Made In Vietnam

(PICTURE: Me and my LL Bean bag in Croatia.)

Last year when I was preparing my move to Vietnam I had a few small things to do: sell my Prius, ship all my belongings from California to New Jersey, and fix my LL Bean hiking backpack.

I've had a good relationship with LL Bean since I was a little kid. All of their products have a lifetime guarantee and I've used this guarantee quite a few times with my school bag growing up. In preparing to travel, I took out my large hiking backpack and saw that one of my shoulder straps was nearly ripped off. It had ripped during my trip to Italy for my friend Anthony's wedding the previous year.

I called LL Bean prepared to swap out my bag with a new one. Well, it wasn't as easy as it had been in the past. LL Bean stopped making my exact backpack and didn't make one anymore of a similar size. The very helpful woman on the phone told me I could get my backpack fixed at a tailor and LL Bean would reimburse me for the expense. Man, what a great company!

While I was talking with the customer service woman, something funny happened. The woman asked me to find the product number in my bag so she could write a report. I started to search inside the bag and was shocked when I found a tag that said: MADE IN VIETNAM.

Two thoughts occurred to me:

THOUGHT 1: Not all LL Bean stuff is made in Maine!!! Treachery!

THOUGHT 2: Can I get my backpack fixed in Vietnam?

I told the woman on the phone that I was headed to Vietnam and asked if I could get my bag fixed at the factory there. She laughed, assuming I was joking. Okay, I was joking but perhaps I shouldn't have been. During my travels over the past year the shoulder strap ripped again. I wish I knew where the factory was!

Clarinet Lessons

Often on Ahoy Hanoi I mention some of the unbelievable deals you can get in Vietnam. Well, the other day I heard perhaps the best deal yet:

My friend Sean -- a teacher/musician in Hanoi -- has been taking clarinet lessons for fifteen dollars a lesson.

Okay, that doesn't seem like an amazing deal since I'm sure you could get a half decent, starving musician teacher in America for around that. However, Sean's teacher is pretty qualified -- she's the first chair in the Hanoi Symphony Orchestra. That's right, he's getting taught by the best clarinet player in Vietnam for $15 a lesson. Hey, Mom, maybe it's time to dust off your old flute and come visit me again!

Ballet

(PICTURE: Huyen and I at the opera house.)

Because my friend Veronica was visiting during Valentine's Day, this past weekend I took Huyen out for a belated V-day. We went out to dinner for one of her favorite foods: chicken hot pot with lots of fresh shrimp (okay, it's one of my favorite foods too). After dinner we got some fresh ice cream and then headed to the Hanoi Opera House.

For around $30 I had bought Huyen and I seventh row, center seats. The seats were great, although I'm pretty sure no seats are bad at the opera house. The first half of the performance was the Hanoi orchestra playing a series of Beethoven songs. Accompanying the musicians were five opera singers and a Russian pianist. The music was amazing and Huyen was smiling from ear to ear anytime the opera singers belted out some lines.

After the intermission, the ballet began. The ballet was....well, 75% pretty bad. During the intermission they opened the stage pit and I assumed the orchestra would sit down below and play from there during the ballet. However, they didn't and the pit just remained open. This meant two things:

1. There was no live music. They pumped in the tunes for the dancers.

2. The dancers had to dance on the back half of the stage.

It was a pretty bizzare set up. The dancers were obviously talented but they weren't exactly in synch with one another. That said, the fourth and final dance was spectacular. All of the dancers came out with Chinese lanterns and put on a beautiful performance.

One of my favorite parts of the night was when a fellow foreigner behind me grumbled out loud, "This is a rip off" and got up and left during the middle of a dance. The lady had paid no more than $15 for her seats and had just seen a phenomenal orchestra which alone was worth the money. Huyen turned to me as they left and said, "I think they wanted live music during the ballet."

Reality TV

I heard this great story the other day that my reality TV friends can appreciate. My friend Marc's wife was called by her friend to shoot an episode for a reality TV show. Her friend is a hairdresser in Hanoi and the TV show wanted to do an episode about her as an up-and-coming hairdresser. My friend's wife was going to be the client who the hairdresser styled that day.

On the day of the shooting my friend's wife went to the salon and met the film crew. It was a small crew but enough to get the job done. At the end of the shooting the producer said to the hairdresser that if he wanted the episode aired he would have to slip him some money. The producer wanted 5,000,000 dong (almost $300).

To us non Vietnamese this sounds absurd and an obvious case of bribery. However, in Vietnam many transactions like this take place. You get pulled over for running a red? Slip the cop 100,000. Want to keep your bar open past the midnight curfew? Hand the police a couple bills.

In the end the hairdresser coughed up the money and was given a phone number to call if she had any questions about the episode. That night the hairdresser called the phone number. It wasn't a real number. The whole thing had been a set-up.

Going Against The Guide Book

(PICTURE: Fresh seafood.)

As I wrote yesterday, Huyen, Veronica and I organized our Halong Bay trip ourselves. Every Vietnam guide book you read will tell you NOT to do this. It says explicitly that this will cost you more money. Well, turns out they're right...only because we got suckered!

Our timing that day had been perfect. We arrived at the bus station a minute before our bus took off. We then took a taxi from the bus station to the port and got on our shared boat a minute before the boat was ready to leave. The only problem with such luck is that we were starving and didn't have a chance to fart around for a half an hour and grab food. We asked the ship captain if we could buy food on the boat and he said we'd stop somewhere in the bay for lunch.

We ended up stopping at a floating fish market where we choose our own fish. This was great except that the fish farm had a monopoly on lunch spots in the bay. All of the fish were exponentially more expensive than any other fish I've ever eaten in Vietnam. We finally decided on the smallest, cheapest fish which weighed 1.8 kg and cost us a whopping 500,000 Dong ($30). There was a really funny moment -- and I'm kicking myself for not getting it on video -- when the market worker asked us if we wanted the fish he had scooped up in a net. We said yes and to confirm he said, "Die?". We nodded and he yelled, "DIE!!!" and clobbered the fish with a stick.

(PICTURE: Huyen on the floating fish market.)

While we were getting back on the boat the captain bought some vegetables from a woman on a row boat and fifteen minutes later we had a huge delicious meal. Fifteen minutes after that the ship captain gave us the bill for the veggies, "service" and rice: 190,000. Yeah, it was my most expensive meal in 'Nam.

The other problem with not booking through a travel agent was that we had to organize our own ride home. This wouldn't have been a problem if we didn't miss the last bus back to Hanoi by five minutes. So much for the great timing we had had all day! We then spent an hour on the side of the road until a van came along. The van was headed to Hanoi and had enough seats for two of us. Veronica and Huyen got seats...and I sat on a stool on the floor of aisle. I was pretty sure I was going to die if the van driver hit the brakes hard. Luckily he didn't know what braking was and drove like a madman. Eventually a seat opened up and I took it. My legs were cramped by the seat in front of me but somehow I managed to fall asleep. Twenty minutes later I was awoken by Huyen who had just had a bout with car sickness. Long story short, it was a long ride home and next time I'm going through a travel agent.

Halong Bay Revisted

Last May -- about a week or so after I first arrived in Hanoi -- I went to Halong Bay with a bunch of friends. I remember saying to my friend Devin that I'd bet I'd end up going to Halong Bay at least six times in the next year with other visitors. Well, I'm glad I didn't make that bet because I never went back until last week.

My long time friend Veronica is traveling around the world for a couple of months and just stopped in Hanoi. Veronica was planning on going to Halong Bay, and since Huyen had never been, we decided to join her. We made this decision at midnight the day Veronica arrived and thus didn't book a tour ahead of time. The next morning Huyen called a travel agency and they said all the tours were booked up. Despite that, we decided to get to Halong Bay ourselves. We took a bus out to Halong City and then paid to share a private boat with a local family who were spending the day together touring the natural wonder.

Here's some pictures from our day trip:

Toothpaste

87% of all the amenities you can find in the United States you can find in Hanoi. One thing that I've had a hard time finding though is proper toothpaste. All the toothpaste here -- from the few words I can understand on the box -- doesn't have the key words I like to see on my toothpaste: Flouride, tartar control, baking soda, something that fights gum disease, etc.

The only thing that nearly every toothpaste has is whitening elements. This is the one thing I've always stayed away from in toothpastes in America. I have this irrational fear that my teeth will become blindingly white after using whitening toothpaste.

Twice I've had visitors bring me toothpaste when they've come to town. However, I've officially run out of Ben-acceptable toothpaste and had to go buy new toothpaste yesterday. I bought this box which I guessed seemed good:

Turns out the toothpaste is green tea flavored. Let me just say it doesn't exactly leave you feeling like you have fresh breath.

My First Street Shave

When I traveled with Hannah I didn't pack a razor. I shaved the day I left Hanoi and figured I'd just let my face run wild for a month. By "run wild" I of course mean, grow a little incomplete beard. I just really started growing significant facial hair a few years ago and generally only shave once ever three weeks or so. In fact, last year I basically shaved only for weddings. I had thirteen weddings so there was generally never more than a month I went without shaving. I'd usually show up at the rehearsal dinner with a thick five o'clock shadow and then go with the baby face look the next day at the wedding.

Anyway, after not shaving on my trip I decided it was a good time to try my first street shave. Huyen asked the barber if he changed his razors after each shave and indeed he did. In fact, he needed TWO razors to shave my face. He told Huyen he had never used two razors on anyone before. Apparently I have the thickest beard in Vietnam.

We showed up around dusk and the shave ended up taking about twenty minutes. There was still light when we started but by the end the barber was wearing a head light.

I can honestly say this was the best shave I've ever had. It was so good that I went back three weeks later and had him give me another shave AND a haircut.

Something You Won't See In America

Here's something you'll never see in America:

In case you're confused as to what this is, it's a wall poster advertising MSG. Oh yeah, the poster was in a restaurant.

For those of you who don't know what MSG is -- besides that it is often on Chinese Restaurant menus advertising that they don't use it -- click here: MSG.

A friend of mine who recently left Hanoi and was working for the CDC explained to me one day that MSG has gotten a bad rap in the states. She says that no scientific study has been done that proves it has harmful affects (I think tobacco companies sometimes say that about cigarettes too) and that many products we eat in America have nearly the same chemical in them.

Anyway, this isn't about debating the pros and cons of MSG. It's merely about the hilarity of the poster. Perhaps if my family ate more MSG we would have run around very green parks and handed each other four leaf clovers more often.

Water Heater

(PICTURE: The mechanic adjusting the water pressure in my bathroom while using a "Vietnamese ladder".)


For the last couple of months the water heater in my bathroom has been dripping water. This wouldn't be a big problem if the water heater wasn't installed above my toilet. Whenever I've happened to be sitting on the toilet -- those who know me well know that is where I like to read -- I've been constantly surprised by an occasional drop of water falling on my tush. Sometimes this feels good...and sometimes it burns.

A couple of weeks ago our garage opening door (http://ahoyhanoi.blogspot.com/2008/09/no-more-ninjas.html) was slightly malfunctioning. The house mechanic came over to fix the door and since he was here we asked him to look at my water heater. I've been trying to think of the expression in English when we turn a small problem into a big problem. I think it's something like, "polishing a window with a hammer" but I know that's not it. Well, whatever the expression is, it would apply here. Here's basically the summary of the fixing of my water heater:
STEP 1: The mechanic switched my water heater with the one on the second floor after determining he couldn't fix it.
STEP 2: The newly installed water heater began to leak worse than my first one. The floor flooded about a half inch in my bathroom.
STEP 3: The mechanic brought back my old water heater and switched it out with the other one in my bathroom. He took that one home to fix.
STEP 4: The water heater he supposedly fixed began to leak worse than ever.
STEP 5: The mechanic took both my water heater and the extra one home to fix leaving me to shower in Ryan's bathroom (luckily he was away in Malaysia).
STEP 6: The mechanic brought back both water heaters and re-installed them.
STEP 7: The one on the second floor is working fine but the one in my bathroom is dripping boiling water excessively.

Again, I don't know what the expression is but Huyen says they have one in Vietnamese. She told me -- and clearly this doesn't work translated -- that, "It is like fixing a small pig with a big pig with a broken leg."

Well, the mechanic is coming over this morning to swap out the water heater again. I'm starting to get the hunch though that perhaps he's the problem. Not only has he made my water heater worse but the mechanical garage door is malfunctioning again!

Roller Skating

Huyen and I went to a local park to go roller skating. The roller skates were clearly from the 1970s and hadn't had maintenance since at least then. The thing that I found oddest about the skates is the rink had not replaced the shoe laces when they had ripped. Everyone was skating around with only the bottom part of the skate laced up. Anyone who has ever played hockey knows that the most important part of the skate is the ankle. If the ankle isn't tight your foot will flop around and cause you to be unstable. I think it was because of this that only about two people in the whole rink didn't look like they were drunk while skating.

My father always jokes with me that if he had started me playing hockey earlier in my life "[I] could have been something." Well, if Huyen and I get married and I have kids I'm pretty sure hockey won't be their sport if they get their mother's skating gene. Trust me, this video is hilarious:

Moving On Up...

(Huyen behind her "moving truck.")

Now that Huyen's no longer a starving student and has a solid 9-5 job (really 8-5 in Vietnam with a two hour siesta) she and her roommate Linh decided to upgrade their apartment. If you'd like a tour of Huyen's old apartment you can click here:

http://ahoyhanoi.blogspot.com/2008/07/tour-of-huyens-apartment.html

I was happy to help Huyen and her roommate move until Huyen broke two cardinal rules of asking someone to help them move:

Rule 1: She hadn't packed a thing when she told me to show up.

Rule 2: She didn't tell me her roommate would be at work and we'd have to pack her things too.

It only took us about an hour or so to pack everything and then it was a matter of getting it to her new place. In Vietnam you don't book a moving van unless you live in a large house. You also can't call up your unfortunate friend who happens to drive a pick-up truck. Instead you go out to the street and wave down a motorbike with a carriage attached to it.

When we finally arrived at Huyen's new apartment it took us less than ten minutes to unload all her stuff because we had the help of her's and her new roommate's friends. Oh yeah, that's right, she has a new roommate. Huyen now shares her studio/bed with Linh and her childhood friend Yen. She's upgraded her apartment but downgraded the percentage of the bed she sleeps in.

(PICTURE: Huyen with her new roommate Yen and Yen's friend who helped us move.)

Wrong Order

It seems only fitting that after my motorbike trip I should take my Vietnamese motorbike driving test. Or should it have been the other way around?

The other day I went to the Hanoi DMV for my official motorbike driving test. I felt like I was seventeen all over again. Huyen came with me to serve as my translator/cinematographer. The test included going around a figure eight, driving in a straight line, driving in a zig zag and then driving over bumps.

While waiting for my turn to go I saw two Vietnamese girls fail their test. I started to get a little nervous when they called Huyen's name over the loud speaker. Huyen ran out to the course and then quickly waved me over. I grabbed a helmet which:

a) everyone shared (there's no lice in 'Nam, right?)

b) had no strap to hold it on in case I/someone fell off the bike.

I passed the test with a score of 135. Apparently I lost fifteen points because my wheel touched the line of the figure eight at some point. Huyen told me this with a big smile since apparently she scored a perfect 150 when she took the test.

Motorbike Montage

I don't want to bore you with a couple more days of motorbike trip posts so I made a video with a bunch of highlights. Here were some of my favorite things:

1. Long and I both like to lead on our bikes. However, after a couple of days Long decided he wanted to drive last in our caravan. Why? Well, everywhere we drove, kids and adults would wave to us from the side of the road and yell "hello." When I say "us" I really mean Nicky and I. It's not too often Western faces drive through most of the areas we drove through and well, Long doesn't exactly have a Western face. Long decided he liked to go last because he could get the wave affect of the waves. They'd wave at me in front, then Nicky and then Long who they would realize was with us.

2. Because we were going during Tet, businesses weren't open at night. This meant it was difficult to get food. In Phu Yen there was nothing for us to eat. Long told the security guard who was watching the hotel and he made some calls. Before we knew it one of the hotel employees brought over tons of food for a hot pot. Literally they bought us a wash basin full of vegetables. We had the huge meal with the security guard in the lobby of the hotel. It was probably the best meal of the trip.

3. At a coffee shop Nicky struck up a conversation with a Vietnamese man who spoke Spanish -- he learned it while studying in Cuba.

4. Taking two boats to cross large lakes. One of the lakes wasn't even on our map because our map was so old. No, it wasn't printed before Pangea. The water was a dammed hydroelectric lake made about ten years ago.

5. Tons of car free, well paved roads.

We ended up on the highway for about an hour of our trip and it was the worst hour (minus the three being interrogated) of our journey. The trip was quite an adventure and I'm already craving another one. Huyen just bought me a detailed atlas of Vietnamese roads.

Enjoy the video...

My Scariest Experience In Vietnam

After leaving the White Thai village we followed the dirt road along the river for another couple of hours. In the next large village there was a fork in the road. We were told to take the high road. While asking directions an elderly local woman jumped onto the back of Long's bike and asked for a ride to the next village. This was a mistake, Long's bike was the least powerful out of all of ours. After about a minute of struggling up the mountain the lady had to get off and walk the hill. No, that's not the scary part of the story.

We drove for about twenty minutes or so and came to another village. Again there was a fork in the road. We stopped to ask for directions and were told that one road led to "Moc Chau" and one led to "Son La." According to the person in Mai Chau who we had met the day before, it was impossible to get to either of those places on the route we were taking. However, the locals insisted it was true and we decided to take the road to Son La.

We crossed a stream and headed up the narrowest, rockiest, dirt trail I have ever been on with my motorbike. The trail cut right through the jungle and was treacherous to say the least. At one point, IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE, was this sign:

I thought it was a really cool sign because:
a) It was again, IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE.
b) Had no explanation whatsoever.

It was so cool I decided to take a picture with it:

We kept heading along the narrow dirt path and would only occasionally see sign of civilization -- a random biker driving by or a couple huts nestled between mountains.

After a while we came to a third fork in the road in another village. While trying to figure out where to go a motorbike pulled up next to us. On the bike were two 20-something year old guys. One of the guys was an English teacher...although he spoke about ten words of English. The teacher told us that we should turn right to quickly go to Moc Chau or we could go straight with him and "stay at my friend's village." It was starting to get dark so we decided to spend the night at his friend's village. Plus, how cool would it be to spend in the night in the middle of the jungle in a village in "Frontier Country."

Turns out it wasn't so cool.

When we got to the village I felt like an American G.I. marching into Paris after WWII. Everyone from the village came out and gathered around us, jostling for position to shake our hands. I'm 99% sure most of the people there had never seen a foreigner. The excitement of the moment was quickly interrupted when someone told Long that we needed to ask the head of the village for permission to stay there. We had been told to expect this and were suggested to bring some fruit to give to the head of the village. We brought a watermelon.

Dusk was starting to settle in when we got to the head of the village. We had been expecting to go to someone's hut but were actually taken to the local police office. And the head of the village wasn't a tribe elder, he was an army guy. And well, he didn't want a watermelon -- he wanted five hundred thousand dong. This is when it all started to get a little scary.

We were taken into the "police station", roughly a 6 foot by 10 foot hut, and told to sit down. The hut was nearly pitch black. We were told that the power wasn't working. The army guy started to ask Long questions and he did the best he could to answer. If you recall from the other day, Long can speak Vietnamese conversationaly but definitely not fluently. The army guy quickly took Long out of the hut and started to ask him questions one on one around the corner. After a couple minutes Long came back and told us the "fee" for staying in the village -- the five hundred thousand dong.

Before we could pay the fee things started to get a little more intense. The army guy took our passports and started to write down our information in the dark. Every couple of minutes he would stand up, walk to the back of the hut, and talk to a man who was laying in a bed which we couldn't see. The army guy would come back, ask Long a few more questions and then jot down more information.

As we sat in the dark things started to get more complicated. The army guy started to point a flashlight at us and ask the same questions over and over again. Of course Long was the only one who could answer. The conversation was basically this:
ARMY GUY: What are you doing here?
LONG: We were invited by someone on the road. (the guy who invited us disappeared because he wanted to go drink with his friends.)
ARMY GUY: Why are you here?
LONG: We were told by someone in Mai Chau to follow the river and we made some wrong turns.
ARMY GUY: You don't have permission to be here. You can't sleep here.
LONG: Okay, then can we go. It's getting darker and darker.
ARMY GUY: No, you must stay now.

While this conversation was going on -- for about the third time -- more army guys started to trickle in. By the end of the interrogation there were five or six army guys. Each army guy seemed to want to trump the power of the one before him and started to ask Long the same questions. Long, without a doubt, had the worst experience out of the three of us. A couple of times he was taken out of the hut and interrogated by himself in another hut with up to three army guys. From what we could gather we had driven into an area that we are not permitted to go to with our Vietnam visas. We were 17K from the Laos border and the area was off limits. We were told:
A) We didn't have permission to be there.
B) We didn't have permission to talk to anybody.
C) We didn't have permission to take any photos.

Well, C, started to make me nervous. In the first fifteen minutes of the whole experience I had recorded some video in the dark thinking it would make a good blog entry. Well, after they took our cameras from us I started to really panic that they would look at our pictures. I had no idea what footage I had gotten and assumed it was something at least recognizable. At one point the army guy put my camera back on the table and I picked it up. I then asked if I could go take a piss. They had one of the guys escort me to the woods where I took the memory chip out of my camera and stuffed it inside a hidden pocket in my jacket.

After going back to the hut the man who had been laying in the back of the hut got up and started to ask us the same questions all over again. They also wanted to know what our jobs were and whose bikes we had. Nicky and I were renting our bikes which threw them for a loop.

The guy who had been laying down then told us he needed to go through our bags. One at a time we then had to open our bags and take everything out and show it to them. Nicky read them a paragraph from a book he was carrying and I presented them my watermelon...which again, they didn't want.

Once they were satisfied that we didn't have anything illegal they wrote up a document and told us to sign it. I have NO IDEA what it said. The only word I recognized was "Cunt." That's what Nicky signed his name as. The army guy looked at the signature -- clearly didn't know what it meant -- and told Nicky to write the rest of his name. The army guys then took our passports and told us we could sleep in the stilt house of the town doctor.

We were told that we had to stay in the house unless we had to pee and that we could leave at 6AM once we got our passports back. When we left the police station it was nearly 8:30PM. We had been interrogated in the dark, with a flashlight, for THREE HOURS.

The three of us were slightly shaken up by what had happened and just wanted to go to sleep. The doctor's wife made us instant noodles and hard boiled eggs (which they charged us for!) and told us to "relax." As we were trying to relax all of the army guys strolled into the house and wanted to have a drink with us. They said that we should now be friends. We politely smiled and said we just wanted to sleep. What we wanted to say was, "F YOU! We were invited to this village and would have gladly left when we first came if you told us then we couldn't stay. You really want us to drink with you after you tried to scare the crap out of us, went through all of our stuff and were basically a-holes for the last three hours?"

I asked the doctor where I could brush my teeth. He led me to the back of his stilt house. In case you've never seen a stilt house, here's the picture from the other day again:

The doctor's stilt house wasn't as tall as this one but was much longer. To put the exclamation point on the day, as I walked to brush my teeth, I took a step AND FELL THROUGH THE FLOOR!

I was about waste deep, dangling from the floor when the doctor and another man ran over to help. Unfortunately I don't know how to say in Vietnamese, "Stop pulling me. My left ankle is caught in something." Finally I dislodged my ankle and with their help was lifted up.

I barely slept that night. Every time I nodded off I had a horrible nightmare. At 2:30AM I decided to put the chip into my camera and to look at the footage under the covers. Sadly, the footage sucks:


You can see how dark the room was though. That one light is an army guy holding the flashlight and writing down our passport information.

The next morning I woke up Long and Nicky at 5:45. Long and I went over to the police station to get our stuff. The police started to stall and told us we should have tea with them. We said that we wanted to go. Long had to go to the bathroom and left me alone with the army guys. The army guys opened the cabinet where they had locked our documents and took out our passports. They put them on the table and then started to talk to me. It was clear they wanted something. My guess is they wanted money, perhaps the original five hundred thousand. I just said to the, "I don't understand," reached across the table and took our stuff. I said "thanks" and left the room.

As we were leaving the town on our bikes, the police said something else to Long. He quickly said something back which he translated for us: "I said, 'see you next Tet.'"

Without a doubt this was my scariest experience in Vietnam. I just kept thinking, "Nobody knows where the hell we are. I don't know where the hell we are." That said, as soon as we got back on our bikes and took off from the town we all felt a hell of a lot better... We've been laughing about it ever since. You know that really nervous type of laughter...

Follow The River

(PICTURE: Nicky and Long in front of the river we followed for the next 6 hours.)

Our advice was to "follow the river." We headed out of Mai Chau around 9AM looking for a "dirt path" about 20 kilometers down the road. Eventually we found the path which quickly led to a pretty rickety bridge.


(PICTURE: Nicky crossing the bridge.)

After crossing the bridge we followed a dirt road along the river for a couple of hours. The road was about the width of a car, full of potholes and often flooded. As we rode we occasionally passed small huts and minority villagers. Everyone we saw looked surprised to see us and quickly practiced the one English word they knew: "HELLLLLLLLOOOOOO!!!!"

Eventually we came around a mountain bend and saw a large circle of people sitting in a soccer field. We decided to stop for a few minutes to make new friends. A few minutes ended up turning into a few hours. The people were White Thai and were without a doubt some of the friendliest people I have ever met...it also helped that they were drinking heavily. Some of the alcohol was in rice form:
Some of the alcohol was poured out of what appeared to be old gasoline containers:

And some of the alcohol was soaked in bees:

The drinks put everyone in a great mood and we all sang songs together and enjoyed some snacks. There was some mysterious meat jerky that was sitting in front of the circle and was fed to us by one of the local girls. Every time we ate some all of the other people erupted with laughter and applause. Yeah, I'm still wondering what I hate.

After playing around with the "kids" (they were all 19-26) we were brought to the local club -- a hut with a stereo. At the club the town elders came out to meet us. We ended up having some tea (and another drink or two) with a few men including the town doctor, a one-eyed army vet who fought in Laos and Cambodia, and a really nice old man who is officially my new best friend in Vietnam:

(PICTURE: This man literally couldn't stop hugging me...or maybe it was the other way around.)

The couple hours that we spent in the White Thai village were without a doubt some of my favorite moments of the last year. The villagers asked us to stay the night but we told them we had to keep going. This was a mistake...and led to my scariest experience in Vietnam...

The Road Trip Crew

After Mai's house, everyone went back to Hanoi except three of us. The three of us were about to head on what would turn out to be the most scenic, adventurous trip I've taken in the last year. Let me properly introduce you to my two travel mates:

(PICTURE: Long holding the photocopied map we used)

This is Long. Long is a "Viet Kieu" which means he's a Vietnamese person who has moved to another country. Long's family were boat people after the war in Vietnam. They escaped Vietnam, along with three hundred other people, on a boat. Technically Long was born in Singapore on the way to Australia where his family emmigrated to. Because Long can speak conversational Vietnamese he became the default guide on our trip. Unfortunately for Long, this would bite him in the butt about 24 hours after this picture was taken. That post will be in two days and titled "My scariest experience in Vietnam." Stay tuned.


(PICTURE: Nicky.)

This is Nicky. Nicky is always smiling. Nicky is also always late. Sometimes he's three hours late. Sometimes he's five minutes late. Regardless, he's just always late. Nicky and I used to teach together at Language Link. However, a few months ago he switched to the British Council, considered the best/most expensive school in Hanoi. For the record, Nicky's British.

(PICTURE: Me.)

And then there was me...who will look fat in all the pictures from this trip because I was wearing many many layers...and may have put on a few pounds recently.

If you were writing jokes about what happened to us on this trip you would start by saying, "An American, an Australian and a British guy went on a motorbike trip using a photocopied map that was over ten years old..."

The three of us headed to the only destination we knew we were going to -- Mai Chau. I was in Mai Chau a few months ago with my cousin Justin but didn't mind going back because it was so beautiful. Here's some pictures I took in Mai Chau:

(A cow on the mountain near Mai Chau)

(PICTURE: The stilt house we stayed in was to the left of the one in the background. You ahoyhanoi gurus may recognize this one as the one Justin and I stayed in a few moths ago.)

(PICTURE: Nicky and I on a rice paddy.)

(PICTURE: More rice paddies.)
At night while we were walking around Mai Chau we met a really nice Vietnamese guy who spoke perfect English and coincidentally worked with Nicky's girlfriend.

(PICTURE: I took this picture because the man said, "You have no proof you met me if you die on your motobike trip because you took my advice." I said, "I"ll take a picture so we have proof.")

This man told us that if we wanted to experience the "real Vietnam" and not the tourist side like Mai Chau, we should go along a dirt path along the nearby river. He told us that the path was dangerous but that we'd see tons of ethnic tribes. He gave us directions and we all agreed to get up early the next morning and venture along the path...which wasn't on our map...and would lead us to my scariest experience in Vietnam!

The Oldest Village In Vietnam

(PICTURE: The fourth oldest house in the oldest village in Vietnam.)

The second stop on our tour of Son Tay was to the oldest village in Vietnam. We strolled around the village while getting an excellent guided tour by Mai. After asking some locals, we headed towards the fourth oldest house in the village.

The owner of the house invited us inside and told us about the history of the house and his family. He is the 10th generation of his family to live in the house. His children are the 11th generation to live in the house.

(PICTURE: The home owner smoking from a traditional Vietnamese tobacco bong.)

The owner is actually a journalist and lives in Hanoi during the week and comes back to his village home on the weekend. His wife, the art teacher at the school in the village, and his children stay in the village year round. Here's a picture the wife drew of her husband:


As I was walking around the village a strange man wearing a leopard print winter hat gestured for me to come into his house.


I followed him inside and he led me to a little gallery where there were tons of picture of Ho Chi Minh and other famous Vietnamese officials. It turned out that this man was the grandson of the former Vice Prime Minister of Vietnam.

The other strange thing that I saw in THE OLDEST VILLAGE IN VIETNAM WAS this:


(PICTURE: Engraved above the entrance to one of the houses in the oldest village in Vietnam).

Road Trip: Son Tay/ Vietnam Vegas

(PICTURE: Nicky, Long and Me -- the road trip crew.)

The first stop on our five day Tet Motorbike Trip was Son Tay. Our friend Mai -- the head of the Hanoi Ultimate Frisbee club -- invited a bunch of us to her for the second day of Tet. All of us who were going agreed to meet at a shopping center at 9:30 to caravan to Mai's house.

The night before I slept about an hour and a half due to my stomach bug which first started to reer its head at Huyen's house. At 4AM I decided to start a cycle of Cipro and vowed that I would only go to Mai's if her family had a western toilet. At 8AM, approximately after my dozen-th trip to the toilet, I went looking for an open pharmacy. One problem with this quest is that NOTHING is open during Tet. Well, barely anything. As I drove around the city I saw a woman walking into a darkened pharmacy. The pharmacy was definitely closed but I happen to catch the pharmacist coming back to her house/business. I asked her for Smecta (it's like Immodium AD but 100 times better...and that's coming form a lifelong lover of Immodium) and got ten packets. I downed the first dose and decided that it was time to face my fear of a squat toilet.

All of us arrived at the predetermined location at 9:30. Well, all of us except for Nicky. We called Nickey at 9:45 and woke him up. We told him to meet us in Son Tay.

When we got to Mai's house the first thing I asked her is, "What kind of toilet do you have?" She said, "A western toilet." Well, my face must have lit up because she started to laugh. She said she's had never seen anyone so happy about anything in her life. A week later she was still laughing at my expression and told me, "I'll never forget how happy you were about my toilet."

Mai was a great host and took us around Son Tay to a few famous spots. Our first stop was at a pagoda which was holding a Tet Celebration. It turns out that the celebration was the Vietnamese version of Vegas...where the dealers and gamblers were slightly younger than at the Bellagio. There were all these little games for money. Check out this dice game:



I won 10,000 Dong playing this game...which made up for the 40,000 Dong I lost in other -- slight more rigged -- games.

The Best Job In The World

(PHOTO: Help me blog from here!!!)

Over the last couple of weeks I've received about a dozen emails from people telling me to apply for "The Best Job In The World." For those of you who haven't heard, Tourism Queensland is having a contest to become the caretaker for the islands of the Great Barrier Reef.

As many of you know, my time here in Vietnam is coming to an end. I've been contemplating my future and have a few ideas in mind as to where I'll end up later this year after my stint with my family back in New Jersey. However, if I can get the great barrier reef job, that would clearly trump all my other plans.

Having worked in casting for a few years, I know the likelihood of getting this job is slim to none. Tens of thousands of people are applying -- including those of you who are first hearing about this competition on my blog and now are going to apply yourself -- and only one will win. However, as all of my math teachers from Grade 5-12 can attest: I suck at math. I'm not gonna let simple odds stop me from trying!!!

My video application has just been posted:

http://www.islandreefjob.com/applicants/watch/jCnxC5G6s-w

The video had to be one minute or less. Mine is exactly one minute. If you've got the time go watch my video...and hopefully give me a five star rating.

I mean how freaking cool would it be if I can blog for six months from THE GREAT BARRIER REEF!!!!!!!!!

Thanks for the help!

Meet The Parents

(PICTURE: Huyen's Dad showing me the house where he was born.)

I've met Huyen's parents before, but Tet weekend was the first time I spent serious time with them. Here's the top ten questions I was asked -- through translation -- by Huyen's Dad.

1. Do you like me? (He asked me this seven times. I said, "I like you very very very much.")

2. Are you comfortable? (He asked me this no less than 200 times)

3. When do you want to get married? (I said, "maybe two years or so.")

4. Who do you want to get married to? (I wanted to say, "Who knows, who cares!" but I thought I should probably say, "Huyen.")

5. What do you think of Huyen? (I said, "I think she's amazing." This was followed up by Huyen's sister saying, "How does she make you feel?" I said, "Really happy." She then said, "I mean do you think she's beautiful?" I said, "Yes, but I'm more handsome.")

6. Do you want beer or wine? (This was at breakfast. I went with wine. It was homemade with mullberries.)

7. Will you please move in to my house and help sell the goods? (I said, "Of course." Her dad then said, "How will you sell them if you can't speak Vietnamese?" Fair point.)

8. Can you support a family? (I think he was talking about if Huyen and I get married and have kids).

9. THIS IS NOT A QUESTION BUT A STATEMENT: Your hands are cold. You are weak. (This was said after asking to hold my hand and being shocked that it was freezing. In my defense, it was freezing out. But yeah, I am kind of weak).

10. Can you kill the chicken? (I said, "Yes, I can. No, I don't want to.")

Question #2 though really shows the type of man Huyen's Dad is. He tried so hard to make me comfortable and was such a great host. He constantly told me that he was happy I was spending time with their family and asked if I could stay longer. One of the other things he said to me was, "Even though we can't talk to each other, you make me feel very good." Well, he made me feel very good too...and not just because I was buzzed on wine and beer half the time.

Remembering The Deceased

On the first day of Tet Vietnamese people visit the graves of their deceased family members. Huyen's parents invited me to go along with them. We got on our motorbikes and rode out to the rice paddies where the graves are located.

The first stop was at a cemetery with about thirty graves. Huyen's parents burned incense and said a prayer for Huyen's great grandmother.














The second stop was in the middle of a rice paddy. This is where Huyen's father's parents are buried. They were the only graves in site.

(PICTURE: Walking through the rice paddy to visit Huyen's grandparents graves.)

The final stop was at an Army cemetery. My first thought upon seeing the cemetary was shock at the number of graves -- I counted about sixty. You have to keep in mind that we were just on the outskirts of a small village. If you want to relate it to America, her village is roughly the same distance from Hanoi that Livingston (my hometown) is from New York. The difference is that Livingston has around 30,000 people. Her village has probably 1,000 max. For such a small place, they've had a large amout of people sacrifice for their country and cause.

We went to this cemetery, because as some of you may recall from when my parents visited, Huyen's Uncle died in the war between America and Vietnam. While visiting the grave, I found out that Huyen's Uncle died in Cambodia during the war but his body has never been found. He has a grave at this cemetery but his body is missing. Huyen told me that there is an organization looking for her uncle's body as well as many other Vietnamese soldiers.

(PICTURE: The Army cemetery.)












One flag that has always meant something to me is the P.O.W. * MIA flag:

Every time I've ever seen one I always feel a strange sensation come over me. I've always thought how hard it must be for families who can't get closure because the body of their loved one is missing. One of my strongest memories as a child is when my family went to The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Washingston, D.C. and thinking that there's really nothing more tragic in war than not knowing what happened to someone you love.

I must admit that whenever I've had those thoughts I've had American soldiers in mind. All too often when we think about war we only think about "our side." Being told about Huyen's Uncle just reconfirmed how terrible war is for everyone, no matter the outcome. As my father said a couple of months ago, "There are no winners in war."

Tet

Tet is the new year in Vietnam. Like our new year in the states, it begins at midnight. Being that we were in the country and that they're illegal in Vietnam, there were only a few fireworks when the clock struck twelve. What there was a lot of though was food.

In the Vietnamese culture the families put A TON of food in front of the shrine at their home which honors their deceased loved ones. They cook meals for the deceased and have it sit in front of them for hours. At midnight we then eat the meals and a ton of sweets. I took this picture of Huyen bringing food to the shrine. Eventually, there was literally three times as much as you can see in this picture. Also for perspective, check out that very round basketball looking watermelon. I brought that and it weighed 18.8 pounds.

The next morning we ate the leftover food and a whole bunch of other food we cooked that morning. What's really unique about this picture are three things:
1. Everyone is sitting in chairs. This is the ONLY time of the year the family sits in chairs and at a table. Usually everyone sits Indian-style on the floor upstairs.
2. This is the only time the family eats downstairs. Usually the spot we ate in is covered in ceramics. The night before we moved all the ceramics to another area so there would be room for the table.
3. Huyen told me during Tet is the only time of the year her family can usually all eat together. Her parents work 362 days a year from 5AM till around 9PM. Her father mans the shop in the house and her mother works their stall at a local market.

Let me get back to the food for a second. Being a Jew, I've heard the "Jewish moms make you eat" thing a billion times. Well take it from me, Jewish moms don't have a thing on Vietnamese Dads. Huyen's Dad stuffed me like a pig.

I really can't emphasize how much Mr. Nguyen made me eat. Just to give you an example, he forced me to eat three HUGE bowls of beef noodle soup for breakfast. Usually I eat one bowl of pho for breakfast and I'm full. These bowls at her house were twice as big...and I had THREE OF THEM!

The irony is that her Dad told me on the first day that, "You shouldn't think of yourself as a guest but as a friend. This means you should help yourself because we won't serve you." I told him that was great because I don't like being catered to. Well, it was a good idea in theory. Every time we sat down he proceeded to drop food into my bowl (along with Huyen and her sister). There were two problems with this:

1. I'm a fast eater. Always have been. I ate what I got pretty fast and then they'd drop more into my bowl. If I told them I was full they would say, "You ate very little. You must have more."

2. The day before going to Huyen's I was pretty sick. I had a high temperature and felt really weak. The two times I've felt like this in Vietnam I had a stomach bug. I'm 90% sure I had a stomach bug when I went to the Nguyen's house which meant my appetite was about 50% of what it usually is. I literally felt nauseous the whole weekend I was there...oh, and I had the runs.

That said, the food was amazing and the Nguyen's were fantastic hosts.