Sapa Grill

Before my trip my students told me that Sapa was famous for two things:

Famous Thing #1: The Love Market

Supposedly every Saturday night ethnic boys come to the market to find their wives. When I say "boys" I mean boys. The grooms-to-be are fifteen years old. And well, their wives-to-be are even younger -- they're thirteen. I was told that the boys come and play traditional ethnic instruments and then walk up to a girl who they like and tap their foot on top of the girl's foot. If the girl taps the boy's foot back they're a couple. If she doesn't, the boy is rejected.

Despite all the hype about the love market, it just wasn't what it was cracked up to be. We saw four teenage boys playing traditional instruments but no girls in sight. Huyen told us that times have changed and now the boys go somewhere to look at pictures of the girls. If they like the girls I guess the girls are then showed pictures of the boys. Yeah, it's only a couple of years before internet dating hits the ethnic tribes.


Famous Thing #2: The Sapa Grill

All around the center of town people set up shop along the edge of the street to sell grilled stuff. Basically they grill everything. The standard items were eggs, sticky rice, pork, chestnut-like things and sweet potatoes. However, once in a while something a little odder would show up on the grill. For example, before we knew it, we were grilling up tiny birds from the forest. The birds were so small that three of them fit on one skewer. The feathers were plucked but that's about all the preperation there was. Once the birds were grilled we just popped them into our mouth.

Check them out in the video:



PJ took a bite of his and then gave it to me. I think the brains oozing out of one on the grill kind of turned him off. Can you say "rookie"?

Rice Fields and Water Buffalos

(PICTURE: Our unofficial tour guide)

Using our extremely unreliable tourist map we headed out to some "ancient stones" out in some rice paddies. The views were amazing but what was really amazing is that you literally couldn't go anywhere without an ethnic person trying to sell you something. As soon as we parked our bikes this adorable little girl (who was way to young to be shlepping her adorable little brother on her back) started to follow us:



After about ten minutes of winning us over with her cuteness she pulled out a bunch of trickets. I was a sucker and bought a "hand made" wallet...which I literally saw thirty others just like in the village.

Here's a nice video capturing the whole scene:

Tunnel To China

Remember when we were kids we were told that if we dug a hole deep enough we would end up in China? Well, we found that hole and it does go to China.

Long story short: We rode our bikes to a small ethnic village where we were immediately harassed by dozens of women to buy hand-made souvenirs. After buying a few things Huyen told us that there was a cave at the end of the town. We jumped back on our motorbikes and drove to the cave.

When we arrived outside the cave we were immediately harassed by dozens of little kids, who I could only assume were the children of the women who had just harassed us. Like mother like son. The kids were all peddling flashlights to rent for the cave. After some tough negotiations we each got our own flashlight AND a kid to be our tour guide. I had assumed the cave was just a few feet deep but before we knew it we were climbing up walls and following a tiny underground stream. After going for about fifteen minutes Huyen told us that our guide wanted to know how much father we wanted to go. We naturally asked how much farther we could go. That's when we found out this ridiculous fact -- THE CAVE GOES TO CHINA.




Rather than risk being turned around at the other end for not having our passports, we decided to go back. But come on, are you serious! We found a tunnel to China!

PJ'S ACCIDENT

(PJ's busted front tire)

My good friend JR Young wrote me a week or two ago in response to my blog post about my first accident. He told me that he was glad my accident was a small one since, "It's said that when riding a motorcycle it's not "if" you'll get into an accident, but "when"."

Well, PJ's "when" happened a lot faster then my when. PJ's "when" happened about ten seconds after getting his bike. Apparently -- and of course I was to blame for this -- he didn't know you needed to lean your body when you wanted to turn.

Here's the aftermath:





Somehow the people who rented the bike to PJ didn't see the accident. This is amazing since he couldn't have driven more than 50 meters.

Ironically, or probably not so ironically, every other person who ran over to see if PJ was okay happened to own a nearby motorbike repair garage. Huyen told us it would cost PJ about $80 to fix the bike if he brought it back to the rental place or he could fix it for around $25 if we brought it to a garage. We brought it to a garage and PJ spent the rest of the afternoon on the back of Ryan's bike as his was repaired.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

(PICTURE: Huyen, Ryan and PJ in our sleeper compartment)

...or in this case Trains, Automobiles and Motorbikes.

Instead of hanging around in Hanoi for the full week PJ was visiting we decided to take an adventure up to Sapa and the northwest mountain region of Vietnam. Sapa is famous for its ethnic villages and cool temperature, two nice changes from Hanoi. To see all the sights though is quite a transportation intensive trip that involves three parts:

PART 1: THE TRAIN

We took an overnight train from Hanoi to Lao Cai. One interesting thing about the train is that it literally cuts through people's backyards. Check out this video where you can see glimpses into houses and restaurants:



PART 2: THE SHUTTLE VAN

Once we arrived in Lao Cai we were greeted by a shuttle van driver. The Driver was arrainged for us by the hotel Huyen booked. We all piled into the shuttle van and began the 37KM drive up along the edge of the mountain to Sapa. After about five minutes Huyen started to feel car sick. Yes, she's like a real August. For those of you who don't know my family's history I can sum it up with two anecdotes:

Anecdote 1: Every family vacation growing up involved a road trip. I don't believe we ever made it past our town border -- and definitely not our county border -- without my Dad having to pull over so my sister could puke her guts out. My brother, the lucky bastard, would then get to sit shotgun for the next six hours while I got the pleasure of sitting next to my vomiting/vomit-smelling sister.

Anecdote 2: My brother, mother, sister and I all puked our faces off on a boat somewhere in the Caribbean as my sadistic father laughed maniacally that he was the only non sick August. This story could/should be a blog entry on its own but thinking about it makes me nauseous AND my father has probably told you this story already if you've met him for more than twelve seconds.

Anyway, here's Huyen with her puke bag:



In the end, Huyen hung tough and didn't throw up.

PART 3: MOTORBIKES

To really see the country one needs to get on a motorbike and navigate around the dirt roads to get to the small villages. The only problem is PJ had never written a motorbike before and well...it didn't go well. It went so not well it deserves it's own entry tomorrow.

My Sweet Sexy Voice

(Recording my sweet voice...)

Being a good friend, I had to put PJ in his place this week so his head wouldn't get too big. Sure he's on a hit TV show in America, but he's still a few years away from international fame like me. I mean, lets be honest, a lot of people know him in North America. But me, I'm known (according to google analytics) in 35 countries. I'm basically like Bono.

A few days before PJ arrived I was asked by my friend Tu if I could do an English voice-over for a movie. I immediately said, "You want me to do a voice-over? I have a horrible voice." Tu disagreed with me and said my voice was, "Very nice." For those of you who haven't watched my video postings let me inform you that:
a) My voice is not very nice.

b) My voice is somewhere stuck between puberty and a high baritone.

c) I have a borderline speech impediment with the letter S.

I told Tu he could probably get someone better for the job but he didn't want to hear it. He told me a time and place to be and said I'd be paid a million dong for my effort. That's about $60...or $60 more than I ever thought I'd get to do a VO.

The day before I went in to do the VO Tu sent me the script and the video. What was the project? Well, it was basically an infomercial for some Vietnamese steel company. I went into the recording studio and nailed the script in fifteen minutes. By "nailed" I of course mean I gave a reading that will surely turn off 87% of watchers of the DVD. I asked for a copy of the movie when it's done and will be sure to post it.

War & Peace

One of the great things about having so many visitors is that it guarantees I see everything in Hanoi. PJ and I went for a ride around the city last week and stopped in two places I had never been. The first place was the oldest pagoda in Hanoi.

Immediately upon entering the pagoda, which is on the edge of West Lake, we heard some chanting. We followed the noise to the back of the pagoda where about thirty women and one man were chanting Buddhist hymns.



After this peaceful morning we decided to balance it with a little violence -- we went to the Vietnamese War Museum. The museum is basically a collection of old USA (and a few French) war materials: choppers, fighter planes, tanks, bombs, guns, etc.

The cool thing about the museum wasn't the war supplies but rather the Flag Tower at the front of the museum.
The flag tower was built in 1812 and is one of the most recognizable symbols of Hanoi. I've passed it a hundred times but finally got a chance to climb it. The views from the top were pretty spectacular. The coolest view was of a soccer field behind the War Museum where some soldiers were doing drills with their rifles. There was a sign on top of the tower that said pictures weren't allowed to be taken. Being a law abiding citizen, I obeyed the sign. However, PJ, being a celebrity thought the rules were for regular people and snapped away a few pictures. Oddly though the pictures didn't come out. I chalk it up to communist technology.