heyhey so today we went to Hoa Lu (capital of Vietnam at end of 10th and beginning of 11th centuries under Dinh and Le dynasties) and Tam Coc (billed as "Halong Bay on the rice paddies") which was quite nice though for what it was quite over-run with tourists. When we went to Perfume Pagoda (about the same distance and quite a similar experience with rowing around in a boat for a couple hours) there were far fewer tourists despite Perfune Pagoda definitely ranking way higher on the "must see" list of things in the area to see. Maybe its just a busier time of the season.
Monday and Tuesday we chilled about saw World Trade Center, did some shopping around the Old Quarter, had the chocolate buffet at the Sofitel Metropole (very nice), went to the gym, etc. Got our Cambodian visas so now we're good to go to Phnom Penh and Siem Reap! Very exciting! Should be a bit different than Vietnam I reckon.
Had Bun Rieu (pronounced "Boon Zeoo") for dinner with one of the teachers from our school which was very nice, but it was a very busy time for dinner (7pm) and so we were piled on with the other 30 or 40 Vietnamese on to this one tiny corner in the Old Quarter. Kind of funny especially when adding in the hacked up pieces of pig on a basket in front of us, Caroline's general disgust with the congealed chicken blood and unidentified bits of meat floating around in an otherwise standard bowl of noodles and soup. Needless to say I enjoyed it! Hah. Was reminded of an interesting feature of the culture here-- the teacher we had dinner with, Hung, is 25 and is not (yet) married and so lives with her parents until she gets married whenupon she would move in with her husband, a norm that seems to be the case with virtually all women here. Kind of crazy as it seems to exclude the possibility of an independent woman! Consequently, everyone here is borderline obsessed with when they're getting married (and of course, to who, how much money he has, etc.) not just for the standard reasons we have in the West (important phase of your emotional life, etc) but because its a crucial stage of someone's life in every dimension as per above.
And on that somewhat insightful note I am going to sleep! Vietnamese lesson tomorrow morning! I can't believe we're leaving Hanoi on Monday!! Ahhh
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Saturday, November 25, 2006
Sa Pa very nice, Mum come and gone, just one week left in Ha Noi :-(
So yes, Sa Pa and Lao Cai district in general were fabulous-- the hallmark being the overnight trek to Ban Ho village about 30km from Sa Pa, an ethnic Tay village (Tay being the largest ethnic minority in Vietnam). See the photo album for the play-by-play and many many photos of the beautiful scenery. So mum left this morning after 8 days in Viet Nam (and her first time outside the "West") and from what I can discern she had a very nice time ;-) She left with my large suitcase that I didn't want to schlep around Cambodia and Thailand so I only have to haul my big backpack (in the spirit of being a true cheesy Western backpacker as opposed to Caro who still has a suitcase) which is actually Olga's hah.
Full day of teaching today-- was cool. Had some tiny 5 year olds who I don't normally teach which was nice cos they're so cute! We also saw the Guardian (Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher) at the cinema over our long lunch though the machine stopped working in the middle and we had to leave early to make it back to school on time. Stopped by the Pacific Airlines office to buy tickets to Saigon-- we have just one more week in Ha Noi!! Very sad ;-( I'll be back in NY in just 3 and a half weeks!! I'm not ready to weather below 80 F / 25 C yet!! And I'm especially not ready for this crazy "work" thing either!
Yesterday we went to the Museum of Ethnology (with mom) which was great-- its all about the 54 ethnic minorities living in VN and had a special exhibit of life in Vietnam under the "subsidy economy" of 1975 (reunification) to 1986 (when doi moi, i.e. market economy was introduced). Afterwards mum saw the Water Puppets at the Thang Long theatre and lived it up at the Sofitel Metropole while Caro and I taught (we only teach in the evenings on Fridays). For dinner we all (me, caro, mum, benny) went to the Hoa Sua training restaurant-- this charity that trains disadvantaged Vietnamese to be waiters and make a decent living, which has great food and this really good cocktail of Havana club rum and wheatgrass (!) Photos of the day will be posted shortly in the Hanoi part 2 album.
So need to hit the hay soon since didn't sleep much last night as I was packing the suitcase for mommy to take back this morning to NY so will try to post again soon!
Full day of teaching today-- was cool. Had some tiny 5 year olds who I don't normally teach which was nice cos they're so cute! We also saw the Guardian (Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher) at the cinema over our long lunch though the machine stopped working in the middle and we had to leave early to make it back to school on time. Stopped by the Pacific Airlines office to buy tickets to Saigon-- we have just one more week in Ha Noi!! Very sad ;-( I'll be back in NY in just 3 and a half weeks!! I'm not ready to weather below 80 F / 25 C yet!! And I'm especially not ready for this crazy "work" thing either!
Yesterday we went to the Museum of Ethnology (with mom) which was great-- its all about the 54 ethnic minorities living in VN and had a special exhibit of life in Vietnam under the "subsidy economy" of 1975 (reunification) to 1986 (when doi moi, i.e. market economy was introduced). Afterwards mum saw the Water Puppets at the Thang Long theatre and lived it up at the Sofitel Metropole while Caro and I taught (we only teach in the evenings on Fridays). For dinner we all (me, caro, mum, benny) went to the Hoa Sua training restaurant-- this charity that trains disadvantaged Vietnamese to be waiters and make a decent living, which has great food and this really good cocktail of Havana club rum and wheatgrass (!) Photos of the day will be posted shortly in the Hanoi part 2 album.
So need to hit the hay soon since didn't sleep much last night as I was packing the suitcase for mommy to take back this morning to NY so will try to post again soon!
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Hue good, Mommy and Bush arrived safely
So Hue and central Vietnam are in good order-- for the lowdown check out the album on my photo site "Hue/Central" with captions. Saw the old citadel (Hue was the capital of VN from 1802 to 1945), some fabulous Nguyen dynasty tombs (despite Khai Dinh apparently having taken some serious hate due to his being France's bizatch), the former DMZ (including these sick Vinh Moc tunnels where people would hang out for years!), and really pretty springs just south of Hue as well.
Mom arrived yesterday morning just 15 mins before Air Force One and despite the 6+13+1 hr flights was up and about for the whole day stopping off at the Temple of Literature, Old Quarter, and Truc Bach lake (where I live).
Am tired and need to wake up early tomorrow for another one of the killer (9.30am-9pm) teaching days and am going to Sa Pa tomorrow night on the overnight train with mum but will try to post from there with some interesting stuff.
Just a month til I'm back in NY! Will be very sad to leave but very happy to see everyone!
Mom arrived yesterday morning just 15 mins before Air Force One and despite the 6+13+1 hr flights was up and about for the whole day stopping off at the Temple of Literature, Old Quarter, and Truc Bach lake (where I live).
Am tired and need to wake up early tomorrow for another one of the killer (9.30am-9pm) teaching days and am going to Sa Pa tomorrow night on the overnight train with mum but will try to post from there with some interesting stuff.
Just a month til I'm back in NY! Will be very sad to leave but very happy to see everyone!
Sunday, November 12, 2006
pho 24 good
pho 24 is a small chain of "pho" restaurants (pho is a particular kind of noodle omnipresent here) and considered by some (or at least benny) to have some of the best pho ga (the noodles in soup w/ chicken) and pho bo (ditto but w/ beef) around. AND its principally a breakfast food!! Though I just had it for dinner like the foolio western that I am.
So the Dems control Congress, pretty rad. Read Krugman's and Dowd's column, cool cool. Still holding out for a Green President though.
Today was one of the 9.30am-9pm teaching days (yes, some breaks in there but for the most part its a pretty busy day) so am pretty tired. I'm able to give directions in Vietnamese now which helps a lot (Day la cai gi? = What is this? and is probably the single most useful phrase to know). At lunch we went to Cha ca Thanh Long, a restaurant my mom actually put me on to, which was pretty good. Their dish is this fish with dill cooked in front of you on your table. The original establishment of this nature (Cha ca Va Long) probably has better fish Caro and I decided (after having been there last week) but this place was very good nonetheless. Afterwards we went to another place my mom told me about-- this cafe on Hang Gai and it was very cool. At first you're like whaaat theres no cafe here its just craft shops. But then you see the tiniest of signs peering out from behind some paintings which says "cafe" and you skeptically dismount off your bike to investigate. After going back there is quite a large and cool cafe complete with the as advertised fantastic secluded views of Hoan Kiem lake.
There was some very high quality folk music/theatre for half an hour before we had to return to school from our lunch break but definitely will be going back.
So yesterday Annabelle and Mikhaila, two of the other volunteers who were living with us, left to go back home (Maine and London respectively) and it was v sad :-( The previous night we went out to Seasons of Hanoi, this nice Vietnamese restaurant across from our guesthouse that we went to on the first night but hadnt been back to since, followed by a bit of a cheeky at bia hoi viet ha, home of the high quality 7p beer.
Thursday we went to the Friendship Village just west of Hanoi about 40 mins away, to train/educate disabled Agent Orange victims, the kind of place (though not the exact one) we thought we would be volunteering at when we arrived but ended up not working there. It was very eye-opening. Equally eye-opening was all the building sites and development you could see on the ride out there (one lane roads being expanded into 6-lane highways, etc. etc.) and Suel, the very nice former Vietnam War vet who showed us out there, told us all about how when he arrived in Vietnam just 8 years ago everything was so much less developed and none of these sky-rises which stood before us existed. Where skyscrapers towered over us used to be rice paddies and grazing cows and just a few years ago. Amazing the speed of development going on here (which one is all too often reminded of when cruising through Hanoi with the thousands of "APEC" banners and paraphernalia)
Wednesday we went to Hung's (our volunteer coordinator) wife's family's village, Thuong Phuc, just outside Hanoi, which was very nice. See the photo album (link in upper right corner) on my photo webpage complete with captions for a better look.
Tuesday we went round to three villages around Hanoi, Van Phuc (silk village), Ha Thai (lacquerware village), and Bat Trang (pottery "village" but more of a town with ceramic factories) with a guide which was very cool. Highlights included getting invited in for tea by a family in Ha Thai (and it was damn good tea!) and taking the ferry across the Red river to save us having to bike 30km unnecessarily. The tea this family served us (Son and Tuan) was so good I asked if and where I could buy it for making myself. Son (the wife/mother of the family) produced three large bags each with a dried plant of some description (leaves, flowers, herbs, etc) and was so kind she took a generous sampling from each bag into smaller bags for us to take home. Just one example of how kind and friendly people are here! Anyway, for a more up close view of the Tuesday village crawl take a look at the handicraft village photo album (again, complete with captions).
Tomorrow is another long day of teaching followed by an early flight Monday morning to Hue, the old Imperial capital of Vietnam during the 18th and 19th centuries.
So the Dems control Congress, pretty rad. Read Krugman's and Dowd's column, cool cool. Still holding out for a Green President though.
Today was one of the 9.30am-9pm teaching days (yes, some breaks in there but for the most part its a pretty busy day) so am pretty tired. I'm able to give directions in Vietnamese now which helps a lot (Day la cai gi? = What is this? and is probably the single most useful phrase to know). At lunch we went to Cha ca Thanh Long, a restaurant my mom actually put me on to, which was pretty good. Their dish is this fish with dill cooked in front of you on your table. The original establishment of this nature (Cha ca Va Long) probably has better fish Caro and I decided (after having been there last week) but this place was very good nonetheless. Afterwards we went to another place my mom told me about-- this cafe on Hang Gai and it was very cool. At first you're like whaaat theres no cafe here its just craft shops. But then you see the tiniest of signs peering out from behind some paintings which says "cafe" and you skeptically dismount off your bike to investigate. After going back there is quite a large and cool cafe complete with the as advertised fantastic secluded views of Hoan Kiem lake.
There was some very high quality folk music/theatre for half an hour before we had to return to school from our lunch break but definitely will be going back.
So yesterday Annabelle and Mikhaila, two of the other volunteers who were living with us, left to go back home (Maine and London respectively) and it was v sad :-( The previous night we went out to Seasons of Hanoi, this nice Vietnamese restaurant across from our guesthouse that we went to on the first night but hadnt been back to since, followed by a bit of a cheeky at bia hoi viet ha, home of the high quality 7p beer.
Thursday we went to the Friendship Village just west of Hanoi about 40 mins away, to train/educate disabled Agent Orange victims, the kind of place (though not the exact one) we thought we would be volunteering at when we arrived but ended up not working there. It was very eye-opening. Equally eye-opening was all the building sites and development you could see on the ride out there (one lane roads being expanded into 6-lane highways, etc. etc.) and Suel, the very nice former Vietnam War vet who showed us out there, told us all about how when he arrived in Vietnam just 8 years ago everything was so much less developed and none of these sky-rises which stood before us existed. Where skyscrapers towered over us used to be rice paddies and grazing cows and just a few years ago. Amazing the speed of development going on here (which one is all too often reminded of when cruising through Hanoi with the thousands of "APEC" banners and paraphernalia)
Wednesday we went to Hung's (our volunteer coordinator) wife's family's village, Thuong Phuc, just outside Hanoi, which was very nice. See the photo album (link in upper right corner) on my photo webpage complete with captions for a better look.
Tuesday we went round to three villages around Hanoi, Van Phuc (silk village), Ha Thai (lacquerware village), and Bat Trang (pottery "village" but more of a town with ceramic factories) with a guide which was very cool. Highlights included getting invited in for tea by a family in Ha Thai (and it was damn good tea!) and taking the ferry across the Red river to save us having to bike 30km unnecessarily. The tea this family served us (Son and Tuan) was so good I asked if and where I could buy it for making myself. Son (the wife/mother of the family) produced three large bags each with a dried plant of some description (leaves, flowers, herbs, etc) and was so kind she took a generous sampling from each bag into smaller bags for us to take home. Just one example of how kind and friendly people are here! Anyway, for a more up close view of the Tuesday village crawl take a look at the handicraft village photo album (again, complete with captions).
Tomorrow is another long day of teaching followed by an early flight Monday morning to Hue, the old Imperial capital of Vietnam during the 18th and 19th centuries.
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
just saved $79
A couple of weeks ago when I was in Halong bay I remembered that I had forgotten to cancel my amazon prime trial and would be charged $79 (shit!) BUT I signed on to discover it was in fact a 3-month trial and so I hadn't been charged anything and so I canceled the bad boy. Excellent.
Got back from a very nice dinner at some neighbours on the other side of West Lake, good times. Lots of Danes. Also, we met another volunteer at our school, Stan, who is a very cool guy and, notably, is 80 years old (wow!) He was in the Peace Corps in Cameroon for two years just a year ago.
Today was good times-- did a bit of relaxin and reading by Truc Bach lake and did some errands like look (fruitlessly) for helmets, we'll try again tomorrow! We work so much (8 classes per day) on the weekends that Monday (normally the worst day of the week) feels like Saturday (normally the best day of the week)... so, kind of weird but I think I like it.
Remember those "yo mama smells like baked cheese" jokes from school? I don't get what we were on about, baked cheese don't smell so bad.
Got back from a very nice dinner at some neighbours on the other side of West Lake, good times. Lots of Danes. Also, we met another volunteer at our school, Stan, who is a very cool guy and, notably, is 80 years old (wow!) He was in the Peace Corps in Cameroon for two years just a year ago.
Today was good times-- did a bit of relaxin and reading by Truc Bach lake and did some errands like look (fruitlessly) for helmets, we'll try again tomorrow! We work so much (8 classes per day) on the weekends that Monday (normally the worst day of the week) feels like Saturday (normally the best day of the week)... so, kind of weird but I think I like it.
Remember those "yo mama smells like baked cheese" jokes from school? I don't get what we were on about, baked cheese don't smell so bad.
Friday, November 03, 2006
Fantastic weather
Today was beautiful blue skies and a chilly 25 C making it probably the best weather since China. Had a little bit of London deja vu in the sense that when its really nice and sunny in London you're like "holy shit look at the weather!" which makes you realise just how cloudy and overcast it has been.
So today was a productive Vietnamese lesson in the morning (Vietnamese verbs are conjugated the same for all subjects! Brilliant!) followed by lunch at Cha Ca Va Long which featured some very high quality fish and green stuff in a pan cooked over a claypot on your table. Apparently its the oldest restaurant in Vietnam, est in 1871. A little pricey at 75k (£2.50) each but it was the best fish I've had since... two days ago in Hoi An!
Which brings me to our magnificient trip to Hoi An! We got back last night and left Monday morning so were there for 4 days/3 nights. We actually stayed longer than planned cos our flight was delayed but Vietnam Airlines is so cool in that they phone ahead of time to tell you (they did so for our flight out there a few days before we left). I took so many photos (365 + 5 videos) that its probably easier to just look at the Hoi An photo album on my photo page (click on upper right corner) than for me to explain it all here. I did captions for the whole album so you know what you're looking at.
Forecast is for sunny 27 C for the next 5 days!! Let's just hope it turns out that way! Booked our flight to Hue (3rd biggest city in Vietnam) for Nov 13 to 16 soo if anybody's been there give me a shout... Went to doctor today cos eye still red and got some new drops for it (diagnosis: conjuctivitis). Should be OK. Teaching tomorrow morning again so will sign off for now.
So today was a productive Vietnamese lesson in the morning (Vietnamese verbs are conjugated the same for all subjects! Brilliant!) followed by lunch at Cha Ca Va Long which featured some very high quality fish and green stuff in a pan cooked over a claypot on your table. Apparently its the oldest restaurant in Vietnam, est in 1871. A little pricey at 75k (£2.50) each but it was the best fish I've had since... two days ago in Hoi An!
Which brings me to our magnificient trip to Hoi An! We got back last night and left Monday morning so were there for 4 days/3 nights. We actually stayed longer than planned cos our flight was delayed but Vietnam Airlines is so cool in that they phone ahead of time to tell you (they did so for our flight out there a few days before we left). I took so many photos (365 + 5 videos) that its probably easier to just look at the Hoi An photo album on my photo page (click on upper right corner) than for me to explain it all here. I did captions for the whole album so you know what you're looking at.
Forecast is for sunny 27 C for the next 5 days!! Let's just hope it turns out that way! Booked our flight to Hue (3rd biggest city in Vietnam) for Nov 13 to 16 soo if anybody's been there give me a shout... Went to doctor today cos eye still red and got some new drops for it (diagnosis: conjuctivitis). Should be OK. Teaching tomorrow morning again so will sign off for now.
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