used for beauty purposes (whitening, moisturizing, etc.), the cream is for the candy, and the shells are used to feed the fire in order to make the molten candy.

They test to see if the mixture is ready by seeing if a drop of candy does not dissolve into a bowl of water.  Then, they cut up the molten candy into strips, then into smaller pieces.  The people then hand-wrap the candies inside of edible rice paper wrappers, and then paper wrappers.  I found this absolutely fascinating and cool.  Also, the candies come in different flavors- regular coconut, chocolate, panda leaf, durian (popular fruit disliked by many people in the West), and peanut. I bought all of them and they are so yummy.
The machine used to press the juices out of the shredded coconut.

They served us some of the most delicious honey tea I’ve ever tasted, and then let us all take turns taking pictures with a python around our necks.  The python kept getting passed around every fifteen seconds- I felt so bad for the poor thing, but this did not keep me from getting my snake picture.
Pythons make for interesting scarves.

Next, we got into these lil rowboats where we were slowly paddled through the river, lined with lovely greenery.  It was kinda romantic. The best part though, was that we got to wear rice patty hats.

After reaching our new destination, we got to eat some fresh fruit snacks, and were entertained with some traditional folk Vietnamese music. It was absolutely awesome- and the songs have stories, as folk songs are wont to do.  The bus driver even got up and sang!  They provided CDs for us to buy- #tourist trap- but I bought one because the Music of the Silk Road class that I took last year has made me obsessed with foreign music.
The music was really delightful, and the instruments were beautiful.

That was the end of my trip to the Mekong Delta- we just hopped back on a boat and then a bus to get back.  Something cool about the boats: there are two types of boats- tourist boats and fishing boats.  They paint eyes on the front of the tourist boats to scare the fish away, and keep the fishing boats eyeless because scaring the fish away would be detrimental to the fisherman’s purpose. 
I'd be scared if I were a fish

Later that night, I sat in the park to journal, as became my nightly routine in Ho Chi Minh City.  I was all alone until a possibly homeless man randomly sat beside me to ask if I speak Vietnamese and question my ethnicity.  I tried to make conversation, but the language barrier made everything awkward.  He left after a good 2 minutes of awkward silence.  I don’t know why I felt the need to share that bit of info. 

Anyway, the following day was to be a day of travel.  I was leaving Ho Chi Minh City for Hanoi.  But due to a delay in flight, I had the entire morning to explore the city a little more.  ABC Bakery, along Pham Ngu Lao street. Holy crap.  It was amazing.  So many pastries, some even have cheese.  And everything is 15,000 dong each.  I was in heaven, and I was upset that I had not thought to explore the bakery earlier in the week.
Cheesy bacon pastry, mung bean and almond pastry, and blueberry muffin.  It's not a cakey muffin as we are used to, but pretty much bread.  Still good.
 

Then, I walked to the Fine Arts Museum, which is housed inside of an old French building.  The building itself was really beautiful, but the arts inside were simply amazing.  Much of the art was created within the past century, which I found very interesting.  There was even an entire floor dedicated to arts related to the Vietnam War and its effects, which was a bit depressing.  I’ll let some of my favorite art pieces speak for the museum.
The front of the museum

Vietnamese pottery is kind of amazing

One of the many art pieces related to the Vietnam War

An art piece about the effects of Agent Orange on babies born after the Vietnamese War

I love this sculpture for some reason. Every angle is a new sculpture

I love this contemporary painter. I could have bought one of his pieces for $100- SO CHEAP! But that would have been impractical.

Afterward, the owners of the hostel took me to the bus station so that I could catch the bus to the airport.  I must warn you travelers- the Saigon airport has separate terminals for international flights and domestic flights.  Just be aware about which one you are in. 

In the next episode of this blog, Jessica takes on Hanoi. *dramatic closing theme music*

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Follow the Ho Chi Minh Trail! Follow the Ho Chi Minh Trail!

12:09 AM Posted by Jessica 0 comments

And so the blabbing continues. I must say that I've been listening to the soundtrack of Good Morning Vietnam while writing this blog, so all of the titles are things that have come out of Robin Williams' mouth. Anyway, the NgocThao Guesthouse offers to set up several day trips to places outside of the city, and all of them are really cheap! Each of my day trips cost about $10, with transportation, English tour, and snackage included. 

My first day trip was to the Cao Dai Temple and the Cu ChiTunnels. It was on this trip that I was the only American in a tour group for the first time ever. I was surrounded by about 20 Filipinos, 1 Canadian, 3 Spaniards, and 2 people from somewhere else in Europe.  It was odd to be the only one from the big ol’ USA.
The temple is rather large, and mixes a whole bunch of different religious architectural styles.

Anyway, the Cao Dai Temple is a very interesting bugger.  This is where the religion of Cao Daism is worshipped.  Here are some quick and dirty facts about Cao Daism, the third largest religion in Vietnam after Buddhism and Catholicism:

·         It is a mixture of several of the world’s main religions, including Buddhism, Confucianism, Christianity, Islam, Taoism, Hinduism, etc.

·         They believe in several periods of time in which God sent his word to messengers who were supposed to found religions and spread them.  But, because they were frail leaders and there was a lack of widespread communication, one true religion was not able to be created and so several were founded.

·         But now, it’s all good.  This religion understands that all religions are derived from one God, as represented by the Divine Eye.

·         They worship several statuesque figures of different religions, such as the Sakyamuni Buddha, and venerate three saints- Sun Yat-sen (revolutionary leader in China), Victor Hugo (French novelist, he wrote works such as The Hunchback of Notre Dame), and Trang Trinh (Vietnamese poet).
The three saints.

·         Their practices and beliefs include several different rules from different religions, such as the 5 Precepts of the Buddhist laity, the prostration in the Islamic faith, and the Confucian principles of responsibilities in society, etc.

This is only a basic layout, and there is much, much more to know about the religion, for sure.

Inside of the temple is an impressive display of dragon pillars, decorated ceilings, and a cluster of golden objects at the far end of the temple where the altar lies.  There are several depictions and statues of their saints, as well.  I must say, I was very surprised at their choice in saints.  There was a sea of followers worshipping- all clad in white.  The women entered the temple on the left where they sat on the ground in a perfect grid, while the men did the same on the right side of the temple.  In the front, closer to the altar, were figures with a higher status- they were wearing red, yellow and blue to signify their higher status.
Admire the sea of people and pink dragons

The Divine Eye
 

The musicians would play their music and sing in a chamber on the second floor, much like the choir does in several Catholic churches.  The temple itself shows the mixture of beliefs, taking influence from each of the religions’ temples.  It was really neat- I wish I had more time to examine it all.  Anyway, at certain points during the music, everyone in the room would bow three times at the same time- that kind of unity is rather impressive.

Outside of the temple, there was a road that I accidentally stepped on because I was unaware of the danger.  At the front of the temple, there are important religious figures buried; during worship, the ghosts walk around outside of the temple, so one is not supposed to step on the road in front of the temple during prayer time.  There was a pillar not too far away decorated with a dragon at the top, and a lotus at the bottom to symbolize the name of the town, which means “Dragon Lotus”.  Also at the bottom were four unicorns at the bottom, facing each of the cardinal directions in order to ward ghosts away. 
The dragon lotus pillar.
 

There’s a lot more information I could provide about the decorations of the temple and what they mean, but I’m sure you are bored of this rant already.  So to conclude, I’m really fascinated with Cao Daism- of course, I would be since I’m a Religious Studies major.

The next stop was the Cu Chi Tunnels.  These were the tunnels in which the Vietnamese guerilla warriors would hide out, and surprise the American soldiers.  To begin, we entered a little underground hut where we were given a brief history of the tunnels and the Vietnam War.  Afterwards, there was a question session.  Let me tell you what- even though English has become the common language of the world, accents are a great barrier.  It took forever for questions to be understood and answered correctly because the Vietnamese lecturer could not understand the accent of the Filipino people and the Canadian dude, and vice versa.  I found it quite amusing.
The debrief

We then watched a movie made in the 70s, given a very biased and propagandistic account of the guerilla soldiers.  A proud woman narrated the history of the war while proudly proclaiming certain people to be national heroes.  Approximate quotation of narration: “Bruce was a young soldier whose parents were killed during the war.  He was very stealthy and became really knowledgeable about where to place bombs and how to disguise them in order to fool the Americans.  He killed 35 Americans and became a national hero, the American Killer.” Simply amazing.

The tunnels are 250 km of complex and winding structures that all interconnect.  It’s really rather impressive that these were built.  We explored how tiny the entrances to the tunnels were.  But this extended to the tunnels themselves- the soldiers had to crawl through them, and they even slept inside of them.  We got a chance to go through 20 meters of tunnel, widened for tourists to use.  But even though it was widened, I still had to bend in half in order to get through them, and I’m pretty small.  It was very stuffy in there with just a few people, so I can’t imagine how people were able to sleep inside of tinier tunnels with more people inside.
It's a good thing Asians are normally small.

Hunchin it.


 

We were also given a tour of different traps that the Vietnamese set up, and we were given a chance to shoot old guns used during the war, but the price of the bullets is a ripoff.  After seeing so much history about the terrors of war, the thought of shooting a gun was not appealing to me anyway.

This delightful contraption was known as the baby killer because it would impale a person at the chest region, the leg region, and the baby-making region.
We headed back to the city shortly afterwards.  During one part of the trip, we were stopped in the most horrific traffic I’ve ever seen.  Our bus was stuck for over 30 minutes.  I wish I had sufficient internet to upload the video I took of this traffic, but the picture below should give you a decent idea.  All of those heads are motorbikes, which can swerve in and out of traffic, and congest any free space that may be available.  While we were waiting, I got to enjoy watching a man eat an entire bowl of pho before traffic police came to control the flow.
LOOK AT HOW CRAZY THIS IS!

That night, I ate at a street restaurant.  Don’t order sandwiches with bacon on them in Vietnam- you will only be disappointed with flabby, fatty bacon.  But this is not why I bring up dinnertime.

After I had finished my meal, two kids at the ages of 10 and 12 sat across from me, and the British lady sitting next to me. They asked the British woman if she would speak English with them, so that they could practice- it was adorable. They were having trouble understanding her accent though, so I piped in and talked to them.  It was fun until I was made to answer what my favorite color is fifteen times, and thrice whether I like cats or not.  It was very hard to make different conversation because I was unsure about the limits of their vocabulary.  It was fun, though.  They apparently do this every Monday night, which is just awesome! I wish I had that dedication to learning languages.

Their teacher came up to me after they left, and made conversation with me.  She thanked me for talking with her students, and admitted that she told them not to talk to me because she thought I was Vietnamese (victory). Of course, my ethnic origins were brought up.  The best part of the conversation was when she asked if I looked more like my mom or dad- I said I don’t look more like either one of them- I think I’m a rather good mixture.  She said “you don’t look like your mom…and you don’t look like your dad…you look like a STRANGER! HAHAHHAHA!”  She suggested that I look like a stranger because while my mom was pregnant, she would often look at a handsome stranger.  I liked her a lot.  Day 3 ended on a good note.

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